So You Can’t Afford a House, Part Deux

Just a few years ago, it was pretty easy to find an old fixer-upper in Maine, priced at a pittance. A lot of it is gone now, swallowed up in the gray floor-gray walls-gray vinyl-siding maelstrom that has infected the flip this house world. But there’s still some out there. I showed you a shingle style palace for fifty grand last week. If you’re not in a Sangerville, Maine mood, I thought I’d show you that it wasn’t a one-off. How about this brown study, in Madison, Maine?

Madison isn’t as far-flung as Sangerville, so the cover charge is a little higher: $99,000. Madison has nearly 5,000 people in it, which makes it damn near a metropolis in Somerset County. At one time, the town was teeming with factories making things like horse carriages and window sashes and doors and coffins. Just about cradle to grave employment, there. The Kennebec River ambles through the center of town, and it served as the power company and the highway out of town. It helped make Madison into a lumbering town, which supplied the wood for all the factories. There was a paper mill in town, too, but it closed in 2016. I think it’s been re-purposed to make some sort of boondoggly eco-friendly something or other, but whatever they’re doing in there, it doesn’t smell like a paper mill any more when you drive by.

Back to the house. It’s got 4 bedrooms and 2 bathrooms. As far as wrecks go, it’s not all that wrecked.

It’s a Victorian, but a very late Victorian. They banged the last nail in this thing just before banging the last nail into Old Vickie’s coffin. It’s more or less a Queen Anne Cottage style. Asymmetrical, multiple rooflines, clipped corners, bays, wrap-around porches, and lots of things to collect spider webs. It rambles out towards the back and has a nifty attached barn, which is in good repair and neat as a pin inside. That’s quite unusual around here. In general, people in Maine put things into their barns, and leave them there to age for fifty years or so until they figure they can throw them away without feeling bad about it. At my last house, I watched out the window while the neighbors, who had sold their house, cleaned out the garage. Everything but a car came out. My wife and I amused ourselves identifying the vintage of the stuff as it emerged. Hey look, it’s Burt Reynolds’ bachelor pad crushed velvet orange sectional sofa! We were dumbfounded at last, though, when an entire airplane came out of there. Only curse words would do it justice. A f@#$%ing plane!

Back to business. This Madtown fixer is the best kind of neglected. You can fix a house that’s been neglected. It’s constant remuddling that wrecks everything, and eventually makes houses worthless. This house isn’t worthless:

Everything needs a little attention, but nothing is ruined. The dangling outlet hints that you’ll be fishing new wires in the walls eventually, but honestly, after you steam off the wallpaper, you can bash away at the plaster, put in what you need in the way of Romex and plumbing, and patch it back up easily enough.

Holy cow, this place is just short of a palace inside:

OK, maybe not a palace. But you could cock a snook at your friends when you invited them over for dinner. You know, after you spent 10,000 hours fixing the place. C’mon, it’s got pocket doors and wainscotting!

Right off, it’s got a workable kitchen and usable bathrooms. With only a little preliminary work, you could camp out in this house without too much discomfiture, and bang on it to your heart’s content, or your heart’s failure, whatever comes first.

Taxes, at $200 per month, won’t break you. And Madison, while not exactly Tribeca, isn’t completely nowheresville. It has a sorta downtown with modestly impressive brick buildings, with things like bad restaurants and dope stores. Madison isn’t too far from Skowhegan, either, which has a more or less lively, downscale downtown. You could live in Madison, and almost like it. What’s stopping you?