Welcome to Crazy Town (or, We Bought A Sh*t House)

On April 30, we bought a house. If you know Joe and I at all, you could probably guess that it… needs some work. We love a project, and we’re no strangers to working with vintage homes. We’ve gladly embraced creaky floors, wavy walls and funky layouts if it meant personality, history, charm, and the ability to make it our own. 

So we bought a house that has all that in spades. But, like any good opportunity, it comes with its share of risks, and maybe more. This project is bigger than any we’ve taken on before. And if you’ve found your way here to our blog, you probably want to come along for the ride. Let’s start at the beginning. Welcome to Crazy Town!

Real quick, how did we get here?

After 4+ years in our beloved condo, we began to feel that familiar yearning to stretch our legs. We wanted a yard for Chief, a living room big enough for the oversized couch of my dreams, a garage for the vintage BMW of Joe’s dreams. Room to grow into. You know how it goes. 

Weekend after weekend of open houses bore little fruit: bland, expensive new construction here, charming Victorian with the inflexible floor plan over here, classic Chicago bungalow with the small yard over there. Lather, rinse, repeat. We were pushed further and further away from our desired location, hipster-yuppie paradise Logan Square. 

Frustrated and disappointed, we were introduced by some good friends to The Villa: a landmark district in the Irving Park neighborhood, with historic homes on wide lots and boulevards with mature trees, ideally situated near public transportation into downtown. So we had brunch, drove down the tree-lined parkways and ogled the Craftsman-meets-Prairie style architecture. This neighborhood felt unreal - a unicorn in the middle of the city. But inventory was beyond scarce in this small community and prices reflected the premium that people pay to live in neighborhoods like this. We moved on. 

But a listing had caught Joe’s eye. It had all the familiar warning signs that would (and likely did) scare off most normal home buyers: It had been sitting on the market for months. The only pictures were of the exterior. It was outrageously overpriced. “Great rehab potential!” the listing boasted. “Needs a new roof.” Obviously he wanted to go see it. 

You know how the story goes from here. We immediately fell in love. We were both planning the renovation within minutes of arriving for the tour. Bump this wall out, knock this one down, replace all these windows, refinish the attic…. We were hooked. So we bought it. 

But, like, why “Sh*t House”, tho? 

If only it were as simple as “so we bought it”. The transaction was brutal. The negotiations were grueling. We fully lost the house twice. And the genesis of it all was the home inspection where we uncovered, to put it mildly, some plumbing issues. The basement, without exaggeration, was essentially an open sewer. The prognosis was grim. The price tag was a kick to the stomach. Were we REALLY going to buy this sh*t house? 

The answer, it turns out, was yes. We would negotiate through it. We would! But we would be firm, we told ourselves. Negotiate confidently, and walk away if we didn’t get what we wanted. We were sure. We knew we had leverage. Well, we thought we had leverage. But when push came to shove we were simply not ready to give the place up. This house had bewitched us. We couldn’t let it go. 

It was crazy! We knew it was crazy. But we were going to make it happen - our crazy Villa dream. La Villa Loca. 

OK, so, now what? 

With the hard stuff of the transaction behind us, we’ve got the hard stuff of the renovation ahead of us. We’re planning on living in the home during as much of the renovation as we can, and there are some major, uh, deficiencies that we need to address in order to get to a standard of livability that we can stomach (we’re looking at you, plumbing). 

We thankfully have the luxury of nearly a month between close dates, so we’ll be spending most evenings and weekends tearing up carpets, fixing basic electrical, scrubbing every surface to within an inch of its life, and acclimating Chief to the barky canine neighbors next door. 

The posts that follow will give you an unvarnished look at our beloved sh*thouse, our vision for its future, and our journey getting it there. We’re so glad you’ve joined us!