Dillards 75: Keep the Food Out of the Bathroom

[Sky with diamonds]

I like the house. I still don't like Derick. 

I still miss the space of my old apartment. It's very crowded in a smaller space here, especially since my oldest brother has moved in. 

 

[SassyPants]

48 minutes ago, Timetostoplurking said:

and starting the home decorating insta post in 3...2...1.... 

 

 

(I predict lots of bible stuff on barnwood planks)

Nah, not Jill’s type of post. Can you imagine Jill trying to pull off home decorating posts? Oh Good Lord, no!

[AtlanticTug]

The main area of the house looks and feels really claustrophobic. Very narrow room, the kitchen is not open (would be way better to bust down that wall and put in an island instead of the awkward half wall. You'd get a lot more light and you could see what the kids are doing. Also I have a real aversion to houses with no foyer - especially ones with carpet. So you step in with filthy shoes and bam right on the carpet too. Rain, snow, etc, it's just a total nightmare especially with little kids.

But I am happy that they have their own place and aren't living on the compound. They could add a kid or two and still be ok in that house.

My guess is that Derick's father had a life insurance plan. Or that Cathy is very comfortable.

[Someone Out There]

I've personally been of the opinion that for a lot of houses, it's not so much the size, as opposed to what the layout is/how you use it as to whether it feels large or small.  For me 1400sqft 4br home would be a decent size home, not huge but not tiny either.  In the 1960's-80's the government built quite a few homes in the city I live in, they were generally 3br 1 bath (potentially separate toilet) 95-105sqm homes (~1022sqft - 1130sqft).  While not huge, they are definately livable.

I feel for a lot of houses they waste a lot of space in the layout or have odd things in the layout making the places feel smaller than what they actually are.

[BachelorToTheRapture]

4 hours ago, QuiverFullofBooks said:

We stayed in our starter house because we weren’t able to have kids and didn’t need more space. I’m not in a rush to move, but at some point we will want to upgrade and will be able to afford it. I’m wondering if we should go with a custom home. In Northern Virginia most new homes are in developments with HOAs and lots of vinyl siding, both of which I hate with a passion. (My apologies if that offends anyone.)  Maybe this sounds minor, but I really like that our laundry room is next to our closet. Most large houses have laundry rooms downstairs and bedrooms upstairs. Zillow only rarely has floor plans, so it’s hard to shop for that kind of thing. Could I ask a realtor to screen for no HOA, no vinyl siding, and laundry room near master bedroom, or will they just laugh at me?

I'd hope you can ask a realtor for that! If they laugh, find another realtor! I've actually seen places advertised as laundry room upstairs with bedrooms or similar, so you're not the only one who looks for that type of thing.

About formal dining rooms: I want a room with a big dining room table. I love board games and want a good large space to play them with people. I don't need a separate informal dining area (though I'd love a countertop with room for 2-4 barstools for quick food/a place for people to talk to whoever's is cooking).

[JermajestyDuggar]

1 hour ago, AtlanticTug said:

The main area of the house looks and feels really claustrophobic. Very narrow room, the kitchen is not open (would be way better to bust down that wall and put in an island instead of the awkward half wall. You'd get a lot more light and you could see what the kids are doing. Also I have a real aversion to houses with no foyer - especially ones with carpet. So you step in with filthy shoes and bam right on the carpet too. Rain, snow, etc, it's just a total nightmare especially with little kids.

But I am happy that they have their own place and aren't living on the compound. They could add a kid or two and still be ok in that house.

My guess is that Derick's father had a life insurance plan. Or that Cathy is very comfortable.

They might assume the family members will walk in through the garage. My sister hardly ever uses her front door. They always come in through the garage door where the floor is not carpet.

[fluffernutter]

I think the house is really nice. We are entering into the empty nest phase and will be selling our two story house for a single story once our youngest goes off to college. I'd be perfectly happy to move into a house about that size and look. We do want more privacy and not so close to neighbors. Right now we live in a cookie cutter neighborhood with neighbors on top of neighbors. With a dumb HOA. I want a clothes line and chickens lol. 

[onekidanddone]

13 hours ago, MiddleAgedLady said:

To save you a click.....Jill and derick are building a house in Lowell. Arkansas

Every kissing photo of theirs looks so stilted and cold to me. I mean do they even like each other?

[jcanglin991]

Talking about house sizes. We stayed in our starter house for 24 years. We didn't have kids and my husband travelled for work a lot so I was alone and the house had fences and gates and was in a good neighborhood so I felt safe being alone. I could come in from work, pull into the garage,  and put the door down behind me. When he stopped travelling so much we talked about moving but he was close to retirement and my parent were sick so we stayed put five minutes from them. When they were both gone and husband had retired we started looking for houses in the city that we had started camping in and came to love. Our plans for a small retirement house went out the window when I fell in love with the one we bought. It's the raised Acadian I always wanted  with a kitchen we can both be in at the same time, which is a big change. I also have a laundry room instead of a laundry closet, which was a non-negotiable on my list.  Huge covered back porch/deck, lovely front porch with a swing and rockers. Then there's my very own bathroom that is actually the size of a bedroom. I actually get up at night and just go in there to read my computer when the restless legs act up. I can't tell you how much I love this house. Wait, I just did.

Back to the Dillards, how in the world can they afford to build that house? We actually have retirement income that we worked many, many years for and my husband has a VA pension. I guess our parents really messed up by telling us we needed to work for what we had, like they did.

Edited April 19, 2019 by jcanglin991
The two of us actually had more than one parent between us

[Sky with diamonds]

Hoping this new house for the family will no longer mean being fed in the bathroom. 

Or so I hope. 

[Don'tlikekoolaid]

Someone on Pickles page posted this screenshot.  I looked it up and this grift is still active and collecting cash, what a couple of self entitled fatheads! 

Spoiler

 

[Snarkasarus Rex]

Hmmm...someone has some ‘splaining to do.  When ‘new direction in ministry’ entry was posted on Meechelle and Boob’s blog (Aug 17), it said they were no longer accepting donations for Dillard Family Ministries...

ETA: the same entry on the Dillard’s page *doesn’t* say they will stop accepting donations.  Looks like Boob added that little tidbit to their page...was he sick of their constant grifting because it made the family look bad?

Edited April 19, 2019 by Snarkasarus Rex

[AlwaysExcited]

4 hours ago, SassyPants said:

Nah, not Jill’s type of post. Can you imagine Jill trying to pull off home decorating posts? Oh Good Lord, no!

Recipes and life hacks aren't her type of posts either, but here we are. 
Home decorating with Dillards is coming. Brace yourselves. 

[nastyhobbitses]

Gotta admit, when I saw "BIG NEWS!" on her Instagram and realized they were building a house/moving, my first thought was "oh thank god it's just that and not another kid". 

Still, two jobless, spendthrift people buying land and building a house? Does money grow on trees for them? I get that land and everything else is a lot cheaper in Arkansas, but Derick hasn't brought in any real income in the past 4 years and I hazard a guess that after blowing god knows how much on law school, he'll find yet more ways to avoid getting a damn job. I guess Jill is bringing something in with her kinda cringey influencer marketing, but I doubt that will last forever. 

[crancraz]

I really hate that floor plan. Personally, I don’t like giant common areas—it’s hard to make separate living areas, toys get everywhere and there’s often so much wasted space. I would absolutely sacrifice bedroom size for larger common area size.

No one in my family spends much time in our bedrooms—we spend time in our common areas. We have a TV room and a small “great” room. We are thinking about turning our garage into another living area to put an office and reading nook/library. Our bedrooms are small, too (house built in 1953), but we have four of them. The master (not really since there’s no attached bathroom) barely fits our king sized bed. One kid room definitely won’t hold a full bed (but that’s why they made twins). House is just under 1800 sf. 

[bella8050]

Honestly I can't even justify the Dillards lifestyle in the last 3+ years (whenever it was that D left Walmart) because Derick might have money from his father. A close friend of mine lost a parent in an accident when she was very young. She was set up with a large amount of money because of a lawsuit. Most of which was put into a trust that she couldn't touch till she was 30. Still before that she could live comfortably. It paid for her college and a nice car. Technically she could have sat on her ass for years. But she didn't. She worked every summer in HS and college and has really done well for herself career wise. She is super protective over the money she received. She would never piss it away by quitting her job that provided her and family insurance to go travel and play missionary, or pay 12k for a participation trophy degree from a place like Cross Church. I get more angry at the thought of Wreck funding their lives that way than anything else. Buying a house however is the one sound decision they've made in the last few years. 

Sorry this has been bothering me for a long time. End of rant.

[Snarkasarus Rex]

I agree that Derick probably did receive some money from a life insurance policy after his father died.  But we’re talking a few hundred thousand, and Cathy was likely the beneficiary and spent a fair amount supporting the family, as she should have.  

Money or not, buying a house and funding law school with no job isn’t a smart idea in the long run.  They’re not living a frugal student life either.  Someone else is helping them out.

 

[VelociRapture]

1 hour ago, Snarkasarus Rex said:

I agree that Derick probably did receive some money from a life insurance policy after his father died.  But we’re talking a few hundred thousand, and Cathy was likely the beneficiary and spent a fair amount supporting the family, as she should have.  

Money or not, buying a house and funding law school with no job isn’t a smart idea in the long run.  They’re not living a frugal student life either.  Someone else is helping them out.

 

Cathy was likely the beneficiary of any potential insurance policy, but we have no clue how much it would have been. It’s equally possible that any payments were enough to just cover a funeral or they were enough to explain the current Dillard lifestyle. 

Speaking personally, my husband has a policy through work that’s on the smaller side. I think it’s in the tens of thousands range and it would likely only cover funeral expenses and allow for a few months of grieving, if even that. But I’m a SAHM and we opted to make private life insurance policies a priority in our budget because we want to be sure we’d both be ok if anything happened to the other (childcare is not cheap after all and husband would have to pay for that if I died, whereas I would need time to possibly further my education before getting back into the job market.) I don’t remember exact amounts, but I think our policies are into the million dollar ranges - our daughter is only 2 though, so we needed bigger policies in order to ensure we’d have time to get back on our feet after grieving and that our daughter would be taken care of through part, if not all, of college. It’s entirely possible that Rick and Cathy did something similar when their boys were young and the policy was still active when he died unexpectedly. 

Again, this is all pure speculation and we just don’t know. 

[Drala]

@VelociRapture You're right, we don't know the sources of the Dillards income, but we can make some logical deductions.  Some money to support the Dillards may be coming from JB, but I can't imagine it is enough to 1) support a family of four in a middle class lifestyle, 2) pay for three years of law school, and 3) finance or buy outright a modest new build  home.  JB is way too tight with money to be that generous, plus he still has a boatload of kids still at home to take care of.  Kathy has to be funding some, if not all, of the Dillards' living expenses.  Kathy may have done well in her career, but I doubt it put her in the millionaire's club, which is where she'd likely need to be to underwrite much of what we're seeing with the Dillards living, schooling, and home buying on close to zero visible income.  A big payout from Rick's life insurance makes total sense in this scenario. 

Edited April 19, 2019 by Drala

[WillWorkForSideHugs]

There is a big chance that with their income (or lack there of) and how rural Lowell is that they qualified for a no money down USDA loan. Also a lot of builders cover some of closing costs. 

They could have gotten that house for as little as nothing down to around $6,000. 

Edited April 19, 2019 by WillWorkForSideHugs

[SassyPants]

No buying used (or saving the difference) for these 2 grifters-

[HereticHick]

14 hours ago, Timetostoplurking said:

and starting the home decorating insta post in 3...2...1.... (I predict lots of bible stuff on barnwood planks)

No no no-- have all your fundy maiden friends come over and paint giant illegible bible verses in "calligraphy" straight on the walls. Extra points for misspellings.

I believe Sierra was into "bible lettering" for a week or so. She can scoot on over and do it.

Edited April 19, 2019 by HereticHick

[SassyPants]

Now that I’ve snarked the hell out of these 2 and this purchase, I think JB has likely given all the kids a sum of money, perhaps what he felt that he owed them for selling their young adult lives for public con$umption. Besides Joy, and in her case I think it’s Austin plan, all the married Duggars have homes, and Joe and Kendra are building another house too. While none of the Dillards currently work, Jill did for many years. And if I’m going to be totally honest, law school tuition and a house are more likely a better investments than praycations, repeated flights to Danger America and date nights, not to mention more kids. I have kids close to Derick’s age. I can’t imagine funding my daughter and her family’s entire life off of my money. My husband and I worked for many decades, no breaks for praycations or parenthood beyond our accrued paid time off, and invested well. We modeled behaviors and paid for education so our kids could do the same, and they do. I can’t imagine that Cathy is so financially secure that she has money to give away to able bodied people who refuse to support themselves. Maybe having a near death illness has allowed her to reason otherwise. I hope I never have to find out.

[nst]

On 4/18/2019 at 7:04 AM, Screamapillar said:

The builders' site was really easy to find based on Jill's picture of them in front of the sold sign and the town they're in. If I was a public figure of any kind, however minor, I would be a lot more careful about things like that.

 

exactly do we have to hear of another story of a "fan" going to Jill's house and scaring her brother in law...

 

23 hours ago, SorenaJ said:

How can they afford to build a house on zero salary? An inexpensive house still costs money to build. 

 

THIS ALL DAY LONG! 

can I just say ALL DAY LONG this 

22 hours ago, VelociRapture said:

I’m pregnant and I can assure you there is nothing more exciting than potato wedges. ?

 

I just saw this!! As I was in Malibu and everywhere else while you must have announced this. WONDERFUL news.

congrats. 

Edited April 19, 2019 by nst

[freshlemonade]

10 hours ago, Don'tlikekoolaid said:

Someone on Pickles page posted this screenshot.  I looked it up and this grift is still active and collecting cash, what a couple of self entitled fatheads! 

  Reveal hidden contents

 

Just looked at it too.  People can sign up for one time only, yearly, or MONTHLY donations!