State of the House

I figure it's worth noting that when we put the offer on the house, we hadn't been inside it.

Okay, so that sounds insane, but when you buy a house, there's an option period when you can back out without any kind of penalty. Remember, we saw the sign on July 3rd, and offered on the 4th. By the time we'd put the offer on the house, it had already been shown five times. But we didn't really feel comfortable calling a realtor out to the property on a holiday, so we just made a few phone calls. Our agent, the one who sold Andrew our current house, called the selling agent, and they got everything together for the offer, all via phone. Awesome.

When we finally did see the house a few days later, it was completely full of stuff. Most houses are, when they're showing, full of furniture and things neatly put away. But this was a house full of Richard and Mavis's things, all unclaimed odds and ends that would eventually be sold, the agent told us, at an estate sale. A few days later, we went back into the house while the home and termite inspectors were doing their reports, and I was able to take several photos of the "before" state of the house.

So allow us to take you on the grand tour.

A plan to orient yourselves, first. The front entry door is at the bottom of the plan:

The front entry room:

In this photo, the front door is to the right. You can see the large window that looks into the front yard. In this room, there's not a single permanent light fixture. The opening to the left goes directly into the dining room, and behind the camera is the hallway to the bedrooms. This space is more square than the other living space, but it's used as more of a pass-through zone than anything. In order to give it an identity, it needs to be more like an actual room, with well-defined traffic zones. We have stained carpets that show a lot of foot traffic staining. Not pictured: a linoleum entry area with a transition to the carpeting.

The dining room:

There's a nice, big window opening into the back yard. On the left are two openings to the kitchen, and on the right is an opening to the other living space. The light fixture in this room is dated, and carpeting is a tough choice for a space that is primarily for serving food.

The kitchen:

Woah. Aside from being super dated, the cabinet fronts show a ton of wear. The hardware is old, and the drawers don't have any sliding hardware. The fridge is gone, but we still have the outdated stove with wind-up timer, and the microwave which isn't that bad. The sink is rusted out on the bottom and will need to be replaced. Two nice windows and a ledge are decent additions, but the counter is old tile that will eventually get a facelift. The fixture in this room seems to do a good job of lighting the spaces, but under-cabinet lighting would be nice. Linoleum floors are coming out, too. The kitchen projects (save the floor) are something we're saving for when the weather gets cooler.

Back through the dining room and into the living room:

Acoustic tiles! Neato! There's one ceiling fan/light fixture in here that fails to fully light the space. A large window adds some natural light, at least. Dirty carpeting in here also has some bumps and lumps from stretching out... Or was it incorrectly installed?

If I turn around and look directly behind the camera, I see two doors:

On the left is the laundry room, which has another door into the patio out back, and a large walk-in closet with a pull-string light. The laundry room is little more than a hallway, and has really badly located light switches, behind the door. These rooms both have brand new linoleum... it's staying in the laundry, but we're taking it out of the closet when we re-do the flooring.

If I walk back into the dining room and then into the main entry where we started, I can see a hallway:

Nothing to really look at here. There's a pullstring for the attic acces, and a linen closet with a pullstring on the right. Aside from the closet, there are 4 doors that open into bedrooms and a bath. 

The first door on the left is a bedroom:

Wowee. This photo, thanks to the powers of ISO, doesn't look nearly as depressing as it is in real life. The fixture is super dated, and the carpeting, like the rest of the house, is in bad shape. 

At the end of the hallway, on the left, another bedroom:

This bedroom has a half bath:

It used to have a shower as well, but it was capped and turned into the closet on the right. The bathroom is in pretty good shape: It really only needs some paint. 

Across the hall, is the 3rd bedroom:

This bedroom has a nice closet, and is pretty similar to the previous one. 

The final stop on my tour is the one full bathroom in the house:

The tile... it burns! I don't think we have any plans to retile the bathroom, but the cabinet next to the sink is no longer there, and the tub needs to be refinished and get a new shower head. The weird thing on the wall is a gas heater that still works... And I have absolutely no idea what to do with it just yet.

So that's it! Seems like a ton of work, huh? I think we'll be able to make it all work!