One of the options I’m pursuing is to potentially buy an older house and restoring it. Many houses out in the country are old and in some cases very old and in need of a lot of work. The thing is to know what you are buying and have a plan to restore it to your standards, and if you are borrowing money, to the banks standards. That’s how my buddy did it for his homestead.

A big advantage of an old house is the land is already developed, the infrastructure installed at a discounted price to you as it’s used. No new land will be developed in buying a new house, you can continue to use an existing resource through its full lifespan rather than buying new. Of course that limits you to what already exists – potentially much larger and complex than the simple house I would want. You could end up paying for and heating and lighting a lot of house I would never use.

The thing about even old houses is – outside of Amish homes – thourghly modern and complicated. Virtually all old houses have been upgraded to have central heating and utility electricity. Most have flush toilets and showers, kitchen sinks and full ranges and ovens. Many have been outfitted with laundry machines and even dishwashers.

All things to break and need replacement. All to haul off to the local garbage dumping grounds and hand over more cash to buy the shinny new model that will last a few days until old and then be quickly on the way to the dumping grounds. Plus most houses – new and old have enormous amounts of space to heat and light. Old ones are particularly wasteful with poor insulation and fixtures that do not necessarily throw light into the most efficient ways.

Plus there is the whole issue of figuring out how to rebuild an old structure. I don’t really give a rats ass about how beautiful, clean or modern structure but it has to be functional and thrifty on energy to own and operate. Obsolete has no value in my mind if it’s functional. To fix a structure beyond what I can do with my own hands requires finding and hiring qualified contractors and while I have one or two possibilities in my mind, I do worry about getting ripped off. Money is an issue but not as much as for many as I do good work and work hard.

The truth is what I want is essentially is a very basic hunting camp that I can turn into a very basic home within a somewhat reasonable commuting distance of Albany which is a bit like searching for a unicorn. I really have nothing but disdain for the things I see highlighted on Zillow. You know when I see a home listed on Zillow the first thing I look at after the price is the acerage it is on and then followed by the location and how long of a commute I’d have to suffer to live there. The property includes a house on it. How nice, kind of having air conditioning or cruise control in the car. Most houses have lots of pictures of the interior but most are just white wall, carpeting (yuck), trendy plastic appliances and vinyl siding. Shit I either hate or don’t care about.

I know my search for a home is not impossible, and maybe I got to bite the bullet and buy land and build my own. But I hate to develop even more of the wilderness even if my dream abode is much more humble than the typical suburbanite home built out in the country these days. But I’ll keep studying Zillow and various land websites but it’s really hard to figure this all out, how to do it right, in a budget, secure the necessary permits and get it built.

Writing down my problem won’t fix it, but it gives me some time to think about what I actually want and the hard realities I face in getting it. I continue to read, research and talk to many people about my predicament.