The market here sucks. For buyers, anyway. Homes sell the first day they are on the market for above listing price. We put offers in on 2 houses and tried to put an offer in on a third (but it was already sold by the time we got around to it, on the morning of the second day it was listed) before we found the house we ended up with.
This house was a little above our price range, but had been on the market for 6 months or so and hadn't sold. So we decided to just go for it and offer a little lower, which is totally the opposite of what usually happens these days. After a lot of negotiating, and back and forth, and yes and no, and are we going to get this house or not?? we finally closed on May 16th!
Is it our dream home? No, but we are slowly but surely turning it into a home we will love. We have already put a lot of work into it and have only been here a month! This house was build in 1930. 84 years ago. It's OLD. And has some issues. The night we got the keys, for example, we discovered a major leak in the pipes leading to the water heater and had to shut the water off until my amazing Papa came and fixed it for us (discovering at least 2 other leaks in the process). Yay for new, NOT GALVANIZED pipes! The floors are uneven. The walls were finished really poorly. The kitchen does not have a dishwasher and is tiny. The windows are so old and covered with lead paint that you can't open them. The kitchen had a dropped ceiling with office-style tiles and a florescent light. (HAD, we fixed that right away!) There was little to no landscaping.
Oh, and did I forget to mention that the renters who were here were growing marijuana? Like, a lot of it. In the garage. They had converted the garage into a giant grow room. Everything was covered in plastic sheeting. The garage door had been boarded over with insulation and a framed in wall. Then they dried the goods in the carpeted attic area. Leaving the carpet full of grossness that meant it just had to be ripped up.
Sounds like a great house, right???? But really, it's adorable. Or anyway, it's going to be! It's a cute little bungalow with a lot of charm (some of which we will have to bring back!). It's got a great front and back yard. A huge front porch (which we totally re-built) which is just begging for a porch swing! A cute little build-in corner cabinet in the dining area. Some beadboard paneling (which may or may not be original, but it's time-period accurate anyway!). A great huge Oak tree in the back yard.
We've already redone the front porch, made the garage usable, ripped up the carpet in the attic, gotten rid of the dropped ceiling in the kitchen and put up an amazing new light fixture, installed a beautiful new front door and did some landscaping. Our neighbors are SO EXCITED to have some normal neighbors who won't be selling drugs and who actually care about the property. We also had a random lady who lives on the street stop by and tell us what a good job we're doing.
We're just plugging along! Our next projects involve some new windows and lots of new paint inside. And Ben is continually working on the landscaping. I can hardly get him to come inside any more! Here are some pictures of things as they were when we moved in!
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