House photo tour!

September 15, 2010 at 2:34 pm | Posted in Uncategorized | Leave a comment
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Aw, it's beautiful. :D

Yesterday afternoon I went out to the house for the home inspection. It took just under two hours, and during that time I made sure to get lots of photos. The inspection went well — a few issues worth noting, but nothing too bad. Though once he started pointing out imperfections — dings, scrapes, small dents, etc. — I noticed that there were actually quite a lot of them. About the worst of it is that the furnace hasn’t been serviced during its four-year lifespan, so we’ll have to pay a couple hundred dollars for that. And there are a lot of minor problems: leaky faucet in the kitchen if you move it around, broken spring in one of the windows, a hole in the carpet in a closet in the guest room, bathtub needs re-caulking, etc. All of it could be fixed by a few trips to Home Depot and maybe a couple hundred bucks, so it definitely wasn’t enough to affect the sale. One thing was creepy, though: the front door, master bedroom door, and master bath door all had doorframe damage because they had been kicked in! (According to the inspector, that’s very easy to diagnose: vertical cracks emanating from the latch area of the doorframe.) It makes me wonder what was going on in this home before they got foreclosed upon. Maybe I’ll ask the neighbors. (The damage is minor and we almost certainly won’t get it fixed.)

The front door. The yard's a bit overgrown, but not for long. There are flowers along the front walk! (I think they're pansies, but I know Mom can tell me for sure.)

Lots of people have asked me if the sellers will be paying to fix these items before the sale, and the answer is no. I’m not sure if it’s because the house is owned by a bank or what, but they made it very clear up front that the house was being sold as-is and with no repairs whatsoever. (That was one of the few places in their contract that actually used caps — “NO REPAIRS OF ANY KIND”!) They invited us to inspect it to our heart’s content and then make a go/no-go decision based on that.

Lots of people have also asked me when we’ll be able to occupy the house. Apparently there are a kajillion steps that must be accomplished before that can happen, and mostly the lender will be doing that stuff (I believe) and we’ll be waiting to hear how it went from him or her. The closing date on the contract says October 27, but based on various factors I’m told we may actually get in closer to the middle of the month. Which would be great. =) The neighborhood has kids in it, so maybe we’ll get a bunch of trick-or-treaters!

(Side story: almost every Halloween since I finished college I’ve carved a pumpkin and bought candy and waited to hear a knock from adorable neighborhood kids. Do you know how many trick-or-treaters I’ve gotten in that time? Total? Two! After several years I learned to buy candy that I dislike so that when no trick-or-treaters came I wouldn’t have to reap the terrible delicious consequences all by myself. Instead I brought the candy to work and let weak-willed coworkers do the reaping.)

Anyway, on with the photos!

Looking down the street. (That's our realtor's BMW parked on the street.) In this area it's pretty uncommon to see streets this wide -- most neighborhoods are really cramped with streets as tiny as they can get away with.

The stove in the kitchen. Someday I'd like to have a gas stove, but for now this pretty glass-top is a nice substitute. Apparently it would cost about $1000 to run gas to the stove (not to mention the cost of a new oven), so I don't expect us to get one anytime soon.

The island in the kitchen. Yup, that's granite tile on the countertops. (Close-up below.)

The kitchen sink

The granite tile countertops

Looking at the breakfast nook from the living room. Yo can see the edge of the kitchen island peeking out from behind the wall on the left.

The living room. Virtually every house here has that recessed pocket above the fireplace for a TV. I don't really understand it -- I wouldn't want a TV that high -- but it's apparently the thing to do here. (Even newly-built homes have it.) There's also coax in the right corner. The lightswitch panel to the left of the fireplace turns on the fire and the blower fan.

The other end of the living room. Beyond the stairs in the backround is the light from the front door (which was open when this photo was taken). Down the hall to the left is the french-door room (see below) and the entrance to the garage.

We've been calling this the French-door room, but we're thinking of making it a library. (Our office will be upstairs.) Feel free to make other suggestions for this room! It's right next to the living room.

Inside the French-door room. It's pretty, isn't it?

The half bath is downstairs right near the front door. Neither of us really likes these pedestal sinks very much, but we only have one and it's not near any of the bedrooms, so it's not really a big deal.

Looking down over the stairs. The light down there is from the open front door (to the left), and the dark doorway is the half bath.

At the top of the stairs, the master bedroom is ahead on the left with the bonus room on the right. This bonus room is nice and big and will be our office.

Inside the office ("bonus room"). I love the double doors! We'll have room for the big desks we want and all my computers.

Inside the master bedroom. The left doorway leads to the hallway. Through the right door you can see straight through the master bath and into the walk-in closet (which has its own window).

The master bath. Opposite the sinks there's a bathtub (see below) and on the right edge of this photo you can see the shower.

The bathtub. I really can't imagine a scenario in which we'll have the blinds on that window open! The toilet is just on the other side of the wall with the bathtub faucet, and it's open to the rest of the bathroom. We might try to put a curtain or door there in the future.

Standing in the doorway to the master bedroom looking out into the hallway. The doorframe just peeking in from the left is the office.

The laundry room.

The guest bathroom.

Bedroom 1

Bedroom 2

The backyard. Directly behind the house there's a drainage pond that is beautifully overgrown with trees and other plants, and it really makes for a nice backdrop.

Giant slug! He was crawling on this dandelion in the backyard. This photo doesn't do him justice, though -- that was seriously a huge dandelion. This guy was like 2.5 inces long. The realtor and inspector laughed at me and said you just get those in Washington sometimes. Yipes.

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