Touring Our Future Home at the Home and Garden Show

This is kinda like the Star Wars series where the second story       

released is the first story in the series.  In my last

              post I told you about Our Envelope Home,

 now you get to hear how we found it,

                       bought it and learned about it’s

unusual beginnings. Too bad

 I can’t make these words

                                scroll like Star Wars…

I need a

 Bigger

          Budget.

     Before HGTV we got our ideas on home renovation from attending the Home and Garden show held every year at the convention center.  We always looked forward to the Home show.  It was fun looking at all the innovative products and designs to see how we could make a few changes around our house.  There were some elaborate displays and for a number of years they would actually build an entire house in the convention center (without a basement), pretty amazing.

     A complete house built at the convention center was a big draw because it was an amazing feat that took place in about 7 days, seems almost impossible.  I happily stood in line to view the house whenever they built one there and they were always worthwhile.  I remember commenting on how attractive some of these houses were, especially one in particular. 

     Fast-forward a few years when we decided to move to St. Charles, Missouri.  A real estate agent told us about a house at the south end of Hwy 94 that was on the market, so we decided to take a look at it.  We were not really prepared to buy anything; we normally don't make quick decisions on a major purchase like a house.  So we drove out to the house in Cedar Glen Subdivision off Hwy 94 to take a look.   We immediately liked it but we had few concerns.  We were told it was a high efficient envelope home but it had a wood (treated lumber) foundation, which was unusual in Missouri.  There was a guarantee on the foundation but guarantees are only as good as the company backing them.  The builder still owned the property but renters were living in it at the time.  This was the first envelope home built in St. Charles County.  

     We didn't make an offer because we wanted to investigate this wood foundation.  A short time later after we felt more comfortable about the wood foundation we made another visit to the house still not seriously looking, just curious.  The real estate agent encouraged us to make an offer saying the builder was anxious to sell.  Mimi and I talked it over (we really liked the house) and decided to make a lowball offer because the wood foundation would scare most people away.  We did not bring the checkbook because we had no intention of making an offer at this time but we figured what could we lose so we made a low offer excepting it would be rejected.  Everyone knows when you make an offer on the house you put earnest money down to secure the offer but I only had $10 to put down.  Surprisingly the agent accepted the earnest money and submitted the offer.  Try that in today’s market and see where it gets you.

     The negotiations went quickly and we got a great price for our high efficient envelope home in St. Charles.  End of story right, no not even close.  At some point in the negotiations the builder told us this home was originally built in the convention center for the Home and Garden show, then disassembled and brought out to this lot and reassembled on the foundation.  No way, I knew there was something familiar about this place, I had been through this house at the convention center and really liked it.  The builder said it took over 300 carpenters to build this house at the convention center in 7 days and he had colored slides showing the build.  He loaned me the slides and I watched our home being built at the convention center from bottom to top, it was awesome.  There were so many carpenters running around working on the house, it looked like there were ants running all over the house, carpenter ants I'm sure, Yuk Yuk.

     How did they disassemble and reassemble this house, you might ask?  These were my exact words.  I’m told they numbered then cut the walls at the intersections then loaded everything on a tractor-trailer hauled it out to St. Charles and reassembled it (on the wood foundation) by adding additional 2x4’s or 2x6’s on the corners to reattach the walls.  I’m not sure about the electrical since the drywall wasn’t removed but somehow everything seemed to work except the air conditioner.  Actually, the air conditioner worked but it was wired incorrectly to the furnace so that first summer the furnace ran whenever the air conditioner was on.  They kept saying that the heat pump didn’t put out cold air like a regular air conditioner, which maybe true but it shouldn’t be warm air.   Heat pump Smeat pump.  We finally convinced them something was wrong which is when they found that it was wired wrong.

     Thankfully, everything went smoothly after that and we enjoyed living there for about 14 years.  Our home had a big yard (corner lot) in a great neighborhood with many good memories.