21 year old son and fiancee choosing Rural Living over apartment in town.

[Gale Hawkins]

After dating for nearly 3 years they have a wedding planned for September which will be three years since their first date. Just to get started the son was thinking of getting an apartment for a year or two but due to the college rent in Murray KY is expensive.

One of the small local internet providers offers free ads that a lot of locals visit to buy, sell and trade all likes of stuff. I got a set of wheels once for the son's truck and it was where I found the B Allis Chalmers last summer.

View attachment 1975 2 bay shop house in rear.jpg

A couple weeks ago a place 10 miles out of Murray popped up for sale. While it is only 1.6 acres and both the shop and house needs a lot of attention to both clean up and do major repairs. I drive past it a couple times a week now and always thought I would love to have the shop and never noticed the small house that is concealed somewhat to the rear because a row of 45 year old cedar trees that line the state highway. It does have some fruit trees as well that need a lot of attention as well.

The house has 2 bedrooms, a full bath with a fair size living room and about the same size kitchen. There is a 4" deep well and septic system. The crown jewel in my view is the shop on a 55' wide and 50' deep concrete slab and I have not found a crack yet. The 2 bays are 30' deep and one has a Rotary brand in ground single cylinder car lift with a Champion compressor for the lift and shop air. Since the date on the 82 gallon Beaird tank is 1-1956 and the shop was built in mid 1970's must to have been put in used when it was about 20 years old. The 2 horse 220 volt single phase Leland motor may be original driving the Champion REN 10 two cylinder compressor that is to be able to make 200 PSI.

The wife and I closed on the place so they can purchase it for the selling price from us after they get married. They have started the property clean up and removed most of the kitchen down to the walls. The son likes two months finishing his two year diesel college degree at a local state college plus he is working evening in the parts department a national trucking firm while going to school. His fiancee is the same age and has finished some vocational training and a course in RV repair and works in her father's RV repair business rebuilding RV's. Both families are helping them with renovation efforts and think this is a good move long term.

 

[deserteagle71]

Sounds like a great place to start and raise a family. Much better than doing it in town! He'll be able to utilize that shop working for himself once he has his degree.

 

[Wagtail]

Thanks for sharing that, Gale.

 

[Thomas]

Man happier with a piece of land to call his own. :thumbsup:

 

[coldsteelva]

That is really awesome. Is the property the whole triangle on that corner there? Or just right around the structures?

 

[Slowpoke Slim]

Sounds good. And they're willing to put in the "sweat equity", so they will already have skin in the game, and feel attached to the place.

Nice.

Would be nice to see more pics of the place, and the "after" pics when they have the remodel work done.

 

[Bird]

Sounds as if that young couple has a good future ahead of them. I certainly wish them the best.

 

[shooterdon]

Sounds like they have their heads screwed on straight. Not seeing many young folks like that.

Like the song says:

"Green Acres is the place to be"

Good luck to them.

 

[EddieWalker]

Two young adults that where brought up right!!! Congrats to you and your wife.

 

[Gale Hawkins]

That is really awesome. Is the property the whole triangle on that corner there? Or just right around the structures?

View attachment 596902

coldsteelva can you share a link how to get to maps like this? I gave them a black and white copy of this map that came from the title search results for the purpose of dream building. Color is much better at showing the details and if I can find the date of the image that will tell us the timeline better. The row of cedars down the side of the road is running East and West with the point of the pie actually pointing east.

The guy that put the place together after buying the land in 1974 passed a couple years ago in a nursing home at the age of 81. Actually the green metal for the back slope of the the house is there on pallets still banded together I bet it is pile burned after all of the years but the fiber covering of the bundle is still in place more or less but that only would help protect the top piece from the sun.

After a few weeks I can get the backhoe over there to help with the clean up and try using a chain and the hoe to pull up some of the smaller overgrowth while we still have soft ground. One thing other than time that is holding me up is I do not know the pinpoint location of the septic tank and leach field. I have not talked with the seller due to health reasons but her daughter asked her and the reply as I understood it is east of the shop. I bought a probe yesterday and can physically see a sewer line to an assumed septic tank comes out of the house heading north towards the state highway. Since the shop was built first I am told I am hoping to find the septic tank just across the drive to the house on the east side of the shop. I see the signs of a curve line of thin grass running east from the drive to the house and curving to the right. The small square in front of the house is actually a good size dog house with a galvanized roof. The tree due east of that dog house is missing but a large stump remains. Maybe we will get lucky and find they had root problems and put in a new seep field running from the septic tank.

After I probe out the 3" or 4" line running north from the house it should intersect a line coming out of the east side of the shop that was plumbed first I expect. Just better pinpointing the septic tank will tell me 90% of the rest of the story I need to know before getting the 6 ton backhoe in there. Until about 20 years ago rural KY was without pumping codes or there was no enforcement in place so clean outs were not common. I have been reading up on enzymes that can help clear bacteria that can slick over the leach field lines and stop the perking ability.

In the well house out back I have replaced the pressure switch and pressure gauge so that is working well except for short cycle time so now I am going to take a portable air tank over today and make sure the PSI is at 28 PSI in the bladder tank.

Thanks for all of the kind remarks.

 

[crashz]

Congrats to your whole (and extending) family!
The shop out front has a lot of character, from the signs and old Pepsi machine to the weathers siding. Just a really cool place to be able to work on your stuff and enjoy country life! Best of luck to the newlyweds!

 

[Industrial Toys]

It can be very challenging. I remember when I moved here, I had trouble affording a push mower. An old GF lived in a (rented) Chalet out in the country. She paid a guy to blow her driveway. One winter it never stopped snowing, and I remember, one day alone. the guy came three times at maybe a hundred dollars a clearing! Many people, just can't come up with the money it takes to live in a civilzed manner in the country.

 

[Stimw]

If you go to google maps- Google Maps

and enter the address then scroll in close, then click on the little square in the bottom L corner and you get the satellite view.
I have used this a lot, sometimes if I am going to a place that I have not been I will look first to get my bearings.
When I bought my current property I needed to send a wire transfer to a lawyer in Miami. I looked at the map and even the street view to see if it looked fishy!

 

[japody]

If you go to google maps- Google Maps

and enter the address then scroll in close, then click on the little square in the bottom L corner and you get the satellite view.
I have used this a lot, sometimes if I am going to a place that I have not been I will look first to get my bearings.
When I bought my current property I needed to send a wire transfer to a lawyer in Miami. I looked at the map and even the street view to see if it looked fishy!

I use Google Earth Pro. It's free and works great. You can even see previous pics that have been taken over the years. I use that a lot for comparisons. It also has other features that you can use to measure distance and area. Really useful.

 

[coldsteelva]

Sorry for my delay. Google Maps is exactly how I located the property. You provided a street side picture which included the numeric on the garage. You also provided the jurisdiction. I did a quick recon of all the local addresses with that numeric until I located the appropriate Google StreetView image. Then I toggled to satellite view, and took a screen grab (Windows Snipping Tool, included in Windows) and then used Paint (down and dirty) to crop down to only the property in question. I also eliminated any geographic/street indicators, so the image can stand alone and not give any indication of where it really is.

There is also a lot of info available at: </title>
<link rel="apple-touch-icon" sizes="18x18" href="/static/apple-touch-icon.png">
<link rel="icon" type="image/png" sizes="32x32" href="/static/favicon-32x32.png">
<link rel="icon" type="image/png" sizes="16x16" href="/static/favicon-16x16.png">
<link rel="manifest" href="/static/site.webmanifest">
<link rel="mask-icon" href="/static/safari-pinned-tab.svg" color="#6ABECC">
<link rel="shortcut icon" href="/static/favicon.ico" />
<link rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" href="//cloud.typography.com/7883472/69378/css/fonts.css" />
<link rel="stylesheet" href="https://fonts.googleapis.com/css?family=Roboto:3,4">
<link rel="publisher" href="https://plus.google.com/19897784735"/>
<meta name="description" ng-if="$description" ng-attr-content="{$ $description $}"/>




<link rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" href="/static/css/app.min.css?v7.8."/>


<script>
(function(w,d,s,l,i){w[l]=w[l]||[];w[l].push({'gtm.start':
new Date().getTime(),event:'gtm.js'});var f=d.getElementsByTagName(s)[],
j=d.createElement(s),dl=l!='dataLayer'?'&l='+l:'';j.async=true;j.src=

'https://www.googletagmanager.com/gtm.js?id='+i+dl;

f.parentNode.insertBefore(j,f);
})(window,document,'script','dataLayer','GTM-MNKLC5G');
window.ga = window.ga || function() {(window.ga.q = window.ga.q || []).push(arguments)};
</script>



<script>/*<![CDATA[*/window.zEmbed||function(e,t){var n,o,d,i,s,a=[],r=document.createElement("iframe");window.zEmbed=function(){a.push(arguments)},window.zE=window.zE||window.zEmbed,r.src="javascript:false",r.title="",r.role="presentation",(r.frameElement||r).style.cssText="display: none",d=document.getElementsByTagName("script"),d=d[d.length-1],d.parentNode.insertBefore(r,d),i=r.contentWindow,s=i.document;try{o=s}catch(e){n=document.domain,r.src='javascript:var d=document.open();d.domain="'+n+'";void();',o=s}o.open()._l=function(){var e=this.createElement("script");n&&(this.domain=n),e.id="js-iframe-async",e.src="https://assets.zendesk.com/embeddable_framework/main.js",this.t=+new Date,this.zendeskHost="acrevalue.zendesk.com",this.zEQueue=a,this.body.appendChild(e)},o.write('<body onload="document._l();">'),o.close()}();
/*]]>*/</script>

</head>
<body ng-cloak ng-class="{ 'dropdown-menu-shift': displayPhoneMenu, 'av-pro': isPro }">

<noscript>
<iframe src="https://www.googletagmanager.com/ns.html?id=GTM-MNKLC5G&gtm_auth=kLTYYp_JyTrI2ySnlewiNQ&gtm_preview=env-12&gtm_cookies_win=x" height="" width="" style="display:none;visibility:hidden"></iframe>
</noscript>


<span style="display:none"><svg xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2/svg"><defs><ellipse id="desktop-a" cx="4" cy="4" rx="4" ry="4"/><mask id="desktop-b" x="" y="" width="8" height="8" fill="#fff"><use xlink:href="#desktop-a"/></mask><ellipse id="laptop-a" cx="4" cy="4" rx="4" ry="4"/><mask id="laptop-b" x="" y="" width="8" height="8" fill="#fff"><use xlink:href="#laptop-a"/></mask><path d="M17.715 14.286c.185.223.285.464.285.714 1.183-2.24 2.143-5 2.143S8 16.183 8 15c-.25.1-.49.285-.714.686.832 2.538 1.428 4.715 1.428s4.3-.596 4.715-1.428zm 2.857c.185.223.285.464.285.714C18 19.4 15.76 2 13 2s-5-.96-5-2.143c-.25.1-.49.285-.714.686.832 2.538 1.428 4.715 1.428s4.3-.595 4.715-1.427zM13 14.286c2.76 5-.96 5-2.143C18 1.96 15.76 1 13 1s-5 .96-5 2.143c 1.183 2.24 2.143 5 2.143z" id="layers-a"/><ellipse id="phone-a" cx="4" cy="4" rx="4" ry="4"/><mask id="phone-b" x="" y="" width="8" height="8" fill="#fff"><use xlink:href="#phone-a"/></mask><rect id="report-a" width="17" height="18" rx="2"/><mask id="report-b" x="" y="" width="17" height="18" fill="#fff"><use xlink:href="#report-a"/></mask><ellipse id="tablet-a" cx="4" cy="4" rx="4" ry="4"/><mask id="tablet-b" x="" y="" width="8" height="8" fill="#fff"><use xlink:href="#tablet-a"/></mask></defs><symbol viewBox=" 14 14" id="svg-icon-acrevalue"><title>acrevalue

 

[Gale Hawkins]

Thanks ColdSteelVA for the details.

They have loaded 4 of the smaller 12 Cubic Yard dumpsters so the place is starting to have neutral look at least. I have the car lift working full range now but plan to pull the rack off to paint and fix a couple missing grade 8 bolts before we load with a vehicle. It is loaded with about 300 pounds. The lift has set raised about 2' for the past decade so I had to work on some rough spots but all is well and the 10W-40 High Mileage oil now coating the surface makes it slick. Got it down and found the bleed screw so now I just have to clean out the hole so I can get to the bleeding screw.

 

[fried1765]

Thanks ColdSteelVA for the details.

They have loaded 4 of the smaller 12 Cubic Yard dumpsters so the place is starting to have neutral look at least. I have the car lift working full range now but plan to pull the rack off to paint and fix a couple missing grade 8 bolts before we load with a vehicle. It is loaded with about 300 pounds. The lift has set raised about 2' for the past decade so I had to work on some rough spots but all is well and the 10W-40 High Mileage oil now coating the surface makes it slick. Got it down and found the bleed screw so now I just have to clean out the hole so I can get to the bleeding screw.

I just love this story of your son and his wife to be!
Exciting times!

 

[Gale Hawkins]

The project of removing the old "polluted" insulation is starting to get in/under my skin so to speak. Taking the thin paneling off the walls is not that hard. It turned out the ceiling tile are mounted on plywood so to clean/inspect/rewire/insulate there is going to be more of a task. I am thinking of getting down one 4x8' sheet and come up with a plan based on what we find. The son finishes at the junior college in 4 weeks so things will move faster then.

After they stopped yesterday they sat in the old front porch swing contently for a while. It really is a peaceful place since most traffic is about a 1/2 mile north on the new faster four lane. After seeing them yesterday still excited about cleaning and redeeming the old place increased my energy level to help as much as possible on the house and let the heavy stuff in the shop wait its turn. September will be here soon.

I did get an old shop vac over there yesterday because I remember we burned up a few doing our clean up years ago. Insulation dust is "true grit". After they left for the day I used it to clean out hole on the car lift containing the bleeding valve and when ahead and ordered the set of male/female square sockets since it turned out to be square 7/16" male and not 3/8 or 1/2".

 

[cat fever]

Good for them, living in the country is the way to do it. IMHO they and their future kids will be so much happier.

 

[aczlan]

I did get an old shop vac over there yesterday because I remember we burned up a few doing our clean up years ago. Insulation dust is "true grit".

Take a 5 gallon bucket and a short piece of flexible hose. Find what size PVC that the shopvac hose fits into, then make a water dirt trap (coupling, then a long piece of PVC to the bottom of the bucket for the inlet from the hose, coupling, then an elbow for the outlet to the shop vac).
Then dirt coming in has to go through the long tube, into 3-4" of water, then out to the shop vac.
It works great for sheetrock dust and should work for your insulation dust.

Aaron Z