So... My wife and I have a house that's more than 1/2 paid for. Not bad for 27. 
Built in 1957, this house is a typical suburb boom, ranch style, single story 3 BR, 2 BA, 2 car garage, unfinished basement, hardwood floor, brick house. It's in great shape and we love it.
But... It doesn't stay that way by itself.
This year alone (365 days +/- 30) we have replaced a garage door, shower, plumbing x2 , water softener, and electrical outlets.
First the garage door had been crooked since we got the house. It was original, was heavy, solid wood, partially rotten, and coated in lead paint. So that was $700 for a new light weight, insulated steel door, and tracks.
Then came the water softener, $450 + $50 in plumbing parts.
Next a water heater element, $38 + $9.99 socket.
Then two weeks before Thanksgiving a tile fell off the shower wall while I was removing old caulk. The tile relieved wet moldy dry wall behind it. Off came 4 more tiles (by hand) which relieved that behind the tile was wet moldy plaster over more wet moldy drywall. So, down came the entire master bathroom shower. $600 in material and tools later, the shower is half finished, probably be done close to Christmas.
But when we switched to the shower in the back bathroom, we found that there was a leak in it. After cutting a hole in a closet wall we found that there was a galvanized pipe from the fixture to the head that had rusted through at the threads. $10 in pipe fixed that, but I still have to patch the wall.
Now today, we had a socket wear out and stop making contact and being a 50+ yo house it was a 2 prong plug. So I bought new 3-prong plugs to replace all the 2 prong plugs in that room (kitchen). After checking the boxes for ground wires and ground with an old fashioned neon tester light, and installing the outlets, we found that none of the outlets where grounding properly with a modern plug in tester. We traced the circuit branch and found the first box on the branch was in the living room; This box had proper ground when tested with the modern tester. So, we traced the grounds and found that there was a break in the ground wire, inside the plaster wall, between the first and second boxes in the living room. If we hooked a wire from the plate screw of box #1 to the plate screw of box #2 then all 6 boxes (including kitchen) had proper ground again. So we are going to have to run a new cable from the first box down into the basement and back up into the second box, or go into the attic and wade through 10" of blown cellulose insulation and hope to find a junction box with a bad connection.
It's a mess here and I still have to hang the Christmas lights.
But we still love this house.
P.S. When my wife bought the house in '07, it had lime green shag carpet ontop of the nice hardwood nearly throughout the house, mauve walls, peeling linoleum in the kitchen, mold in the basement ceiling, leaky basement, a bad roof, and a failing furnace. All that was fixed before we moved in (except the furnace, that was a surprise).
Built in 1957, this house is a typical suburb boom, ranch style, single story 3 BR, 2 BA, 2 car garage, unfinished basement, hardwood floor, brick house. It's in great shape and we love it.
But... It doesn't stay that way by itself.
This year alone (365 days +/- 30) we have replaced a garage door, shower, plumbing x2 , water softener, and electrical outlets.
First the garage door had been crooked since we got the house. It was original, was heavy, solid wood, partially rotten, and coated in lead paint. So that was $700 for a new light weight, insulated steel door, and tracks.
Then came the water softener, $450 + $50 in plumbing parts.
Next a water heater element, $38 + $9.99 socket.
Then two weeks before Thanksgiving a tile fell off the shower wall while I was removing old caulk. The tile relieved wet moldy dry wall behind it. Off came 4 more tiles (by hand) which relieved that behind the tile was wet moldy plaster over more wet moldy drywall. So, down came the entire master bathroom shower. $600 in material and tools later, the shower is half finished, probably be done close to Christmas.
But when we switched to the shower in the back bathroom, we found that there was a leak in it. After cutting a hole in a closet wall we found that there was a galvanized pipe from the fixture to the head that had rusted through at the threads. $10 in pipe fixed that, but I still have to patch the wall.
Now today, we had a socket wear out and stop making contact and being a 50+ yo house it was a 2 prong plug. So I bought new 3-prong plugs to replace all the 2 prong plugs in that room (kitchen). After checking the boxes for ground wires and ground with an old fashioned neon tester light, and installing the outlets, we found that none of the outlets where grounding properly with a modern plug in tester. We traced the circuit branch and found the first box on the branch was in the living room; This box had proper ground when tested with the modern tester. So, we traced the grounds and found that there was a break in the ground wire, inside the plaster wall, between the first and second boxes in the living room. If we hooked a wire from the plate screw of box #1 to the plate screw of box #2 then all 6 boxes (including kitchen) had proper ground again. So we are going to have to run a new cable from the first box down into the basement and back up into the second box, or go into the attic and wade through 10" of blown cellulose insulation and hope to find a junction box with a bad connection.
It's a mess here and I still have to hang the Christmas lights.
But we still love this house.
P.S. When my wife bought the house in '07, it had lime green shag carpet ontop of the nice hardwood nearly throughout the house, mauve walls, peeling linoleum in the kitchen, mold in the basement ceiling, leaky basement, a bad roof, and a failing furnace. All that was fixed before we moved in (except the furnace, that was a surprise).
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