It was a whirlwind, crazy, (stressful), fast-paced kind of purchase. Ronald found out about the cabin while out to dinner with some friends on Sunday, July 16th, who saw it on Redfin and sent me the link while I (Rosalie) was out with a girlfriend. As Ron put’s it, I was very bullish about the property, and started doing research on it nearly immediately. I contacted the County because my main concern was with the septic system, which was a big selling point but also a potential large financial expenditure if it was to fail completely. Fears quelled, we scheduled a site visit.
The property is about 1:45 from our home, which for us, doesn’t seem unreasonable for a weekend getaway. In Seattle/Eastside traffic, it can take us an hour to go 10 miles (which we avoid as much as possible), and during the traffic coming home from the Great American Eclipse, it took us 2:10 to go 10 miles to get back into Washington from Pendleton. It takes 45 minutes to 1:15, depending on traffic to get to my sisters’ houses in South King County, and we regularly drive 4-7 hours to visit family in Southern Oregon. To us, 1:45 seems worth it to get to the disconnected, river-cabin bliss we envision for r-cabin.
On our first visit to the cabin, I had contacted the listing agent who let me know it was okay to look in the windows and check out the property. Basically, it was a MESS, there was garbage everywhere (not like household waste, but old construction debris, doors, beds, junk), three sheds full of junk, and the main cabin was stripped down to the studs. But the river! It was right off the deck and the sound it made, with the view it had down the river as it curved, unseen around the bend, with the tree covered hill in the back. It makes you forget about everything behind you (cabin, trash, work, cost) and we knew we wanted to purchase the property.
Ronald and I had talked for quite some time about purchasing a vacation home, more likely some property somewhere we could own for 10 years and then build a lake house or cabin. In fact, just this past valentines day, while at the Devotchka concert at the Showbox at the Market, I was showing him homes on the Columbia River, north of Wenatchee, where we have an annual camping trip with a group of friends. So it wasn’t a new idea, but one that I honestly didn’t think we would see come to fruition so quickly.
Two days after visiting the property, we started working on our offer to purchase, and on Wednesday, July 26th, while at Neil Diamond’s 50th Anniversary Tour at Key Arena (we’re definitely concert people), our offer was countered and we accepted! It was a cash offer, no contingencies, so we closed on August 8th, and drove out on the 10th to finally go inside for the FIRST TIME. We are adventurous!
This blog will be the best way for our friends and families to stay updated on the progress. We have a lot of plans, and a lot of work to get it ready, but we’re hopeful we can have a vacation home to enjoy for decades by November.
Note: a little about the name, r-cabin. Both Ronald and Rosalie, and our dog Rogan will be recycling refuse, restoring, and rehabilitating the cabin, and eventually resting, relaxing, and recreating in the river cabin, so in keeping with the R&R (&R) (and r,r,r,r,r,r,r), and seeing as there are so many r’s, it made sense to call it r-cabin, because it’s actually ours!