There's no place like home

We had a home inspector go through the new house on Wednesday and in the process managed to get pictures to post. For some reason I didn't take one of the upstairs bathroom. The main gist of the upstairs bathroom is that there is a tub but no shower, and that the walls are tiled half of the way up and Tom is just itching to take all the tile down. At some point we plan to run a shower line up the tub wall and then either do a tile surround on it and carry it around the rest of the room halfway up - or - we'll just put some sort of fiberglass tub surround on it and then Tom's wildest dreams of extensive sheet rock repair will all come true. No matter which route we go, there's currently a wood double-hung window on the bathtub wall that I'd like to replace with a Hy-Lite acrylic block window, and conveniently we can get them through our company.

Not too much planned for the living room right off the bat. At some point the 5-lite Casement will need to be replaced because it's wood and it's single-pane glass. It's also 10 feet wide, so it's a real budget-buster - even at the price I can get it for. It's in good shape for a wood window from 1959, I'd imagine largely due to the obscenely un-beautiful aluminum awning installed on the outside of it. Mostly just painting going on in here, though. The carpet is okay, although the previous owner had dogs and one of them must have enjoyed chewing because there's a section of carpet by the dining room (about 6"x6") that's impressively shredded. However, there's a remnant of the carpet in the hall closet and it's easy enough to cut the bad section out, patch in a new section, and it's a nice band-aid for the time being until we figure out where priorities are going to fall. Said dog (or dog #2) was also partial to wood because there are two sections of baseboard - coincidentally enough ALSO in the dining area - that saw some chewing action. Perhaps the dogs just had something against the dining room.

I can see why, eh? The picture makes the floors out to be in way better shape than they actually are. I was surprised (and impressed!) when I first looked at them. The parquet, itself, is in great condition but it needs a solid re-finishing as the current finish is quite dull and heavily scratched. Also the casement window is painted shut and that's tops on the list of things I'll be tackling within hours of moving in. We love us some fresh air around here, and right now is the prime time for it.

South wall of the kitchen with the original General Electric range top and wall oven. They were originally pink, but at some point someone repainted them a bisque ivory color. I'd actually prefer the pink, truth be told. One night we were frittering away time on eBay and we found the exact same wall oven in turquoise blue and while I do a lot of cooking, and prefer to do it on modern appliances, I have to admit I was tempted to bid on that sucker. If they would have had the matching range top I might have had a debilitating emotional struggle on my hands.

The south wall of the kitchen, and this is where the home inspection got interesting. When Nicholas and I first walked into the house the inspector had the dishwasher running a cycle to test it's operation. I remember when I was a kid a random critter decided to set up shop one summer in my grandparents' wood furnace, and once it was in there it must have forgotten how to get back out. The smell that took over the house within a few days made a person's eyes water - NO LIE. Unfortunately ... the same smell was coming from the dishwasher of the new house.

Nicholas didn't enjoy the aroma either. That's saying a lot coming from him, because his personal aroma on some days isn't anything to write home about, either.


There's a 4-season room off the kitchen, which I find quite indulgent and thrilling. It looks a little something like this on the inside:

The 4-season room is also how you get to the backyard. What I find most appealing about this room is that I get all the benefits of the fresh air minus all the creepy-crawly insects of the Northland.

Aforementioned backyard. On the left side is the deciduous tree with pine cones that totally blows Tom's mind. Everything about the tree suggests that it should be evergreen, but just to play with his mind this particular tree's needles turn brown in Autumn and then fall off. JUST TO MESS WITH HIS HEAD. We actually wondered if it was dead the first two times we went through the house because nothing was happening with it. It has a pretty complex inner branch structure - optimal for climbing - but the outer branches appear as though they weep, like a willow tree. I don't think Tom will be able to last more than 48 hours in the house before he's scouring the web trying to identify the exact species of this tree. No matter what it is, though, it lends itself to a plethora of play possibilities for an imaginative six-year-old.

Back inside, on to bedroom #1 - there are hardwood floors under the carpet in both upstairs bedrooms, and they're hopefully in good condition throughout because there's nothing I hate more than Berber carpet and this particular Berber carpet is filled with the heebies AND the jeebies. We could only steal a peek of a corner of the underlying wood floor but it looks to be a honey-colored narrow plank floor.

Second verse, same as the first. The bedrooms are pretty similar in size and features, and we're assuming there is hardwood under this carpet as well. Nicholas was explaining the finer points of his decorating plan for his bedroom to our real estate agent, Stacey, who stopped by during the inspection just to stay in the loop and as a result fell victim to the horrible aroma of the dead animal in the dishwasher. It bears mentioning that Nicholas' decorating plan is littered with phrases like "star wars" and "master Jedi", whereas my decorating plan consists of "utilizing the services of an interior designer my mom gave me a gift certificate for". We'll see who wins.


Mr. Jones, brimming with excitement in what will become the "Boom Boom Room", where his video game posters and other assorted geek-a-phernalia will be free to cover every square inch of vertical space. WOO! This is one of two finished rooms in the basement that follow the same footprint as the two bedrooms directly above them on the main level. They are not legal bedrooms right now, as they don't meet egress requirements, so they are counted as an "office" and a "craft room" on the home listing. Our plan is to eventually dig out all the dirt and install egress window wells and windows for the two downstairs rooms, effectively turning the house from a 2-bedroom 2-bath home to a 4-bedroom 2-bath home.
The impossible to photograph second room in the basement. It'll be the guest room. Since it has an impressively large closet, it will also house an awful lot of what I affectionately refer to as my "random stuff".


The second bathroom is down in the basement and to switch things up from the upstairs bathroom it has a shower but no tub. I do appreciate the subway tile floor, though.

And I saved the best for last here, the basement rec room. The carpet in this room is pimp-tastic! Not sure what we'll wind up doing with this space - it will probably serve us well for varying, unrelated tasks all at the same time. The carpet is living on borrowed time, though.