The short version

“Reclaimed Home” is:

a) a blog
b) a FSBO listing service
c) a store
d) all of the above

It covers:

a) affordable real estate in the tri-state area
b) DIY home renovations
c) green building
d) old homes
e) all of the above

Reclaimed Home was started by:

a) an obsessive diy homeowner
b) a photographer
c) a realtor
d) some chick having a mid life career crisis
e) all of the above

If you answered E to all questions, you are correct.

The long version

How did I get here?

I came up with the idea for this blog after living through 13 years of renovations. No, it wasn’t all spent on one house (although our first home took us 9 years to partially complete.) My husband and I became addicted to buying and restoring homes. We’re now on our fourth place. Here’s a bit of history on how it all began….

You never forget the first

Park Slope, Brooklyn, 1994. Our landlord was selling the house and we were having trouble finding an apartment that would accept our many pets. We kept increasing our budget, but it was still tough going. Finally, my husband realized that a mortgage might be less expensive than renting. And so, the die was cast.

We spoke to a mortgage broker who informed us that the bank would only give us a loan on a 2 family for under $165k. (Here’s where I don’t mention the one that got away….a 4 family brownstone on President for $248k. We simply couldn’t afford it!) We ended up paying $198k for a double duplex frame on 15th St. I earned bupkas and had bad credit and my husband’s salary was $40k at the time. We borrowed money from the folks and my mother co-signed the loan.I won’t bore you with the details of how we had to start eviction proceedings the day we closed (2 important words: “Deliver Vacant”) or how we renovated twice (the first time was just practice) or how our social life consisted of a group of us first time home owners getting together to work on each other’s houses. It was what it was, but it turned out to be the best financial decision we ever made.

Couldn’t leave well enough alone

By 1999 we started to get the yearning for a weekend home in the country. (Actually, we got a second dog and we were blacklisted from the Prospect Park doggie circle because of her behavior). Our tenants were covering our mortgage and we had managed to save up some money. We compromised on a dated modular home in Ulster County. We were kind of bummed that it wasn’t our taste (it was circa 1970s old lady chic), but our realtor, Josh Luborsky of Freestyle Realty, advised us that it was “the sensible pair of shoes”. He was right.

We loved it so much that we decided to move up there full time. Ok, Marbletown is a wonderful area, but this city chick couldn’t hack life in the woods! We didn’t really want to move back to Brooklyn either, so we decided to sell both houses and buy our dream home in our dream town. (PS: We only finished this EXTENSIVE renovation when it came time to put the house on the market.)

Photos

Our house in the middle of our street

Beacon, NY, 2004. This search wasn’t easy. We looked up and down both sides of the Hudson, from Nyack to Newburgh and Carmel to Poughkeepsie. We had 2 deals fall apart in Goshen. We finally did narrow it down to Beacon. The town was (still is) up and coming….lots of crunchies, artists and ex-pats. It’s on the Metro North line and near major highways. The problem was that Beacon doesn’t have the most amazing housing stock. There were lots of Victorians, but we didn’t want just any Victorian. We wanted our dream home…turret and all! We were a day away from putting an offer on an old brick schoolhouse when we got a call from someone we happened to run into about a week earlier. He told us he found our home. We were skeptical because we had looked at everything on the market. When we pulled into the driveway, we knew this was it. We got our turret! We ran through the house so quickly that the seller would later tell us she thought we hated it. She was about to put it on the market and we wanted to make our move before anyone else grabbed it up. We gave her pretty close to full price and she never got to show it to anyone else.

Are we there yet?

Ok, so guess what? By mid 2005, we were starting to miss Brooklyn. We still had money left from the 2 home sales and we were looking for an investment property. I checked out some affordable neighborhoods, including Bed Stuy, Crown Heights, Bushwick, and East New York. I even explored the South Bronx one day after reading an article in the NY Times. I fell in love with Bed Stuy and brought my husband back to look at some houses. Although Sunset Park, Bay Ridge, Greenwood Heights, Prospect Lefferts, Ditmas, Kensington and beyond were within our price range, we needed to feel like we were upgrading from our first home. The turreted Victorian kept us happy for a few minutes, but now we needed our brownstone and it had to be more convenient than the Slope. Our A train express from Nostrand Avenue is 10 minutes to downtown. Take that, F train!

We bought a house that needed more work than we thought. (Isn’t that always the case?).

Photos.

It took us a year and a whole lot of dough to finish the rental units. We had contractors helping, but did a ton of work ourselves. This was our first full restoration project and we learned a lot.

Same as it ever was

So, here’s where we’re at now…. Living upstate (house undergoing restoration), going down to Brooklyn on weekends (our apartment NOT livable). Basically, we traded in our Park Slope/Kingston for Beacon/Bed Stuy. After 13 years, we’re still living with holes in our walls and bare light bulbs hanging from pigtails, but we don’t notice it anymore.

What was the question?

So, this blog thing. I hope to pass along some advice. About affordable real estate, diy, period restorations, decorating bargains, sustainable living, etc. I don’t claim to be an expert, but if it’s true that one learns from their mistakes, then I’m pretty close! And remember one thing…

It all started because of the pets.