Friday, September 17, 2010

Movin' On Out, To the East Side!

Family who lives far away from us. . .next time you are visiting. .DON'T look for this house!!

Cause it AIN'T around these parts no more!
Check out the size of those beams that they slid underneath of the house--they were HUGE
When we bought this place nearly 13 years ago, it had 2 old homes on it.  Our preacher lived in this little, newer house.  After they moved to our "fixed up parsonage", we rented it to a newly married couple.  They resided there for a year or 2 and then moved on too.  We decided that we really had no desire to continue renting the house out, and tried several times to sell it to be moved off the place.

They put soap on those big beams and slid the house right over them to lift it onto the trailer
We had to put a new roof on it right after the tenants moved out--and ended up selling it to a friend several years later for the price of the new roof--just to get it out of our hair. 

HOWEVER--3 years passed and they never had it moved--and in the meantime, went through a divorce, and decided they didn't want the house moved either.

can you tell that we were pretty impressed with this whole process??

When the home of a bachelor friend of ours burnt to the ground last Easter weekend, J and I decided to give the house to him, if he wanted it--only hours before he came to see if the house were for sale (how's that for a God deal, eh??)
The house is still sitting half way to the road up on the truck!
So right before Labor Day, the movers came to get the house. It took them about 4 days to get the beams under, hoist it up, and move it to the end of the driveway to be ready for the 4 mile trek to its new home, east of our place.
That boy--he was checking out all the movers tools :-)
There's the empty foundation (empty of a house that is!!) You can see all the dead cars and loads of junk behind the foundation. Part of the junk will be buried in the basement with the cinder blocks--and with any good luck, the dead, abandoned cars will be hauled off to their rude owners that left us to deal with them!
We were actually over here to salvage some remnants of carpet to use as underlayment for our upcoming pond project.  Brady stopped by to see the house progresst, mentioning that he had intended to catch the movers to see if they could retrieve the basement stair case--hoping to reuse them in the new place.
Jeremy and Brady to the rescue--first the stairs, and then Brady helped get the carpet snagged from under the debris--cause YOURS TRULY was NOOOOT putting a foot down in that hole (seemingly Brady had killed the biggest "bullsnake" which later became the biggest "rattlesnake" he had ever seen under the house while preparing the walls for the big beams! J didn't want to freak me out, so he retold the story subbing in bullsnake for the rattler--Brady later told me the true story, not realizing that I had already gotten the sweetened version!!  Darn guys)
And there she goes--I was working that day.  J had explicit instructions to grab the camera to capture the moment--I was so glad he was in the shop when they left.  He said that the right side of that house really dipped toward the ditch as they made the corner and the left corner went up about 8 feet higher. 
They had the road to the south blockaded by police, at least as long as it took to get the house onto the highway--It appears to take more than it's fair lane :-)  They had to travel by highway 2 miles before turning onto a dirt road.  It was set onto the new basement and foundation by lunch time!! And it looks great there!
So adios, old house--can't wait to get a tour of your extreme makeover!--I believe that it is being gutted and entirely refurbished--complete with new windows and siding.  I'm so glad that it is getting repurposed rather than torn down!! Best of luck!

6 comments:

  1. Wow, what a great God thing! I'm always amazed they can move houses and they don't completely fall apart. How perfectly sweet of J to change the story for ya!

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  2. As the "young married couple" who rented that place I am a little teary-eyed reading this! We can no longer point out the car window and tell this kids, "That's the house we lived in before you were born." We have some fond memories of our first years of marriage living in that old house and we are so grateful that you continued to rent to us until we moved. We were young and dumb and probably not the renters or neighbors we should have been, but we definitely appreciated having a house in the country (and I was grateful for the fewer miles I had to drive to school each day!). I am happy this house went to another well deserving owner!

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  3. It just amazes me how they move houses! This one looks humongous going down the highway. I'm glad it will have a "new life." :)

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  4. This is mind-boggling to me! I would think that the house would get all loose after they move it off the foundation. Alas! I am all for re-purposing so this was a great thing to do.

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  5. You always seem to have a lot of excitement at your house! Can't wait to see what it looks like without that house there.

    Kristi

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  6. WOW. It always amazing me how they can just take a house and go down the road with it. I don't think our house would survive! ;-) I bet it looks strange at your house now!

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