i went to look at houses this morning with my realtor. we had 3 showings scheduled & when we finished she asked about a specific neighborhood that i didn’t know much about. we’re looking for a 4 bedroom house & 3/4 of the houses there have only 3 bedrooms. she said that people buy the L shaped homes and add a garage and master bedroom to one side. we drove over to have a look-see & i found a house i dig.
mind you, if we bought it, we’d have to dig through 50 years of grime, cockroaches, dust, mouse poop, and possible mold to make it inhabitable. i don’t mean that they never cleaned out any of the poo & other grossness, but since it’s been vacant, no one has touched it. and there was, literally, a quarter inch of dust around furniture marks on the carpet in one bedroom. it was a bit icky, BUT i loved it.
it has all the retro charm that i adore & i would love to get my hands on a fixer-upper. and everything needs to be updated, so it is a definite fixer-upper. gold shag carpet, pink laundry counter, yellow tile in master bathroom, turquoise tile in the cockroach kids’ bathroom, unbelievable curtains in gorgeous vintage prints, retro light fixtures, push button stove top, windowless yellow oven (i was scared to look inside,) cracking and peeling rolled vinyl in the kitchen (they had duct tape holding down the seams!,) diving pool in the backyard, and so much more.
while it was pretty disgusting, i saw the possible potential there. i was so much more interested in what could be than what is. i could see us there.
daddyjay will go to see it with me next week & maybe we’ll move forward. i can’t imagine what an inspector will come up with, but i’m sure it’s a huge list. new wiring, new plumbing, water damage, mold, critter damage??? those are just guesses.
then, to find out if it can be detoxed enough that i want to live in it. i wonder how much that runs?
mommymae 