{ Assets }

Before I give you the whole run down of what I want to do with this house. I feel like I should share with you why I said yes to this house over all the other houses that we looked at. Lets get real here, I am sure after seeing those pictures from the official house tour, you are probably thinking, why?  Did you think we are crazy?!
I admit. The pictures are overwhelming. Mostly due to the fact that it's hard to look past all the previous owners stuff. I probably should have waited to give you the picture tour until the rooms are cleared out but the truth is...it's taking f.o.r.e.v.e.r to get that house cleaned out! It's not something we are doing so waiting on others is the name of the game right now. I really wanted to start this journey of blogging and since we are already working on the house I thought I should get on it.
Back to why I said yes. Let's list the assets this house has.

1) 20 acres
        I wasn't all that concerned about the amount of acreage that we would purchase. That was ALL Mark. I could live in a small town with houses right next to me and sidewalks for the rest of my life BUT the hubby thinks he needs to have land. He has big dreams for this land.

2) The location
          My biggest complaint about our last house was that it was 45 minutes to and from work. I hate being in the car. I despise wasting time driving. I would rather spend that extra 20 minutes in the morning before work in bed and not in the car. It will now only take me about 25 minutes or less to get to work! Also, it's smack dab in the middle of three nearby towns and travel time to each one is around 5 minutes.

3) It has a barn
           Not a big red barn (which I would love) but it is a barn with lots of space for all of Mark's junk stuff. Currently there isn't an attached garage which is on our to do list but having the barn will free up the garage for garage type things, not Mark's collection-o-junk, I mean stuff. If you know Mark at all you know what I am talking about. The barn has horse stalls in it, which is also a bonus. Not because we are planning on getting horses, but we will be getting other animals for sure!

4) The hard wood floors
           The whole original house (everything but the kitchen), has hardwood flooring and it is in pretty good shape! Bring on the cute rugs!!


5) The character of the ceiling in the living room
                 It's hard to explain, so here is a picture of the corner that leads into one of the bedrooms. All the corners in the living room have that shape at the top of the wall where it meets the ceiling. So cool!

6) The fireplaces
            Not just one, but two fireplaces! I've never had a fireplace or a mantle to decorate. And I am very excited to have two now! Neither one of them are anything to look at now but we've got plans for them.

7) It's small

         Being small is a pro and a con but I mostly like that it is small so theres less to clean. Ha! This also means that we will have to have less "stuff" so that the house doesn't seem so cluttered.                     I.hate.clutter.and.chaos! It will be an adjustment to live in such a small house, but I think overall it will be just fine for our family of 5. The only major issue will be only having one VERY tiny bathroom. We do have plans however to add another one down the road so there is something to look forward to!

For now...those are my reasons for saying yes to this house. It has some cool character. The land is beautiful. The location couldn't be better in my opinion. The price tag wasn't too bad either so I think all in all we are grateful for being able to purchase this house.

Next post on deck is our big to do list AKA wish list! 

{ Feeling Gross }

So, I said in the last post that the house is scary. Meaning that the state of it is pretty rough. But then I said "but not freaky scary". However, I take that back.

My mother-in-law and I cleared and shop vacuumed the basement tonight and let me tell you. That basement is freaky scary. Like gross. Disgusting. So so so dirty. A shower immediately after cleaning was 100% necessary!

There were cob webs thicker than blankets, mouse droppings, spiders, tiny bugs, dirt, mouse homes, dead mice, more dirt, and lots and lots of junk to be removed. Sadly, there's still more to clean. Worst part is we were working with only a few small construction lights since the power was shut off since Mark is working on the electric upstairs.

Thank you, thank you, thank you Cherie for helping with that truly gross job. Seriously. No one else would have stayed and worked that hard to clean that grossness!

I couldn't even bring myself to take photos of it. I'm sparring you. Believe me. This is not the first dirty job of this home makeover. The first was cleaning out the nasty old insulation from the upstairs. Mark and his wonderful friend, Kyle, took on that job. No pain, no gain, right?! There are more yucky jobs to come for us. That is for sure and unavoidable when walking into a home that has been sadly unkept. Thankfully we have been blessed with amazing friends and family that are willing to work alongside us. Truly we are grateful. Thank you!

{ First Official Tour }

 Here's the first official house tour.

 I could say, Welcome! Make yourself at home! But thats hardly how you feel walking into this house.

It.is.scary.

Maybe not like freaky scary but there is still a lot of stuff in here from the previous owner. 

Try to look past the stuff. It's hard to do. I know.

One of the next posts will be our "to do" list or you could also call it the "wish" list for each space but for now we will just start with the picture tour of our humble abode. 

Front Door:

Living Room: 

the door that leads to a small room on the front of the house

Kitchen: 

those beautiful curtains are hiding the slider door straight ahead and three windows to the left

Bathroom (THE one and only bathroom):

Master Bedroom:

Upstairs:

 two spaces separated by a wall

Second bedroom on main floor:

looking into the room from hallway

Basement: 

Don't ask...I have NO idea what that huge screw thing is!

laundry space

Exterior: 

front window

side of the house with a small view of the carport

There you have it. Jealous?! I thought so.

  We are slowly working at cleaning  it out.

It would be nice to snap our fingers and have each room looking like we envision but we don't have that luxury, so each room will need to be cleared, cleaned, and updated and it will be a long process.  I am excited. Call me crazy. I realize this will be a lot of work, a lot of time, and a lot of money. Our goal though is to do everything the Dave Ramsey way- paying for everything without going into debt. Some things will get done faster than others and we may have to wait on a few purchases until the money is saved but it's all about the experience for us. We might move into chaos but eventually our home will be to the point where I will gladly greet you at our front door saying, Welcome! Make yourself at home! And, hopefully you will feel that way.  I am looking forward to that day.

As I said before, soon I will post the list of what our vision is for each space and let me tell you, it's long!

{ Getting Started }

Why "The Raw House Project" you say?...We bought a house, it's our new project and our last name is Rawson, so we created this blog to show the progress of the house 

...I guess thats all we could creatively come up with Ha!

First...meet our family! This is who I will be referring to so its always better to put a face with a name. My hubby, Mark, and two kiddos, Trevor and Jenna are here in this picture with me. Disregard the fact that Jenna isn't looking at the camera. This was the best one that I could find.

We just added a new little guy to our family in August. Meet Chase! We will get a family photo of all of us together soon, just hasn't happened yet.

So, back to our house situation. We (meaning mostly Mark) built our first home back in 2005. 

We loved this house but the layout and location of the house were less than ideal. We put it up for sale this year and with in 9 days it was sold. Yup, you read that right, 9 DAYS!! 

We were so excited but then realized we hadn't even looked at homes to buy yet. We looked at a million. Not really but seemed like it. We knew we wanted a fixer-upper. It's been something that we wanted to tackle for a while now but we weren't finding anything that we loved. 

Then we made a decision. We would buy this one.

Pretty huh? nope. BUT we have plans to make it pretty! 

This house also sits on 20 acres, so our plan is to fix this beauty up, live in it for a while, sell or rent it and build again somewhere on our 20 acres. Sounds like a good plan...we shall see how this all pans out. 

We are currently living at my parents house. God bless them. We truly are grateful to be staying with them. I literally cannot complain. My mom and dad are amazing and it has been great. However, if you have ever lived with anyone else, you know how it can be difficult at times. Mostly, I just miss my stuff. My couch. My bed. My routine. My stuff. Needless to say it will be a happy day when we officially move to our new home.

So this is the beginning of our journey. A home make-over journey. Lots needs to be done before we can move in. It's in pretty rough condition. I am super excited, and have lots and lots of ideas for this little house. Wish us luck because with three kids, a dog, a busy hubby, and our day jobs this is going to be interesting!