the house

So I've been selected to write a description of the house...this will be interesting.

The basics -- it is 3 bedrooms and 1.5 baths. It was built in 1960 and has partial brick/partial vinyl siding (in quite good shape). The carport was closed in to make a second living area, and the back porch was extended and enclosed to make even more space (actually I think the porch was done before the carport). So the total comes out to something like 1573 square feet.

As Jennifer mentioned in the original post, the flooring needs replacing to some degree. It's got old carpet and original hardwood floors, plus vinyl in the main bathroom and kitchen. We don't know if we will keep the hardwood floors or put in new carpet over them. The kitchen has what appear to be original pine cabinets (in good shape), a fairly new range, and a decent refrigerator. No dishwasher, but being the dishwashing person, I am all about putting one in soon. We expect to have the house rewired before moving in, because the wiring (besides the addition areas) appears to be original -- ungrounded outlets, no outlets in the bathrooms, a fuse panel instead of breakers, etc. Doing that will provide some peace of mind about safety as well as allow things like entertainment equipment, computers, etc. to be plugged in, and make sure that the system can take the load that will be put on it. Paint...I think Jennifer is going to love getting to pick colors that are not the beige we've lived with for 6 years of being married.

The back of the property slopes downward some, enough so that the crawlspace at the back of the house has something like 5 feet of vertical room. There are two storage buildings in the back, plus a decent amount of space under the back porch addition to store things. The backyard has lots of plants, some that have taken over their planting beds after having not been tended to in probably about a year. Once some of that stuff is pulled out, it should be a good place to play for Nathan. There is fence almost all the way around - we'd need about twelve feet of chain link on the left of the house to close it off totally in the back.

Front yard area...there is an (unfortunately) rusty flagpole in the yard, which I intend to fly an American flag on. It needs a spotlight to be all-weather, 24 hour, though. The front porch is decent-sized, enough to put a couple of rocking chairs on if we want. Parking space is a little hampered by having closed in the carport, but we should be able to get both cars in side by side and still have room for a visitor. Anything more would end up in the yard.

The house is just down the street from an elementary school and a Presbyterian church. One set of neighbors is what Jennifer would call "cute old people." The location is pretty much central to Warner Robins, so we will be able to get to things without much delay. Sonny's is at most 5 minutes away...

Back to the interior. The front door opens into the living room, which is of typical size and shape for the age of the house (about 10.5' deep by 16' wide). Straight across is the doorway to the dining room and the rest of the house. The kitchen is to the right, separated by little counter-height shelf things. The dining room has plenty of space to have our table (with leaf) and all the chairs and still leave room for walking through. Out the back side of the dining room is the doorway to the enclosed back porch. It's about 15' by 11' and will probably end up being playroom space. It's got lots of windows. To the left from the dining room is the hallways to the bedrooms and bathrooms. The master bedroom is straight down (back left side of the house), and the other two are on the left (front side of house). The full bathroom is on the right side. The master bedroom has a small walk-in closet and a half bath. We are probably going to try to figure out a way to convert the closet space to a shower and have two full baths (at some point), but we'd have to figure out a good way to replace the closet space. To the right from the dining room and through the kitchen is the enclosed carport and laundry room (which was originally entered from the carport). This room will likely end up being the office/utility-type room. The computer, bookcases, sewing machine, and piano will probably all go there. For some reason, it has two doors to the outside -- one at the front and one at the back, both on the right side of the house.

Other random things: there is a scuttle hole to the attic (i.e., no pull-down stairs). It actually has a coat closet (we don't have one here). There is a window in the dining room (that now goes to the enclosed porch) that has no glass in it. The ceiling vents are circular -- I've never seen that before.

I think that's enough of a book now. Hopefully the inspections will go well and things will move along quickly for us. It's definitely nice to have our offer accepted with no counters -- I feel like we're getting a good deal, and we'll be able to get the main things fixed up before we move in.

Phew. I bet you're exhausted just having read this.