Surfergeeks

Damn, it’s late. I’m tired, but I want to post this before I head off to bed. So, as I mentioned, we went and looked at houses today.

Of the five we passed on to the realtor that we wanted to see, two of them were sold – including the one with the pool (sniff). Well, it’s a conditional sale pending on financing, but apparently these usually go through.

So that left 3 houses. The first one, on East St, we thought looked kinda nice from the outside based on our drive-by the other day. Once inside we were rather disappointed with the house. The back half of the house had a sloping roof that basically culminated in a bathroom where Nikki would have trouble standing up in the shower – no lie. PASS.

Next up was a house on Price St. As soon as we walked in, we realized that the difference between this one and East St was like night & day. The main floor had a nice, spacious living room, the kitchen, although having the laundry in there (washing machine was right beside the stove!!!), was HUGE and had a ton of cupboards! This house featured a second floor which sported 3 bedrooms. None of the individual bedrooms were what you would call large, but with a minimal amount of renovation it would be possible to have two decent sized bedrooms up there. A fair amount of renovation would see a couple smaller bedrooms and an ensuite bath (this would involve an addition to the upper floor). The basement was…cozy. Yeah, that’s the ticket. First, there were these stairs of almost-death which almost force you to limbo under the ledge to get down there. Once the descent was complete, was one room that had a six-ish foot ceiling and a ledge along the one wall (ah…how the memories of Woodward came flooding back). No room for a pool table (two pillars in the way). The lot was quite large and featured a good sized garage near the back of the lot that is powered, insulated, and heated. This could quite conceivably be turned into a games room of sorts with minimal work (slap up some drywall and paint and you’re set). We did have a couple concerns about this property but they were minor – a few windows needed to be replaced and we weren’t absolutely in love with the location of the only bathroom – on the main floor just off the dining room/living room.

Okay..on to the third and final house of the day. This one was on Dreaney (or Dreary as I referred to it prior to visiting – afterward it was even more appropriate). Walking up the stairs onto the front porch you immediately see a large front window with a nice half circle window above it. Once inside you’re greeted to a living room/dining room with what we think were 12 foot ceilings? H-O-R-S-E anyone??? The next room we hit was obviously a kids room as it was painted with brightly coloured squares in the primary and secondary colours. Next was the kitchen – very much in need of updating. The second bedroom was about the same size as the first. The next room was the bathroom. UGH! Black mold of death was present in here. The main floor also had another room and a laundry room. In the laundry room were stairs to the side door and leading to the basement. The basement was, for lack of a better term, a maze. Not quite sure of the original use – maybe a rooming house – but there were a few different rooms that may have been bedrooms, a kitchen, and a bathroom. I swear the basement seemed to have more space than the floor above it. It went on forever. Unfortunately, the ENTIRE basement would have needed to have been stripped down to the bare walls and rebuilt from scratch. The lot was also a good size and had a garage, shed, garden, and horseshoe pits. This house would be AMAZING as an investment property where you could spend about 3 or 4 months renovating and cleaning it prior to renting or flipping it. Unfortunately, not what we’re looking for yet. PASS.

So, that was the house hunting today. 1 potential of 3. We’ve submitted another five to Boyd (our realtor) that we’d like to see and have found another ten that we would like to get some more info on and do drive-bys to see if we’d like to see inside them. I’ve no doubt that we’ll find a place but I’ll be a lot less stressed once we do.

Nikki may chime in with her thoughts as well on the houses – we’ll see.