Trying To Stay The Course

It's been six months and I've made progress but at the same time feel like we haven't moved at all. The honest truth of the matter is that I am a heavy dreamer and over the years have moved without a lot of purpose or direction, just following whatever dream pulled me the strongest. I've ended up with some big messes to clean up as a result. The two biggest messes that really affect us starting a business are finances and home organization.

Finances are still rough. We are still planning to move to North Carolina next summer so most 'starting a business' plans are on hold until then (I do have some things I can work on in the meantime, and I have plans to do them after I finish tackling the next hurdle). We've taken Dave Ramsey's Financial Peace University course (wonderful material) and have improved the way we handle our finances as a family over the past year, but there's a lot more work we need to do. I'd love to start all my businesses debt-free and continue running them debt-free. I think that's a worthwhile and important goal, but it also means it'll take longer to get to the OPENING THE BUSINESS point. The focus for 2013 is to really cut back on spending, save enough for the move and for six months' worth of living expenses (my husband will be trying to find a job in North Carolina before the summer but if he doesn't, we will most likely be moving anyway), and to be debt free by the end of the year. There's a lot of dollar signs involved in those goals, so they're pretty lofty, but that's the aim.

Home organization. I'm probably a hoarder. I call myself a recovering hoarder, at any rate. Are you always a hoarder, or are you no longer a hoarder once you've moved out of the hoarding mentality? I believe I have moved out of it over the past few years. I don't NEED things anymore. I don't have a burning desire to acquire STUFF. I rarely shop. I have gotten rid of hundreds (literally) of boxes of items from our home. It's still like having ten pounds of sugar in a five pound bag though. I'm not quite done with my first decluttering pass-through (which has only taken me, oh, YEARS to do, and that's no exaggeration) but I'm close. I can see the end, I know what's going to be left and what's going to go, and I mostly know where I want everything to live.

Over the past month I've been critically reevaluating my home and what will be left in it. It's a small home but it's still packed to the gills. There are a lot of things I'd like to keep. Things I just plain LOVE (books being the big one there; it breaks my heart to imagine getting rid of any more books than I already have, and yet I STILL have too many). Things I want to keep for the Not House. Crafting supplies, of which I have WAY too many - yet they are important for my business endeavors. General house detritus. Some days I'm ready to sell it all and start with a clean slate. Some days I'm on Pinterest, pinning beautiful homes and thinking I should just become a minimalist already. There's a balance I need to strike, and I'm not quite there yet. Do I box up all my collections, my Not House items, until I have the business? Do I box up all but my favorite books until I have the space? Or would it be better to let these things go, and acquire them again when my dreams are realized? (The books, by the by, can also go in the Not House.)

There's also the question of moving. How much of this stuff do I REALLY want to move with us in six or seven months?

Those questions are largely rhetorical, as what is right for YOU isn't necessarily what is right for me. They are just the things that go 'round my mind when I'm cleaning the same things over and over and feeling it wear on me. I'm slowly figuring it out. It's getting there.

This affects the business at this time largely because I don't have much space. I don't have much crafting space (I do have a crafting desk and some space to work, but it's small), I certainly don't have a lot of STORAGE space, and as far as crafting the miniature displays I mentioned in my last post six months ago? I REALLY don't have the space for those yet. It's frustrating, because it's something I really want to tackle, but I have to accept my current limitations and change course again.

Right now I'm planning, once I get just a tad more organized, on starting with a subset of the Not House that I will call Fudge & Oddities. My vision for the store itself is a fudgery (and popcorn, and possibly retro candy) with eclectic crafts / home decor for sale. I need to find a rental commercial kitchen up here before I can launch the food part of it (I already located one in North Carolina), but the Oddities part I can start pretty much right away. I can start it before I move because I can go to vendor fairs with my wares... and I can continue to sell that way when we move to North Carolina, and until we have the money for a storefront. At which point I will have to make a decision: buy land for the Not House and start there, OR open a store in town and then move later to the Not House land, wherever it may be. That's a ways down the road though. I'm still not sure where this whole thing will end up. I'm just going to start with making some wares and selling at fairs (and on etsy), and we will see where we go. I certainly never imagined two years ago that I'd be moving to North Carolina, so who knows where we'll be two years from now?? It's good to have a vision but it pays to be flexible because life throws lots of curves.

In the meantime the hardest thing for me to do is to pull myself out of dreams and stick to the path. There's plenty of room for productive dreaming ON the path, but I often get distracted by dreams not on this exact path. For instance, there's a piece of commercial real estate for sale in the town we currently live in that I keep dreaming about. I could start Fudge & Oddities AND a holiday store in one location, AND live above it! But it's in my home town, which we plan on leaving in six months, AND we are not financially ready to buy a building at this time. This isn't the first piece of real estate that has caught me like this, and it certainly won't be the last, but man they really tug at my heart when they catch me. I could do so much with it! It's hard to be a dreamer sometimes, it really is. I still mourn that bar in Mount Carroll. (It was so very lovely.) I still desperately want to start Spirits Haunted Pub (there's a restaurant for sale 15 minutes from me that would be a great location for it, and I dream about that frequently as well).

If I won the lottery these are the things I'd be launching right away, along with a few other key businesses. I would happily work these businesses until the day I die. I certainly wouldn't be trudging along, spending years of my life digging myself out from the pile of STUFF in which I live. I'd hire a few professional organizers to help me sort it all out, I'd hire a cleaning person to help me keep my house clean (I LOATHE cleaning, I really do), I'd figure out exactly where my ideal Not House location is, I'd buy some land, and I'd start launching my businesses.


Since I don't have millions of dollars at my disposal though, I can't even hire ONE professional organizer. I have to keep doing it myself, step by step (with my limited home-organization skill set, at that!). It's slow, sometimes excrutiatingly slow. Sometimes it's hard to see the progress and I have to slow down and remind myself of all the work I've done. Sometimes I dream about where I want to be and I want to fast forward SO DESPERATELY... except I don't really want to fast-forward my life. I just want the drudgery to be done.
It's important to lay a good foundation though, or the whole thing will crumble; I know this. I think we are working hard to do it the right way. I'm proud of us for taking the time to do it RIGHT.

But if any eccentric billionaires happen across this blog and want to donate some money to the cause, I certainly wouldn't turn you down! I ain't gettin' any younger... and I have enough dreams to occupy me for several lifetimes.

Looking At Properties, Part Seven

There's a lot of taxidermy in the bar. A LOT.

OK, I know I've dragged this out forever. Forgive me! This is the last "looking at properties" post (unless we find some reason to look at anything else in the future, that is). As a bonus: this is the one we love! You finally get to see it!

Have I talked about how this all came about? Probably, but here's a recap: we were visiting Raven's Grin Inn, one of our favorite places in the world, for our friend Sarah's birthday in February. Since there were quite a few of us going, we met at the bar next door before heading in. During this getting together, we learned that the bar was for sale. "WE SHOULD BUY IT AND START A SPOOKY BAR/RESTAURANT NEXT DOOR TO RAVEN'S GRIN!" ... and the rest is history.

So after we looked at the six properties with Amy from Isenhart Realty, we parted ways and went back to Charlie's (AKA the bar we love). Verdict? We still love it. Last time we didn't get a chance to look upstairs and we were worried it would be uninhabitable. This visit we got to see the upstairs and were pleasantly surprised to find that it is totally workable.

The bar is for sale by owner and they have NO idea what the size of it is. We're guesstimating it at 12,000 square feet. It's got a huge drive-in basement (there's a garage door at the back), unfinished, lots of storage space. (I didn't take any pictures of the basement.)

Side of the building / fire escape from upstairs. You can see a bit of Raven's Grin in the background.

Side of the building, looking towards the main street.

back of the building. The garage opens into the basement; there is a tiny wrought iron 'porch' off the restaurant. The two boarded-up windows are off the upstairs junk room.

The main floor, the bar / restaurant area, is divided into two sections by a large pocket door. The 'bar' side is by far the largest, but the 'restaurant' side isn't too small either.

Looking into the bar side from the front door, towards the left.

Looking into the bar side from the front door, towards the right.

A few booths at the front of the bar side. It's hard to tell in this lighting, but there are three giant bison heads hanging over the booths. As well as some antlers and a few dead squirrels. One of which is just a HEAD. No I'm not kidding.

The lights in the back are on the old, original bar... the newer, sit-at bar is in front. It curves down quite far.

Tin ceiling. LOVE IT.

This is the restaurant side. The kitchen is back to the left. The door I am pointing at goes into the smaller 'junk' room.

Large walk-in beer / wine cooler on the restaurant side. This opens to the bar on the right.

Looking into the bar from the restaurant side.

Looking into the bar from the restaurant side.

Then there's a small room at the back, currently filled with junk, that we could do a variety of things with.

Room of junk!

Plus, of course, the kitchen, which is of decent size as well.

fryers!

griddle!

pizza oven!

their current menu

The upstairs is equally huge. It already contains a fairly good-sized one bedroom apartment. (We would probably turn that into a two-bedroom apartment and rent it out.)

Kitchen in the apartment.

Bedroom in the apartment.

Living space in the apartment.

Bathroom in the apartment. Red carpet! Oy!

The rest of the upstairs consists of two rooms - one is a large, open space that they occasionally use for banquets / weddings. 

The other is a smaller room that they have NEVER used; it's another junk room. It's had some water damage (they recently replaced the roof) and would need to be gutted.

PILES of junk.

water damage.

They don't even really know what's in that back door.

We would probably combine these two spaces into one large three-bedroom apartment and use that as our living space.

It's just perfect in a lot of ways. It needs some sprucing up, sure, and of course we have lots of ideas for putting our own spooky touches on it, but overall we love it. The old worn wooden floors, the huge bar, the gorgeous old bar behind the 'newer' bar, the amount of space, the location (right next to Raven's Grin and still on the main downtown Mount Carroll street), it's all great.

The owner is asking $200,000 for it. She's pretty willing to include most of the stuff inside, it seems, minus some memorabilia they would like to keep, of course. The price is still a little high for the area but she seems willing to negotiate too.

So. This is it. We are trying to get the business plan finished and also get out there with an inspector / structural engineer to make sure everything is up to code. Then we are going to talk to her about making an offer and see where we can go from there. Our first step is to see if she would be willing to do some sort of owner financing deal with us (she owns it outright). If she won't, things are going to get a lot more complicated for us... we don't have much capital at all, and their business numbers have been pretty abysmal for the last few years (for a number of reasons, we believe; we're looking at it as a brand new business since we will run it totally differently). We are really concerned about our ability to get any kind of traditional loan.

We won't give up on our dream though!

First things first though. Business plan and inspection. We'll go from there.

Looking At Properties, Part Six

The sixth property was the last property we looked at with a realtor that day (we did go back to 'our' bar and look at it again, and YES I will share pictures of that in my next post!), and BOY was it a doozy. It was BY FAR the largest place we saw, and yet I didn't take nearly as many pictures of it as I did of other places because it was, quite honestly, completely overwhelming. We could easily have spent half a day looking at JUST this property. I'm going to switch things up a bit with this post and give you the property details at the end of the post, and am just going to do my best to lay out this property much as I experienced it.

This one was also in Savanna, close to the last two we looked at, and it was listed at around $180,000 (I BELIEVE; the price on the listing has changed considerably now (MUCH lower), but that is where it was when we looked at it). We almost didn't put it on our list because it didn't really fit what we were looking for... the property listing said something about four storefronts downstairs with apartments upstairs. I lobbied to put it on our viewing list though because it sounded interesting... it spanned several addresses, which meant it was several building together, and two of the storefronts were empty; the listing said something about knocking out a wall and making them into a restaurant so I thought 'eh, what the hell, let's check it out'. Boy oh boy. I'm still not sure how I feel about that decision! People say "it never hurts to look", but let me tell you my brain aches every time I think about this place, lol.

So we met the current owner of the building, who pulled out a GIANT keyring and proceeded to take us on a tour of the place. We started in one of the empty storefronts; it had previously been a restaurant. We spent a decent amount of time looking at it, not realizing how very MUCH we still had to look at. 

This and the next few pictures are the first storefront we saw.

I took quite a few pictures in here.

I had no idea my camera was going to be basically useless here, lol.

This was some outbuilding that housed a boiler or something they no longer use. She suggested it could be storage or could be removed to make more parking or something.

We're looking around and the lady is telling us about the previous owner and the other storefronts and we come to realize that there are actually SIX storefronts, not four... this building spans an entire city block. Wow. FOUR of the six are rented. Two of them are rented to restaurants, the other two are a cute thrift store and an antiques shop. We went into all the storefronts and were a tad overwhelmed already, but mostly I was seeing dollar signs... except for the fact that it wouldn't make sense to open a restaurant in our building that already houses two restaurants. Hmmm. But the possibilities...

The next few pictures were of one of the restaurants in the place.

Then we went upstairs. It was pretty dingy and dirty, but people were living there. It was pretty busy, actually. We saw several people coming in and out and I started thinking "exactly how many apartments are up here, anyway??" The lady is knocking on doors and asking people if we can see their ROOMS. The first few we looked at were just that, ROOMS. One or two small rooms together, with a bathroom. She's telling us about how she gives each of her tenants a mini fridge and microwave and I'm thinking "what the hell IS this place, like a boarding house? People LIVE like this? WHAT?" I was utterly confused. She also showed us an actual apartment. And THEN she took us UPSTAIRS.

LOTS of creeeeepy hallways.

Plastic over the fire escape. Apparently this is OK with the fire dept. As long as people can tear through it, you can cover that shit up. Whatever.

Yeah, there was a third floor to this madness. More of the same; mostly rooms with one or two apartments. Dingy and run down. The section we saw covered probably the space above, oh, two of the storefronts below.

And THEN, she took us through ANOTHER door into the section of the building that needs so much repair she simply shut it down and just flat out doesn't USE IT. Those two floors covered the top of the other four storefronts. Second and third stories of room after room after room after room. Most of them filled with junk, with falling ceilings and dirty dingy rugs. The layout reminded me of a closed-down version of the Overlook Hotel in The Shining... she just kept opening doors and sometimes there would be a room, sometimes an apartment, sometimes a giant closet, sometimes... a whole other hallway. It went on and on and ON. It went back way further than I thought too; this place was just HUGE.

Blogger decided not to let me organize my pictures very well in this post. The layout is a MESS. Much like this property!

At some point she mentioned that it had been a hotel and suddenly the rented 'rooms' made total sense to me. The listing said something about the place having hotel STATUS but by the time we looked at it I had forgotten that, so I was utterly confused for a while.

Words and pictures cannot really give you the magnitude of this place. It was... quite frankly, it was amazing. A very special place for a very special buyer. It needs a TON of work, but the work could be done in sections too; fix up one building's worth and rent them out while you work on the next section. There is so much raw potential in this place it just boggles my mind. Part of me is totally in love with it. Who doesn't want to buy a giant creepy old partially abandoned hotel and live the crazy life in it?? OK, maybe most people don't, but *I* do! This place could be Raven's Grin 2, it's that crazy. Or if I was ready to open my haunted bed and breakfast, this place would be PERFECT.

Unfortunately, it doesn't fit our current goal at all. As I mentioned, it doesn't really make sense to open a restaurant in a building that already has two restaurants as tenants. And we're nowhere near ready to aim for the haunted B&B. And we couldn't open a restaurant and run it AND try to renovate and run this place without major headaches. I like a good project, but this is a PROJECT. 

Still, I think the reason that it hurts my head every time I think about it is because it captured part of my heart and I wish SO MUCH that we had more money and could buy both this place AND the other bar and run both at the same time. We would need enough money to afford us the luxury of time and lots of staff though, because this place needs SO MUCH work. It's just... it was truly amazing. Opportunity galore. It's just not the right time for us to tackle something like this and it KILLS ME.

After we left, OJ said something about the pool. "WHAT pool?!" I exclaimed. 

"She said there was a pool! In the basement!" 

"SHUT UP. You're totally lying."

"No way! I swear she said there's a pool in there somewhere! They don't use it because they had problems with pipes freezing, but I swear to god there's a pool somewhere in that building."

The place was so huge we MISSED the POOL.

So. I noticed when I pulled up the listing for this place to drop the description into this post that the price for the place has dropped by about a hundred grand. It's now listed at $84,999. THAT KILLS ME EVEN MORE. It says it has 14,420 square feet but I'm pretty sure that's a lie. I think it's way bigger than that, heh.

The listing reads: "LOCATED IN THE MIDDLE OF THE DOWNTOWN AREA, MISSISSIPPI RIVER, STATE PARK & BIKE PATH, HOTEL STATUS, 2 APARTMENTS--22 ROOMS SECOND & THIRD FLOORS ALL VACANT NEEDING MAJOR REPAIRS. 4 STORE FRONTS-3 WITH TERRAZZO FLOORS CURRENTLY RENTED-2 RESTAURANTS, ENDLESS POSSIBLITIES FOR THIS PROPERTY WITH PARTIAL VIEW OF MISSISSIPPI RIVER ON NORTH END OF 2ND & 3RD FLOORS-CO OP ARTISTS, BIRD WATCHERS, BOAT/CANOE ENTHUSIASTS, BICYCLISTS (GREAT RIVER BIKE PATH) & SO ON."

Anyone want to buy this place AND the other bar for us? We need a patient mega-investor! I can do great things with these places, I assure you. I just need enough money to get the properties and to have a little TIME to put some TLC into them. But I have such great plans...

(Yeah. I don't think we're getting this one. But good god do I want it. But if I could only pick ONE, it would be the bar.)

Looking At Properties, Part Five

Mississippi River views from the back of the building.

By the fifth property (also in Savanna), we were all starting to get a little tired. The kids had been very good but were starting to get bored with looking at buildings at this point, and our brains were full of information. But we had two more lined up and we figured we could just look quick and then move on with our business. (Boy were we utterly unprepared for the sixth property!!) 

Property five, just down the street from the previous property, was also a former restaurant with two three-bedroom apartments upstairs. The problem with this one, as we soon discovered, is that it has been empty for a long time. At least two years, according to the men in the hardware store across the street. And it's being sold in "as is" condition. Listed at $115,000 and boasting 5400 square feet, it's a little smaller than we wanted but still a decent size overall. "Business And Living Space. The 2700 Sq.ft. Restaurant area, with seating for around 50, needs some TLC and could be ready for business. Upstairs you'll find two 3 bedroom apartments, with views of the Mississippi River from the rear porch. There is also a 2 car attached garage. All that is necessary to move in and start your business. Property is being sold "AS IS". "

We really liked the layout of the bar / restaurant. The front had nice tall window facing the street, with seating on either side. The bar itself was in the middle of the restaurant, and there were tables and booths on either side. I loved the tall wooden booths and the big upright piano in the back. At first I thought the kitchen was a little small because it seemed like there was just a kitchen 'cubby' at the back of the restaurant, but then we went through a door and found a giant commercial kitchen. Not a lot of equipment but MORE than enough space.

left front window

right front window

bathroom

LOVE those tall wooden booths. LOVE THEM!

center bar

screen hanging over the bar. perfect for movie nights!

the bar

first tiny kitchen space

first tiny kitchen space

first tiny kitchen space

the much larger commercial kitchen

I love an old upright piano

the much larger commercial kitchen

The stairs at the back that led up to the apartments were a little concerning. They were in a sort of enclosed porch area; there was an obvious roof leak (I guess that's ONE benefit of looking at properties in the rain!) and some broken windows. You went up the (somewhat rickety) enclosed stairs only to go back outside briefly and then in another door that lead to the apartment hallway.

leaky, leaky

leaks and broken glass

  

hallway outside the apartments

Both three-bedroom apartments had the same layout. Neither of them were in great shape. The first one had a lovely big porch off the back, overlooking the Mississippi River (great for views from the apartment; bad for flooding concerns for the restaurant!). There was a good amount of disrepair throughout and some clear water damage, especially on the woodwork. The first apartment had the most moisture damage; at first I thought there was a strange, textured veneer on all the wood, only to realize it was entirely covered with weird hardened water-beading. It's a real shame because the woodwork must have been lovely at one time; lots of neat molding, beautiful built-ins, gorgeous windows. With some TLC this entire place could be beautiful.

beautiful, badly water-damaged woodwork

gorgeous glass

weird double-skylight in the kitchen

bedroom

... does this mean no one has lived here since the '80's??

OJ found the picture and glasses in a closet

The second apartment had some water damage but not as much, but otherwise was pretty much in an equal state of disrepair. It was semi-painted throughout, as if someone had WANTED to take care of it and then said 'ah, fuck it' and left. 

stairs to the front of the building

more beautiful woodwork

nice paint job

love the built-ins

Overall, this was a really neat building. I liked it a lot. It wasn't as big as the bar we originally fell in love with but it had the same overall ambiance to it and would provide adequate space if we went with it. I even liked some of the decor better than the original bar (the tall wooden booths, the piano, the woodwork in the apartments, the porch overlooking the river). 

Concerns: flooding from the Mississippi is a big concern. Being right on the river is neat, as long as the river is behaving itself. The amount of work this place would require to be in working condition is also a bit of a concern. It's NOT move-in ready; we would definitely need a good amount of capital above and beyond the purchase price before we could move in and run the place. Finally, it is in Savanna, where there is more competition in terms of restaurants / bars AND is ten minutes away from Raven's Grin.