musings of a self-proclaimed author: a year in the estate: part i

introducing the estate

So a year ago, as you may have heard, I bought a house. Technically, I bought my third house, but let's not split hairs.

But it's my third house.

Anyway.

I struggled a lot with what to make this blog series into. After I had spent a year in The Manor, I wrote four separate blogs showcasing all of the work that had gone into the house. You could say it was partly due to it all being so fresh and new to me and being SO PROUD of everything I had accomplished (mainly on my own) in such a short time. And in my mind, I held that "first-anniversary" thing as a standard for what I would need to do for this house. Write four blogs, show all the work that went into it, and then feel like I had gotten it off my chest.

The only thing is... love or hate The Ranch... I never wrote a one-year blog for that house. And in truth, I never really posted ANY before and after images of what I had done there.

You can blame that on how miserable I had become in my life at that point in general:

- I had given up a character home that I loved (though in a neighborhood I did not love) to move into a mid-century house that was not at all my vibe but had become a panic purchase because I had nowhere else to go.

- On top of it being Covid-time in late 2020, my health was starting to spiral for a multitude of reasons (mental health, physical health with kidney issues, etc).

- My romantic life was in a weird state of flux, getting back together with Andrew when perhaps both of us knew it wasn't the right thing, but it felt like the right thing, and still resulted in not-right feelings of heartache.

- I pure and simple hated my job and wanted to be anywhere but Minnesota.

So when you consider all that, there was just no celebration while in that house. It was a transitional home for me, getting me from one place to another, and I will let it exist as that. Ultimately, it made me a lot of money, and I am certainly grateful for that.

With The Estate, we come upon a different issue, that being the creation of restoring_sean and the very point of the corresponding YouTube channel (going over all of the changes I have made in each of my houses (The Estate included)), and the stories that create the journey of doing so. Giving away all of it in these few blog posts wouldn't draw people in for the content elsewhere.

Where does that leave us?

Well, in hybrid-land! So to speak. Imma still give you FOUR bright and shiny blogs here, and while I'm not going to show much in the way of what the process was (truly, so don't ask), you'll get a great idea of where it was, where it had to go, and where it's coming around to now.

Without further ado, let's get crackin'!

The Estate

I started my search for a new house back in January of 2023. With the listing of The Ranch imminent and the meticulously staged photos taken, I felt that it couldn't hurt to start poking around at houses back in the Appleton area. My long-time friend, Brenda, set up an MLS portal for me, and I kept a casual eye on it as the cold days of winter slowly strolled by. I wasn't going to be listing my own house until the middle of February, so there was no point in getting too excited over any houses that might appear. And as expected, none did appear. Lots of tiny old houses that were uglier than sin, none of them remotely fitting the bill of what I wanted.

I wanted to be in a character home again, in a nice neighborhood this time, with specific amenities I did not have at The Manor (like air conditioning). Then, a seemingly perfect, old, HUGE house popped up at the end of January. I immediately messaged Brenda and said, "Yo, home skillet (I didn't say that), I will come look at this house THIS weekend; this is perfect."

As much as I would like to say it was the only house I looked at when moving back, another house did pop up the next day (total shit hole (you could tell by the photos) but really neat with potential), and I also saw that one. BUT, I originally only wanted to see The Estate; this other one was just a "well, you're in the area, might as well," situation.

SO Brenda set my appointment to view the house on Saturday the 27th, and we were cooking with gas.

I drove the five hours from Minneapolis to Appleton the night before, staying with my parents and then picking up my friend Tina in the morning so she could come and look at the homes with me.

The first one was a dud, as expected, and reeked of cat piss. I couldn't stand upright in the basement, the roof needed to be replaced before moving in, and the walls were destroyed... it would definitely be a very large, LARGE amount of work. Plus, the rooms were all super small, and it was right by the train tracks.

We left, pretty light-hearted, knowing it wouldn't be the one either way. Admittedly, though, I was nervous that the next house wouldn't be either.

We drove to The Estate.

The living room

Here was a house that just... when you walked inside, you felt it was special. Immediately. To the point that it took my breath away. Not necessarily with its beauty, because that part is only skin-deep, and this place did not have the most lovely skin.

What it had was a warmth to it, and a history. Built in 1893 (though my sister and I would later deduce it was more likely built in 1903, based on land records), it had only ever had two owners. The people who built it, and the family that spent the last 70 years in it.

The parlor

The house had not been updated in a very long time (not since 1983 for the bulk of it, 1965 for the rest), but it had been loved. The bits that were still original were in good shape, and everything NOT original was also in decent shape. As we moved through the house, taking in the high ceilings and wide spaces, I just kept thinking over and over and over in my mind, "This is the house, this is the one, this is going to be mine."

The downstairs full bath

While aged, and displaying an underlying amount of work, to me it was the work I wanted to do. Updating and restoring, replicating the original trim from the rooms that still had it, and replacing the 1980's trim throughout the rest of the house. Sure, the carpet was 60 years old and felt to be about 3 inches thick, but that could be removed. Sure there was probably asbestos in the kitchen flooring, but that could be taken care of. In a word, the house was perfect.

The kitchen

The family that owned it had purchased in 1952, and raised their seven children here. Sadly the father passed away in late 2020 from Covid complications, and the mother passed away in August of 2022 from health issues, both in their 90's. I wanted the history of this place to be mine... I wanted to be the one to shepherd it forward, breathing new life into it while honoring the past, preserving what could be, and, in a word, amplifying what once was.

Tina, Brenda and I chatted in the kitchen for about half an hour, both of them knowing I was in love with this place, and when we departed, Brenda had my offer in hand. I hurried off to Starbucks by the Fox River Mall, the one where I had written two of my books back in the day, and this time, wrote an offer letter. I'd never done this before, but I felt it was prudent. The six remaining children were in charge of (wait for it) the estate (hence me calling it that), and I wanted to appeal to their sentimentality by explaining who I was, what I came from, and what my intentions were with the home they grew up in.

The only downside was that I had to write my offer on the condition that my house in Minnesota, which was not yet on the market, would sell. I called my realtor, Chad, and practically screamed about The Estate and that we needed to list my house ASAP, which he did. I drove back to Minnesota that afternoon, daydreaming the entire way about what I wanted to do with the house when I got it.

Paint the ceiling in the parlor black!

FINALLY enact my dream of a house with a Dark Academia theme!

Create a brilliant garden in place of the lawn!

I had a long weekend of waiting ahead of me, but I knew it was all going to work out. How could I not get the house?

And then... I didn't get the house.

To say I was crushed would be... not trying to oversell it here, but it would be the understatement of the year. I was utterly and absolutely devastated. In all honesty (as I'm prone to being), I cried.

I was supposed to get this place, don't you see?

The fact that I used my words in a heartfelt letter, that I wrote (apart from the one condition) a great offer with a downpayment and all, and that it was the first house I had wanted to look at (and not the 36th house like The Manor, or the 33rd house like The Ranch), it was the first.

It was meant to be mine.

I decided that if that was how it would be, then that's how it would be... and I moved on. I left The Ranch on the market, figuring "what the hell, who cares," and decided I wouldn't look at any other house in Appleton, or really the MLS portal, until I had moved in with my parents and didn't have to write any stupid conditional offers. After my house was listed as a "coming soon" home, Chad drummed up a ton of interest in it, and by the time it was LIVE for showings on a Friday, I had my first offer within 24 hours and four more within another 24.

Where I had purchased The Ranch in 2020 for $236,000, I sold it for $351,000 two and a half years later. The house was good for one thing: it made me a stupid amount of money. I would be closing and moving back to Wisconsin on March 15th, 26 years to the day after my family originally moved there from Southern California.

World Pride March on the Sydney Harbour Bridge

At the end of February came a long-planned trip with my best friend (and roommate), Jonathan, to Sydney, Australia, for vacation and World Pride. It was just what I needed.

I needed to get away from the darkness of winter, from the sadness of losing that house (which I was still bummed about), and I needed to cross something off my bucket list in life, which was to visit Australia. For a week, we had the absolute time of our lives. There's no other way to describe it. The trip was perfect and beautiful, and it was everything we wanted it to be, PLUS more than we had hoped it would be. And then getting to be there for World Pride, the first time it had ever been hosted in the Southern Hemisphere, was also exceptional and memorable.

When it was time to sadly pack up and leave, we went to the train station that would bring us to the airport. There was a whole lot of hijinx and hilarity that got in the way of making it to the airport, with trains that didn't exist and then taking the wrong train and sweating like a couple of pigs in the Sydney heat and humidity while lugging suitcases and backpacks, but we made it. And then, a funny thing happened when we were sitting in the airport.

I got an email from the MLS portal letting me know the house I wanted was back on the market.

I just about shit my pants.

In a flurry I was emailing Brenda and my lender, Carolyn, hunting for clarity as to if this was true or not. With the time difference (Sydney is 16 hours ahead), it was nearly 5pm back in the midwest, but my friends came through for me. Yes, the house really was available again, the approval letter was issued, and my newly improved offer (and hastily edited letter to the sellers, which (truly) now started with "Me again!") was submitted. Offers were being presented in an hour.

Was this fate?

Sitting down in Sydney for our nearly 16-hour non-stop flight to Los Angeles

We took off not long after my offer was submitted, and the flight home was not nearly as exciting as the flight to Australia (where I had Delta One, and Jonathan had Business Class (notice how we're sitting in steerage with the poors here)). When we landed in Los Angeles, after a flight with no Wi-Fi, my phone dinged with a message from Brenda.

"Omg I just woke up to the text u got the house! I had to literally read it 3 times. Just give me a call this morning so I can go over the next steps."

The next two hours of escaping the plane, then the baggage claim at LAX, then getting back through security to literally SPRINT to the plane to Minneapolis, coupled with signing documents on my phone, reaching out to my lender, my parents, and my financial advisor was all just a blur. But in the end, after a lot of stress and anxiety and tears of frustration over... things... I won.

I won what I should have won the first time around, but what mattered now was that I WON.

A week later, Jonathan helped me pack up a moving truck, and I moved back to Wisconsin, loading my entire life into a barn at my parents' home and settling into my old bedroom. Two weeks later, I met Brenda at the title company offices early on the morning of March 27th.

45 minutes later, I left.

The Estate was now mine

I drove straight to the house, and I walked through it with a level of excitement (and also looming dread over how much work there was) that felt just so good. I moved through the house, taking photos of every room from every angle because I had not done that in The Manor or The Ranch.

Stupidly, I did not video-record walking through, but that's beside the point.

Idiot.

The point is, for the first time since The Manor, I could walk through my brand new house and introduce myself, taking my time to smudge the home with sage and get to know it a little bit. And then, as is customary, I propped my phone against something (in this case, the piano bench that was left behind), and I took my first selfie in the house.