Oh reality...such a downer
Jul. 15th, 2011 08:09 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
thistledearSoooooo...I saw the house today.
I'm a lot less enthused, but still pretty firm. This house is probably the best house I'll see in my price range for what I'm looking for. And I still really like it. I like the garage. I like that it has TWO sheds out back. I love the bamboo floors (so spotty! leopard wood!), the kitchen, bathroom, and entry tile looks clean and new, the carpet is new, and I'm okay with the kitchen. There's an opening between the kitchen and the dining area with a table high counter that's plenty wide enough to give me prep space. But it is a wee little house.
The bathroom is TINY. My dad refers to such bathrooms as back-in-and-pee. I don't like the tub, but there's not a lot I can do about it. It's one of those one piece tub-and-wall things, and I'm not sure what could be done about that. I'd like to get rid of the bathroom counter in there and put in one of those vanity cabinets (i *love* those). I'd like to get a toilet with an elongated seat too.
Bedrooms. The closets are long and shallow and have horrible sliding doors. Not that sliding doors are horrible, it's just the ones in the smaller bedroom are just old-looking, and the ones in the master bedroom are MIRRORED. FUCK NO. I hate even small bathroom mirrors. Like hell I'm sleeping in a room where there are mirrors that huge. The master bedroom is 14x11 supposedly and the second room 14x10. I'm pretty okay with that.
There is no utility room. The washer and dryer are just in the hall by the bathroom and across from the second room. Screen, curtain, tapestry--I could deal with it. Although I wonder how much it would be to move the hookups from the house out to the garage. I'm fairly sure there's plenty of room for them out there.
Backyard. The pool is gone and there's a big circle of sand out there. The back of the fence is gone. :| Otherwise, good sized backyard but not too much to take care of. I'm not sure I'd want to keep the second shed. It looks like it was built out of plywood or something. It kinda scares me.
Front yard. It has very nice curb appeal. Grass is dead but we're in a drought. The grass is dead everywhere. But there's fresh paint on the porch and the bricks are clean.
The foundation to my untrained eye looks in excellent shape. I took a level with me and put it on floors and above doorways and it never moved. The water pressure is good. The water heater only looks a couple of years old. The a/c unit looks rusty, but so did my grandmother's. It's still running 10 years later. Plenty of electrical outlets, I feel. Vents in every room. Ceiling fans in the bedroom. Could probably get one in the dining room too. Kitchen has one of those long fluorescent light fixtures, which I hate but I can live with. Walls and ceiling have no water damage, and don't have any patching.
What I liked best: there are ridge vents in the roof and all the windows are vinyl with double panes. I love energy efficient houses. I wasn't about to check the insulation. One, I can't get up in places like that. Two, we were dying just checking out the backyard. -_-;; But if they've gone to all the trouble of putting in ridge vents and double pane windows, I bet the insulation is pretty good.
Conclusion: I like it. I could see myself living there. I'm not sure about the neighbors, but neighbors are never a guarantee anyway. You move in with great neighbors, they may move and assholes could take their place. But the neighborhood looked fairly clean and the yards weren't junked up. However I don't see myself paying $82,500 for it. So we'll see how flexible they are on the price and go from there. I'm going to look at it again next week and if it still holds up, I'll start thinking about the starting offer. :D
Note: I asked my agent if he'd turned up anything else. He said for what I wanted (under $85k and year 1980+)....no. There were some older houses, and duplexes, but what I'd found best suited my criteria. And he's right. It's a solid little house, and it's nice.
Oh, and I lucked out. A train came by while we were there. The noise is not that bad inside the house. Yay! And it's kinda cool to see a train going by that close. :D
I'm a lot less enthused, but still pretty firm. This house is probably the best house I'll see in my price range for what I'm looking for. And I still really like it. I like the garage. I like that it has TWO sheds out back. I love the bamboo floors (so spotty! leopard wood!), the kitchen, bathroom, and entry tile looks clean and new, the carpet is new, and I'm okay with the kitchen. There's an opening between the kitchen and the dining area with a table high counter that's plenty wide enough to give me prep space. But it is a wee little house.
The bathroom is TINY. My dad refers to such bathrooms as back-in-and-pee. I don't like the tub, but there's not a lot I can do about it. It's one of those one piece tub-and-wall things, and I'm not sure what could be done about that. I'd like to get rid of the bathroom counter in there and put in one of those vanity cabinets (i *love* those). I'd like to get a toilet with an elongated seat too.
Bedrooms. The closets are long and shallow and have horrible sliding doors. Not that sliding doors are horrible, it's just the ones in the smaller bedroom are just old-looking, and the ones in the master bedroom are MIRRORED. FUCK NO. I hate even small bathroom mirrors. Like hell I'm sleeping in a room where there are mirrors that huge. The master bedroom is 14x11 supposedly and the second room 14x10. I'm pretty okay with that.
There is no utility room. The washer and dryer are just in the hall by the bathroom and across from the second room. Screen, curtain, tapestry--I could deal with it. Although I wonder how much it would be to move the hookups from the house out to the garage. I'm fairly sure there's plenty of room for them out there.
Backyard. The pool is gone and there's a big circle of sand out there. The back of the fence is gone. :| Otherwise, good sized backyard but not too much to take care of. I'm not sure I'd want to keep the second shed. It looks like it was built out of plywood or something. It kinda scares me.
Front yard. It has very nice curb appeal. Grass is dead but we're in a drought. The grass is dead everywhere. But there's fresh paint on the porch and the bricks are clean.
The foundation to my untrained eye looks in excellent shape. I took a level with me and put it on floors and above doorways and it never moved. The water pressure is good. The water heater only looks a couple of years old. The a/c unit looks rusty, but so did my grandmother's. It's still running 10 years later. Plenty of electrical outlets, I feel. Vents in every room. Ceiling fans in the bedroom. Could probably get one in the dining room too. Kitchen has one of those long fluorescent light fixtures, which I hate but I can live with. Walls and ceiling have no water damage, and don't have any patching.
What I liked best: there are ridge vents in the roof and all the windows are vinyl with double panes. I love energy efficient houses. I wasn't about to check the insulation. One, I can't get up in places like that. Two, we were dying just checking out the backyard. -_-;; But if they've gone to all the trouble of putting in ridge vents and double pane windows, I bet the insulation is pretty good.
Conclusion: I like it. I could see myself living there. I'm not sure about the neighbors, but neighbors are never a guarantee anyway. You move in with great neighbors, they may move and assholes could take their place. But the neighborhood looked fairly clean and the yards weren't junked up. However I don't see myself paying $82,500 for it. So we'll see how flexible they are on the price and go from there. I'm going to look at it again next week and if it still holds up, I'll start thinking about the starting offer. :D
Note: I asked my agent if he'd turned up anything else. He said for what I wanted (under $85k and year 1980+)....no. There were some older houses, and duplexes, but what I'd found best suited my criteria. And he's right. It's a solid little house, and it's nice.
Oh, and I lucked out. A train came by while we were there. The noise is not that bad inside the house. Yay! And it's kinda cool to see a train going by that close. :D
