Well... In Susan's words, we should not be left unattended.
Week before last our neighbor sent us an email about a "living estate" auction in Arp. Arp is a town of 970 about twelve miles from us. So the Friday before the auction we went by to look over what all they had. It was kind of an antique / junk / florist business that the lady had gotten too old to run. The building was originally the office for a lumber yard, we've heard it is the second oldest building in Arp, built somewhere around 1930. The Arp Fire Department had gotten some sort of a grant and had bought the entire block and was going to build a new fire station. Everything had to go. I mean everything.
Walking through the building we noticed at least some of the flooring was wood. We still need some wood for the floors in our house so I thought if I could get it cheap enough, it might be worthwhile.
The auction started at 10:00 Saturday morning, with the big items scheduled to be auctioned off starting at noon. Right at noon they auctioned off some guns, some trailers, a riding lawnmower and then got to the buildings. There was no interest on the 35 x 35 tin shop out back. When they started on the house the auctioneer started at $300. I waited to see what kind of interest there was. Not a single bid. When the auctioneer asked if there was any interest in the building I said I'd give $200. Not a single other bid. I just bought a building in Arp, Texas!
The building either has to be moved by October 31 or they will bulldoze it. So having nothing else to do these days (NOT!), last week we started tearing up carpet and linoleum to see what we had. We found that we had more wood flooring than we thought but the foundation is rotten.
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| View from the front of the house. Don't you love the color? |
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| View from the side with some of the auctioned items still in the yard. |
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| The backroom with the wood floor that got my attention. |
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| Grady and his son Andrew finding more wood flooring in the front rooms. With Duncan's help. |
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| Behind the walls in the backroom, lots of beadboard. |
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| My brother Gary and I tearing out the beadboard for reuse in our house |
So far, after five days, we've got most of the beadboard and most of the flooring. Another day or two and we should be done.
Back to the comment about being left unattended. Anyone have some free time to keep an eye on us?
Brian
