We bought a Church!!!

Yes, that’s right….. we bought a CHURCH. Now, there is more to the story, so let’s take a step back to the beginning on how this all happened so fast. One month to be EXACT.

One night back in September I couldn’t sleep and was browsing the internet for commercial properties to rent for The CRAFT House. I had a building in the original plan, but like many things, plans change and I was back to square one. This year has brought many challenges into my life with my health, work and an unexpected renovation to our newly renovated home. As you can imagine, The CRAFT House had to take a back seat for a short time being.

A little part of me was losing hope of finding the perfect place for The CRAFT House to call home. Back to that sleepless night…. I came across this:

My brain just started swirling with big dreams and ideas for this building. It just so happens that my Dad (we shall call him our investor) was looking to invest in a few new properties, so I very carefully mentioned the property to him on a Friday. Well, Sunday afternoon we met our Realtor at the church, and about 30 minutes later my Dad said “Let’s Make an Offer.” Ummmm….. what?? Just like that. My Mom immediately fell in love with the church, which was what truly sealed this deal.

So, now we wait… you know the game. We get the call from our Realtor that “there is another offer” and to raise ours in order to secure it. We thought for a couple days and my Dad decided to risk it and only raised it a little, and said he would be the backup offer. My gut was sick for days, just waiting to hear. We finally hear back from the sellers agent and they countered for the amount that they wanted us to raise the original offer to. I thought we’d have to look into securing a home loan offered by loan providers like SoFi to cover the added amount.

A couple of days later, my mom signed the counter offer and we moved onto the next phase of church buying. We set up the inspection and during that time found out that there were some things in the listing that were not true such as, the church being on a well, when they listed it was on city water, and it has a septic tank, not city sewer. Although, I have heard from many people that the tanks can provide us with many more benefits than a city sewer, so we may have considered looking for a septic tank installation company anyway. But thankfully, we didn’t need to worry about this now. I’m just looking forward to the fact that it will be low-maintenance and cost-effective because we won’t have any money to spare when it comes to running and renovating the property. I’m so excited. Luckily, the rest of the inspection went well, but as you can imagine there were some things noted that need immediate attention.

So now what?? Play hard ball, or just bite the bullet and pay? My Mom and I talked and had the ultimate decision on what we wanted to do. If we go back with a lower offer, we once again risk losing it…. It was a tough thought to stomach. We talked, and I let my Mom make the final decision. She wanted to play hard ball and guess what? WE GOT IT!!! We got it for our original offer!

Talk about the craziest roller coaster of emotions in just 3 short weeks. Here we are one month later and we just signed the papers yesterday and get our keys today. My mom and I are now the proud owners of a CHURCH!!!

So there are two things that will happen with this Church. We are going to be restoring it back to it’s original 1910 charm, and also creating the best The CRAFT House ever! We have already started to plan the restoration. It won’t be anything major, but we are looking to install some residential ceiling tiles, replace the current bathroom and, of course, give it all a good lick of paint! We may also have to replace the windows, although we are waiting to see the true state of the current ones before we decide. This blog will feature the Restoration, and you can head over to www.TheCRAFTHouseOR.com if you would like to learn more about my business.

This is the most exciting adventure I have been on and I can’t wait to share more with you. In the coming days, I plan to share lot’s of pictures and may even pop onto Facebook Live to take a walk around the property with you all, so be sure to follow me on Facebook.

Move in starts tomorrow, so I better get busy! Thank you all for your support and well wishes as I embark on the biggest journey ever!