I am getting hit with lots of emails about the new “ranch”. I need to come up with a good nickname for it. My old house was called the “Blu House” (sic) even though I made it white, originally it was blue. Sort of like a blue-hair (built in 1939, that works). The new place is only 9 years old and is a ranch and is on almost 12 acres and is on a road called Indian Trail (back off stalkers, I own and can use effectively several firearms).
- The Ranch
- Happy Ranch
- The Peanut Ranch
- Happy Campground
- Indian Trail
- Rancho Bobbo
- The Compound
- Contentment
- Joewareville
- Trouble’s Acres
- Safe Haven
- TANSTAAFL
- Grok
- TEFL
- ???
The house is on propane, septic, and well water[1] so I will be roughing it a bit; honestly it isn’t that bad except for the cost of Propane. Comcast cable is available but I haven’t decided if I will use them or not… I looked at their web site and it looks like highway robbery next to Wide Open West, not sure why ANYONE would want to use them. I may go with AT&T Yahoo High Speed and satellite TV instead.
I have lots of ideas for the place, there will be lots of pics going up on the blog here eventually. There is a nice pond that is about 25′ deep sitting there and is alleged to contain “lots” of fish. I have to clean it up around the outskirts though to get into it, it has gotten overgrown this year but I was assured it was previously groomed and it looks like it. I intend to let the first 100-200 feet of the front yard to go “wild” and plant wild flowers and trees and maybe toss an old piece of farm equipment or two out there. I like the country look. I will push the backyard grooming a bit past the pond instead. I am going to look into expanding the pond in diameter as well. I wouldn’t mind seeing a 1-2 acre pond personally. I also want to go in and trim up the back acreage to make it more park like as well as clear a nice line around the entire property so I can drive the truck around the outskirts and post NO HUNTING signs everywhere. Attention all Bambi’s, Turkeys, Pheasants, etc, you are safe on my property. 🙂
I need to buy or get a long term lease on a bobcat or a tractor with a bucket and a backhoe. How fun would that all be?
I will be putting up some evergreens to block out the views of the nearby houses. Kind of irks me that there are 12 acres and neighbors within 200 feet. But I will get past it. 🙂
The inside is not bad at all, mostly lipstick work if you are a “flip this house” kind of TV watcher. It is ~1900 sq ft with a full basement the same size so effectively I have ~3800 feet which is amazing compared to my current ~1500 sq ft. I have some cool ideas for the living room for AV options. I am looking into a front projector to give me an effective 150″ wide screen television set. Basically paint one wall of the cathedral ceiling living room white and blast the image up onto it. Also I am going to figure out how to suspend my Bose 901s for maximum sound quality and no footprint. Those are pure music speakers though, the multimedia sound system will be something else entirely. I want to have it ready for the launch of Halo 3. ;o)
I am actually going to paint with colors this time. My last place I used all whites so whomever came in after me (I knew I wasn’t staying) wouldn’t go, yuck, what horrible colors, we will never be able to cover that properly. This place I intend to keep for a long while. Also I am thinking murals and will come up with some designs and make my Michigan sister come visit me with her painting equipment. She owes me. I figure she can put in a month solid putting up murals.
They put in the prep work for a fireplace but never put in the fireplace, I will correct that. Nothing better than laying in front of the fireplace with that special someone plus it can be quite fun to pop popcorn in a fireplace. I will do a real fireplace, not a gas fireplace, at least that is the plan. I love the popping and crackling of a wood fireplace plus I have a lot of wood from the backyard to process.
I need a big deck off the back and am planning on a pool likely by next year or the year after that is right off the deck and actually surrounded by more deck.
The basement has amazing 9/10 foot high ceilings. Loving it. Not thrilled with how the basement was partially finished but it has a pretty interesting Superman logo drawn on one wall. I will likely change the wall layout and set up a little data center down there as well as my work office. Eventually pool table and foosball and maybe a pinball machine or two. Dedicated kids play area for nephews and nieces. Lots of storage closet space. etc.
My very first project will be to get a 3/4 car garage put up either attached to the home or REALLY close. I want that done before I even move in as it gives me a staging area for the lipstick work and moving stuff in nicely. I have no desire to walk a hundred or so feet to the pole barn to get to my truck. Next will be to concrete the entire pole barn floor, currently only about a quarter of it is concrete. Once that is done it will be safe storage for the 2007 Mustang, my brother’s 1970 Mach I Mustang and possibly the 1968 (I think) Jaguar XKE Convertible that belongs to a good friend of mine. I also wouldn’t mind finding some scrap heap 60’s hot rod to start working on slowly over time, say like an old Galaxy 500, Mustang, or Goat.
I have to say that I am extremely lucky to have found this and be in a position to get it; I don’t forget that for a second. The current economic situation in Michigan likely was helpful, however, I don’t feel like I “took anyone for a ride”. I am all about good karma and try to keep that in mind when doing things, I bid on the house, they countered, I accepted. My luck has been hit and miss for a bit, I am hoping this new place signals great change and just an amazing amount of incredibly great luck, communication, and mind blowing happiness. Time will tell.
The way the whole finding of it and purchasing of it has gone it is like I was just along for the ride. I will have to type up the whole story at some point, it is quite odd. I believe I was driven to get this by forces beyond my comprehension. Seriously. This was not in my 5 year plan… At all. My 5 year plan had me on a 20+ acre lot with a Deltec Round House as the regular readers of my blog know… This purchase was spur of the moment and hit me while I was working on GFCI circuits in the kitchen of the Blu House (sic). Odd to say the very least.
Thoughts, ideas, comments, as always, fully welcomed.
joe
[1] Well water but it has a reverse osmosis filter system and water softener in place.
First pic… This is the property layout. It is an irregular 14 acre rectangle (352’x1650′) with a ~2 acre rectangle sadly cut out of it.
Next pics are of the house proper
Now some selected shots of the pole barn and immediate back yard
1. Yahoo DSL sucks majorly around here if you haven’t been on a call with me and my VoIP getting dropped all the time or being screwy. Uploads suck during the day, gets much better at night. I can’t do netmeeting/virtual room desktop sharing and the phone at the same time or the phone just goes south.
2. There is special white paint you want to do the on the wall screen thing – it has some reflective stuf in it or something (don’t exactly know).
3. How many circuits are in your kitchen in the old palce? You technically only need one GFI per circuit…around here you actually have to install GFI breakers now instead.
You could always refer to the place as “joeware corporate headquarters” or “the joeware datacenter”. (BTW, “Bobbo” sounds an awful lot like “fool” in Korean, so you might want to avoid “Rancho Bobbo” unless you can put up with my snickering every time you mention it.)
FWIW, Spam is in the eye of the beholder, but most people can tell when they’ve got something in their eye.
Wook
If you like to tinker, may I suggest Free to Air as a source of Sat TV. Much more work, yes, but fun in it’s own right. You haven’t lived until you have watched camel races on TV!!
how about just:
joeville
short and sweet!
If you know someone with a projector bring that in first to test. Not sure how much light you have in that room but that makes a big difference.
I scrapped the projector plans in my place because of the sunlight. My buddy has a media room in a windowless room with a projector and that setup works really nice
Comcast IS highway robbery. I use them as a last resort. From their prices, you’d hope they could afford to keep their DNS’s working, but no such luck. I know you don’t care much about football but Comcast is jerking around big-10 college football fans – as if to add further insult to injury.
I think you’ll end up just calling it “the ranch”. or perhaps “club halo”.