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Yesterday was our inspection. Passed!
There's a bunch of minor things that are problematic, but they're all minor. The biggest issue is something that can be fixed with a $20 part plus labor. (When one of the circuits in the lower level trips, it can't be reset. Which awkwardly then makes the hot water in the kitchen stop working. The whole thing just needs the reset switch replaced--if you temporarily rig it to bypass the switch, everything else works just fine.)
So, the house. It's a Victorian townhouse built in 1850, but gut-renovated in the 90s. So it's got gingerbread and stained glass windows, and also central air and cable and FiOS preinstalled, plus a ten-year-old roof that's apparently in perfect condition. The guy who did the renovation grew up next door, is a real estate agent, and lives just across town, now--he's obviously still emotionally attached to the place (in a good way) and came to the inspection to answer questions. He also clearly spared no expense in redoing the place--redwood trim, green marble counters, mahogany window frames. The wood floors were resealed twenty years ago and look like they were done last week. It's classified as historic, so we can't have screens on the front of the house, but lovely screened windows and doors on the back half of the house.
Two bedrooms and a full tub bath upstairs; kitchen and dining room/parlor (we haven't committed to how we're arranging things) on the entry level; third bedroom (which we're going to turn into a living room) and bathroom with a shower on the bottom, a couple feet below street level. (Including full washer and dryer in a closet.) The front has a tiny bitty garden, a sunken storage area, and a honest-to-god front porch. (There's just a railing separating from the porches on either side--basically, there's a front porch that runs most of the length of the street.) The back has a nice deck off the main level and a slate patio hemmed in by planters off the lower level. Room for tomatoes, a few flowers, a little room for ARR to play in, and plenty of room for Daddy to have a grill and a smoker and for friends to come drink margaritas.
And the details--the details are just so damn charming. Multiple stained glass windows. Decorative pillars with cabinets hidden in the bottom. Giant kitchen extended window for growing herbs in the winter. Walk in closets in both upstairs bedrooms. A window seat in the master bedroom. Beautiful tilework on the bathroom floor, carved wooden moldings, decorative fireplaces (which are a little bit of a pain, but we'll consider them a style element). Smart wiring--there's a candle chandelier in the kitchen that's also wired to hang a light fixture, and floor plugs in the parlor that neatly close over if you don't want them, and sockets and spigots and a gas line that runs out onto the deck for hoses and grills.
We were introduced to the "president of the block", a sweet old lady who carries dog biscuits and apparently knew the previous owner since he was a little boy. We're two blocks from a major park and also two blocks in the other direction from a baseball diamond. It's farther from Chuck's office, so his commute is going to be longer. (Also farther from ARR's current daycare, although we're toying with the idea of moving him since we've had some issues. Not scary issues, just really annoying issues.) But it shouldn't actually be a longer commute for me when I'm not dealing with ARR, and it's a couple blocks from the elementary school and from the magnet high school we hope ARR will someday get into. There are farmers markets that I can hit on the way home. We're closer to the mall and reasonably near a different food store. Farther from the main library branch, but down the street from a little branch. A little farther from some of our favorite restaurants downtown, but still within reasonable walking distance.
Basically, this place is gorgeous. There's a whole bunch of minor repairs that have to be made, and a whole bunch of minor changes we'd like to make. But for the most part, it requires very little big stuff. I even like most of the paint colors.
So we still have to get through the rest of the financing, and the insurance and title research. But we're increasingly confident. It's possible for things to fall apart, but decreasingly likely.
We're going to buy a house!
There's a bunch of minor things that are problematic, but they're all minor. The biggest issue is something that can be fixed with a $20 part plus labor. (When one of the circuits in the lower level trips, it can't be reset. Which awkwardly then makes the hot water in the kitchen stop working. The whole thing just needs the reset switch replaced--if you temporarily rig it to bypass the switch, everything else works just fine.)
So, the house. It's a Victorian townhouse built in 1850, but gut-renovated in the 90s. So it's got gingerbread and stained glass windows, and also central air and cable and FiOS preinstalled, plus a ten-year-old roof that's apparently in perfect condition. The guy who did the renovation grew up next door, is a real estate agent, and lives just across town, now--he's obviously still emotionally attached to the place (in a good way) and came to the inspection to answer questions. He also clearly spared no expense in redoing the place--redwood trim, green marble counters, mahogany window frames. The wood floors were resealed twenty years ago and look like they were done last week. It's classified as historic, so we can't have screens on the front of the house, but lovely screened windows and doors on the back half of the house.
Two bedrooms and a full tub bath upstairs; kitchen and dining room/parlor (we haven't committed to how we're arranging things) on the entry level; third bedroom (which we're going to turn into a living room) and bathroom with a shower on the bottom, a couple feet below street level. (Including full washer and dryer in a closet.) The front has a tiny bitty garden, a sunken storage area, and a honest-to-god front porch. (There's just a railing separating from the porches on either side--basically, there's a front porch that runs most of the length of the street.) The back has a nice deck off the main level and a slate patio hemmed in by planters off the lower level. Room for tomatoes, a few flowers, a little room for ARR to play in, and plenty of room for Daddy to have a grill and a smoker and for friends to come drink margaritas.
And the details--the details are just so damn charming. Multiple stained glass windows. Decorative pillars with cabinets hidden in the bottom. Giant kitchen extended window for growing herbs in the winter. Walk in closets in both upstairs bedrooms. A window seat in the master bedroom. Beautiful tilework on the bathroom floor, carved wooden moldings, decorative fireplaces (which are a little bit of a pain, but we'll consider them a style element). Smart wiring--there's a candle chandelier in the kitchen that's also wired to hang a light fixture, and floor plugs in the parlor that neatly close over if you don't want them, and sockets and spigots and a gas line that runs out onto the deck for hoses and grills.
We were introduced to the "president of the block", a sweet old lady who carries dog biscuits and apparently knew the previous owner since he was a little boy. We're two blocks from a major park and also two blocks in the other direction from a baseball diamond. It's farther from Chuck's office, so his commute is going to be longer. (Also farther from ARR's current daycare, although we're toying with the idea of moving him since we've had some issues. Not scary issues, just really annoying issues.) But it shouldn't actually be a longer commute for me when I'm not dealing with ARR, and it's a couple blocks from the elementary school and from the magnet high school we hope ARR will someday get into. There are farmers markets that I can hit on the way home. We're closer to the mall and reasonably near a different food store. Farther from the main library branch, but down the street from a little branch. A little farther from some of our favorite restaurants downtown, but still within reasonable walking distance.
Basically, this place is gorgeous. There's a whole bunch of minor repairs that have to be made, and a whole bunch of minor changes we'd like to make. But for the most part, it requires very little big stuff. I even like most of the paint colors.
So we still have to get through the rest of the financing, and the insurance and title research. But we're increasingly confident. It's possible for things to fall apart, but decreasingly likely.
We're going to buy a house!
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Date: 2014-04-05 03:27 pm (UTC)From: