Last Friday Sean, Karen and I took a walk through the house we’re interested in.  The house is cute, it does need some cosmetic work but the inspection (done a month ago by the same company we were going to hire anyway) looked good, the house was fairly clean and even though there was new carpet in only three of the five rooms – that isn’t a total deal breaker for us since we didn’t want to even have carpet in our office space anyway to cut down on Sean’s allergies.  There was some previous interest in the house this summer but they couldn’t get the financing together. We’re lucky enough to have Sean’s dad willing to both co-sign and loan us whatever we need to get us into the house. We’re taking his money as a personal loan to cut down on the overall amount of revolving credit that we currently have. So we’ll pay him back monthly and just roll it into the monthly bills but we won’t be bound by a bank to have it paid back in 5 years like a standard personal loan.

There’s two massive decks on the house (front and back), I can always appreciate a large front porch because I’ve always wanted to have a nice little bench with two chairs and even a coffee table, and if I really wanted to I could put a fan on the ceiling to keep airflow moving around.  The front of the house is actually in a spot where it really doesn’t get much sunlight other than first thing in the morning, which is good for Sean and I because we really don’t go to sleep until the sun’s about to come up anyway.  The room that we would turn into an office is one of the rooms where the carpeting wasn’t replaced, so we’re gonna probably put down some type of laminate (whether it be wood or peal and stick at this point doesn’t matter).  We do have an area rug that Lucy had given to me prior to her passing away, this is something I clearly want to bring into the new house so that’ll go down on the floor to keep it from getting destroyed by the wheels of our chairs.  Off of this room, there aren’t any windows but that’s because they got rid of the windows and put in a pretty massive french door so it not only lets in A LOT of light, but there’s the ability for a nice breeze as well.  These doors lead to the fairly decent sized back porch as well.  The porch itself is closed in so there’s tons of privacy and it’s large enough I can get a nice dining table out there and even enough room for a barbecue and maybe some type of an herb garden or something.  Possibilities are pretty much endless.

Now, I’m not overly thrilled about walking through a bedroom with raw meat if I’m cooking outside, but the laundry room leads to the side door of the house that also connects to this deck, so I can always cut through there and not have to worry about it.  The laundry room does need a little work though. I feel like there is some type of structuring issue because the floor seems very…. soft. And not the “Ooh fresh carpet” type of soft, the “I’m afraid if I turn on the washing machine it’s gonna fall through the floor” type of soft.  There’s an indoor/outdoor carpet in there now. That’ll be the first thing to go. I don’t like the idea of carpeting anywhere near a washing machine.  One leak and the house will reek of mold for an eternity.  The soft floor though…now, this is an easy fix for me. It’s just the matter of getting into the crawl-space, putting fresh insulation up where it’s currently hanging down (per the inspection report) and then put up a new cross beam to just add to the support.  Sean and I already know that in the future we’re replacing the washer/dryer because they’re very small units and fat people don’t own small ANYTHING.  So clearly we need something with larger capacity, the current ones wouldn’t even pass as apartment sized. I feel like a bucket with an agitator would give me more room for clothing than the current washing machine.  But anyway, after that beam has been replaced I’m gonna take up the carpeting, and then put a new sub-floor in and then we should be fine for all of the support that we could possibly need.

The master bedroom is a fairly decent size (13×12).  This doesn’t include the closet area that leads to the ‘master bath’, so basically I have 13×12 to accommodate the king sized bed and a dresser.  I think, considering we’re in a 10×12 now with more furniture… we should be fine.  My desk would no longer be in the bedroom since Sean and I are going to share an office, clearly there won’t be an entertainment unit because that will be shifted to the living room, and the small dresser that we do have in here is coming with us, but will fit perfectly in the room and we don’t have to worry about any space issues at all.  The pass through is his/hers double mirrored door closets, and then it leads to the 3/4 bath that they claim is a ‘master bathroom’.  To me it’s not a ‘master’ unless there’s some type of a tub but there isn’t enough room for it and there is a tub in the hallway if I really wanted to soak in something that bad.  I’m more of a shower person anyway so it’s not really a deal breaker.

The third bedroom will be utilized as a guest bedroom, but a portion of the closet will be for linens as there is no hallway closet to accommodate that.  I do want to get some type of a chest for the end of the King bed so that I can utilize it for both linens and easy access for the dog. She’s got the doggy steps but because they’re shorter than the mattress she winds up getting stuck on the stairs and can’t complete the jump up.  I figure if I get some type of a bench she can still get all way the way up the stairs and then have the clearance to reposition herself so she can get up into the bed. I may wind up having to switch out the stairs for a ramp though, she’s getting older now so it’s harder for her to get around these days. She’ll be 10 in February, and it really doesn’t seem like it’s been that long but now I need to consider her a senior. So obviously a few areas of the house will need to be more pet friendly because she can no longer leap up and down anymore. Clearly I’m starting with the bedroom for that one, she spends the bulk of her day on the floor anyway.

The kitchen in the house is pretty decent, it’s small but there’s a decent sized island on one side that contains the sink and a ‘bar’ type of area. This does increase the counter space, not by very much, but when considering it’s just the two of us and I usually clean things up while I’m cooking there’s really no cause for concern there.  There are more than enough cabinets though, I don’t like the idea of having kitchens overflowing with crap that you’ll never use, and I’m also not a big fan of having things in the kitchen that don’t belong there. So organization will be a BIG deal for me with this house, considering we’re limited on storage so of course I’ve been locating numerous different storage solutions in both magazines and online.  This isn’t the exact one that I found, but it’s similar.

I can’t even find the magazine that I found the original image in, but it’s the same general idea. Have two bookshelves that are connected with crown molding, insert some lighting and then still have the night-stand. This way it then makes it look as though the entire headboard is built straight into the wall.

The way I wanted to modify it though, I’ve always wanted to create a tufted headboard, to kind of make things just POP. I think once we decide upon a color scheme I could get away with making it. I saw numerous DIY shows that take like a 12″x12″ square of plywood, add some batting and then put fabric on top of it with a button or some type of funky design on it. What I want to do is take the center section of this book case idea and then have it lined with strips of velcro, this way I can just velcro the boxes on in any formation I choose and it makes it even easier to switch them out if I ever wanted to update the bedroom seasonally, in the long run it’s less time consuming than repainting the walls, and if I do a few different shades of the same color I could come up with something unique whenever I just feel like shifting things around.

Now, I’m in no way remotely interested in these colors, but this is the general idea.

You can see the different blocks, I would do different shades of the same color. From there I’d make sure to carry it up high enough but not so high that it effects any type of lighting I choose to work into it.

Obviously something like this would be a long project, but it would increase storage in the master bedroom on top of visual appeal so the room doesn’t feel so plain.

I’m going with a very neutral color pallet throughout the whole house, the ‘pops of color’ will primarily come from accessories/paintings. I do not like the idea of accent walls, I do not like dark tones on the walls either. I want things to be as simple and clean line as humanly possible. Also knowing that this is just a starter home for us, I don’t want to go crazy on the colors so that it’s something we need to worry about in the future. As clean/light as possible without being some sterile hospital white either.

So yea… at this moment we’re just waiting on the Broker to get back to us about our loan application.  We haven’t heard from him since Tuesday which is something that’s even concerning to the realtor because he’s very good about returning all of his phone calls, and even right now his voice mail is full. She noted that she’s concerned since she commonly talks to him multiple times a day and even she hasn’t heard from him.

We just want to know how much money we can actually afford, put in our offer and go from there.  There’s no way in hell these people are getting their asking price, that’s for damn sure – and that’s just based on the structural and cosmetic work going on on the OUTSIDE of the home, this doesn’t even include the fact that we have to replace flooring (even though their insurance company paid for the flooring to be replaced after the pipe blew over the winter since the water company failed to shut off the water to the home as they were requested). So clearly since the Insurance company paid for new drywall and flooring, they could have gotten the remaining $300 together to get the other two rooms finished with the same carpet. BUT it’s cosmetic, and not a deal breaker for me since we’re swapping it out for laminate anyway.

I’m gonna go sit with the phone and just patiently freaking wait for SOMEONE to say something to me.