Prices have been negotiated, deals have been struck, contracts have been signed, and assuming everything goes OK with inspections and such sometime between now and October 31, Sweetie and I will own this:
It's a brick ranch with a full basement, built in 1950. 3/4 mile from the nearest Safeway, 1.5 miles from the coolest part of the 'Couv, with a bus that stops outside our front door. It is everything we dreamed of in a house, and the size and layout is such that we could conceivably live here until we die.
Which, we suspect, the previous owners did. It's held in trust right now, with a brother and sister having to make decisions between themselves. There are NO records of sale with the County. We suspect the original owners had this house until they passed away, and now the children are selling it off for their inheritance.
The entire upstairs of the house is carpeted, with hardwood floors underneath. When we originally toured the house the carpets were pulled up in several spots and we could see that the hardwoods were in lovely shape, so our plan is to pull up all the carpeting as soon as we close and before we move in.
I'm very excited that this house has BOTH a living room AND a family room. As much as I like my TV, I also like having it hidden away somewhere, so that there are places in my home where I can sit and read, or visit with friends.
The living room, dining room and kitchen all flow very well together. There is a hallway that runs parallel with two bedrooms, a bathroom and a den along the back of the house. The den has a big sliding glass door out to a large covered porch that is absolutely lovely.
The kitchen, although small, is well laid out to allow 3-4 people to work in there without standing on top of each other. The biggest flaw of the house at the moment is its' lack of dishwasher. We plan to relocate the fridge to the wall to the right of the photo, and put a dishwasher where the fridge is now at some point, hopefully soon. This plan may require a new, smaller fridge, in which case this will get moved to the basement and become the beer fridge.
One of my favorite features of the house is the basement. Since we'd been dating a couple of months Sweetie and I have been planning our "Basement," which would be the room with the TV and La-Z-Boy, with sports, music and movie memorabilia covering the walls. This house already has good-sized room set aside for that in the basement. It also has a bedroom already in place. I don't think it's a fully-legal bedroom because of the size of the window, but the window is larger than your standard basement window, and when there is a child of swank in their teen years who would like to live in a cave, we will be able to give them that opportunity.
In addition to the rooms already set aside, there is a large open space in the basement as well. That light you see to the right of the photo? That's the half-bath that's downstairs, that could probably be turned into a full-sized bath without too much difficulty. To the right is a workbench that will be relocated at some point. Someday, we are talking about putting a wall into this space to divide the storage and laundry area from the rest of the room, and making better use of this big open space.
That's one of the things I love most about this house. The layout and condition are such that we could move in today, but there is a lot we can do and want to do to the house to make it ours.
Which basically means lot's of blogging material.
Congrats--so much space--sounds great!
Posted by: Fawn | 27 September 2007 at 09:17 PM
I'm happy for you!!!! Looks good!!!!!!!!!
Posted by: Bud | 27 September 2007 at 09:51 PM
Congratulations, how exciting! THe house looks fantastic :)
Posted by: Abigail | 27 September 2007 at 10:26 PM
Yay! I am so excited for you! It sounds great!
Posted by: Jennifer of Dog.Yarn.Knit. | 28 September 2007 at 09:06 AM
I can so see this as the new House of Swank. Very nice.
Posted by: shanamadele | 28 September 2007 at 10:51 AM
Excellent! Congrats!
Posted by: tommyspoon | 28 September 2007 at 11:26 AM
Woohoo! Don't hesitate to holler if you need help moving stuff ... "at least it's not a piano" ;-)
Posted by: Greg | 28 September 2007 at 03:31 PM
Wahoo! Congrats. It looks awesome and it will be fun to see what you do with it. But what do you mean? Hot football players isn't enough blogging material?! ;)
Posted by: Suzanne | 28 September 2007 at 09:49 PM
What a great layout! There is so much space. I love "older" houses - there is a lot you can do with them!
Posted by: Shannin | 30 September 2007 at 11:26 AM
Yay!! This looks so great -- you must be so excited to move in!!
We close on the 12th, so I completely relate to all of the project and moving excitement. :-)
Posted by: susan | 30 September 2007 at 02:56 PM