What A Difference A Year Makes...

This post has been a long time in coming.  Granted I haven't written much in the past months, but that's not the point.  No it's the simple fact that I've yet to write about my home.  Last year this time, I was still searching madly for a home to purchase.  I had pretty much ruled out purchasing a home because the cost of home ownership had gotten so out of control. 

I remember it was during a break from a training class that I first saw the house on some website.  I was immediately drawn to the modern profile of the home.  There were no interior photographs on the site, but the price was right.   For certain it looked like it needed some work, but I liked the bones.  At the time, my brother was dabbling in real estate on the side.  He could get the keys to the lock boxes, so we arranged to look at a few homes over the weekend.

We visited a few other houses before we saw the one above.  The first home we saw sported a flat roof and modern profile too, but once we got inside it was all downhill.  It reeked of mold, the kitchen cabinets were in disarray and there was a huge empty pool in the back yard that needed to be repaired.  Plus it took up the entire back yard.  Next, we viewed a house that was completely out of my price range.  It had been freshly remodeled, but no one was living there.  It was beautiful and had a large backyard.  It too had a pool that needed help.  Lastly, we went to the home above. 

It wasn't what I expected.  We opened the front door to find a wrought iron gate enclosing the entryway.  Adjacent to that was a half brick wall that had been painted fire engine red.  The house had been vacant for months.  In the living room was gray carpet that had been soiled with dirt, soda spills and perhaps wicked pet urine.  Walking into the kitchen area was an immediate step back into the 1960's.  The small galley kitchen featured white cabinets that looked as if they had been refinished on the cheap.  They were also missing a couple of doors.  As we moved to the bedrooms, it was more of the same.  The first bedroom was a decent size and also had gray carpet.  The second bedroom was smaller, but for some strange reason had green carpet.  The master bedroom was the scariest of them all, as it was missing any form of carpet at all.  Just bare concrete and tracks from where the glue held the carpet in place.  It did have a large walk-in closet.  The vanity area was a nice size, but the actual bathroom was tiny, with a small shower to the left.  The master bedroom had an Arcadia door which lead to the back patio.  The entire back of the house was covered by the patio (a nice touch), but the backyard itself was tiny.  Worse was the fact that it directly bordered a major shopping complex.  A strange touch was that there was a gate that allowed access to the shopping center.

All could be fixed was the rationale.  The fact that my mother loved the huge walk in pantry just to the right of the kitchen sealed the deal.  A bid was placed on the house in early September.  A few anxious days later we found out that another bid had been accepted.  The process began all over again.  We looked at more houses, placed more bids and went to home auctions.  Paperwork was filed.  We were outbid.  We underbid.  I forced myself to look and like other homes.  And they soon had names.  The Green House, The Rooster House, The Roach House, The Dead Pool House. 

And then in late October it happened.  The original house we had looked at came back on the market.  In fact, I spotted it again before a new Realtor had been assigned to the property.  Using my brother's connections, we placed a bid as soon as it became available.  And then we waited.  And waited. And waited.  Buying a home that has been in foreclosure is a terrible process.  In all, we waited almost 45 days to have the offer accepted.  During those 45 days I continued to look at other homes.  In the end, it was the first home that I considered that I ended up with.

 

The first thing to go was the popcorn ceiling.  Then the gray carpet was removed from the living room and hallway.  In its place went tile that also covered the bare master bedroom.  The painting went rather quickly, replacing the 1970's yellow tinged color with a more modern Swiss-Coffee color.  The most dramatic change came in the kitchen.  We gutted the existing kitchen and moved the refrigerator out of the galley kitchen.  This allowed for more cabinetry to surround the refrigerator in its new place and the removal of the cabinets that had blocked-in the kitchen before  

 

For certain, there is a ton of work that still needs to be done.  The front yard needs to be stripped.  I'm not sure if grass or more rock is the way to go.  The house needs to be painted.  The kitchen/den area needs to have the Linoleum replaced.  I've read that the flooring in a home should be continuous.  That would mean more tile, but I was looking for a more modern appearance.  The tile that was put down earlier this year seems to give the home a Mediterranean feel.  Still, everything is 100% better than what it was when I first saw the place, that's for sure.

I still need to purchase furniture for the dining room, the master bedroom, the kitchen/den area.  Actually just about every room needs something else.  But it will get there, in time...