second date

[aslant]

kirk and i are going together to see the victorian house on friday. kirk will be looking at/for: electrical panel, sockets, water damage, assorted ghosties. this time i want to capture the weird pink bedroom downstairs, look for traces of the chimney's mantle, investigate the closet that leads to the kitchen, check out some bathroom details. also, opening all cupboards. all of them. last time i saw some old ass mercury tinctures in one cupboard and was too shy/respectful of mrs goss's ghost to look much further.

meanwhile, i barely slept last night for thinking about the house. when i first went to bed it was like i had a raging headache. a houseache. my brain literally felt on fire with the house. not like mania, more like a vision. chrysalis. later i would sleep and startle awake again with the image of the house in front of my eyes and lie there, contentedly thinking about it. the lawns and gardens restored, the rooms emptied and shining. ahh. i'm sketching floor plans and possible renovations, paint schemes.

if you were us, what would you look for on friday? we will have the camera and the video camera.

Comments

[handstil.livejournal.com]

Is it level? That can add character to a point, but it's something to ask about/feel for yourself.

[aslant.livejournal.com]

according to the seller's inspection, which i just got today (and is a LAUGH A MINUTE), there is lots of settling and non-plumb floors. which is odd, because when you're inside it feels pretty level. i am little scared to let kirk read the inspection report, except i know he'll have a laugh, too.

[handstil.livejournal.com]

I'm learning so much about what is "acceptable" to me with a house and what my true requirements are since we made this move and are viewing houses that are for lease but are also for sale (in most cases, our mortgage would be cheaper than our rent!).

None of the doors in this house close properly. Not a single one! They are shaved away as the house has settled over time and then the doorways expanded again, etc. Some of them almost close, but none click into the door like a normal door. I have found that I don't care about this.

Many of the houses here are not level, this is also something that doesn't bother me at all. I didn't even consider it until someone suggested it would be difficult to re-sell the property without having it leveled. There was also the issue that many of the original windows would never actually open again. I mean, unless we wanted to re-cut windows and refreme and on and blah blah but again, not an issue that would scare me away if I loved the bones of the house.

The only things I really fear are things that have been remodeled away to nothing resembling their original state, and when the wood is all eaten away by bugs or rot. That might be too big a challenge for me. I don't want to strip the house away, because I feel that the house would not like that, and that it would loose it's integrity in the process.

This house we're in now was built in 1950, which is relatively new and wow, it is so noisy at night! It creeks and bumps and groans. I LOVE IT- haha!

[aslant.livejournal.com]

this is a very good point. it's one thing to freak out about asbestos siding and the giant highlighted sections of the inspection report talking about windows that don't open, but in reality if the siding is safe-ish and the windows are meh, you're right, it shouldn't be a deal breaker.

the house might not need levelling, but lots of the windows need to be rehung (sash cords are broken). there's a lot of rot in the foundation because the timbers are resting directly on the ground, and it seems like maybe the whole house has sunken into the surrounding ground, so water drains inward, etc. all kinds of nutty things! most of them i don't really care about, except that they are BIG jobs that i don't know if we could afford. like, do we just take out massive equity loans? there is easily $100-$200k of work to be done, depending on how this-old-house we go.

[baatastic.livejournal.com]

It's so funny because Ryan and I wanted a place that we wouldn't have to fix up too much. We also needed to get out and into a house right away. We had to close by a certain date to qualify for the old laws for our FHA loan...

The house looks adorable, though. The only other thing to think about is how much would you be able to baby safe it easily... I know from personal experience it doesn't always happen right away but hey--babies are expensive and so are houses. :)

[aslant.livejournal.com]

v. good point there on baby-proofing. the stairs are obviously problematic, but otherwise i don't know if we'd have too much trouble. outside play would have to be supervised until we installed gates at the driveway, etc. we have a HUGE problem in our tiny rental house when my (18mos) nephew comes over, because he just wants to push the buttons on the tv cable box xbox that are right at his level. i don't think we'll be using this entertainment fixture in a new house because of that obvious flaw :)