Open Houses - House Three

This was the third house that we looked at last Sunday.  It was also an estate sale and a pretty good size house.  It had it's perks and it had it's share of downsides. 

First off it had a huge wooded yard.  It wasn't fenced in, but that's easy enough to do.  Plenty of room for my garden and for the dogs (there's another hint boy) to run around.  The downside was that it ran up to the railroad tracks.  And I know for a fact that these tracks are used a great deal, since the bus stop is just down the road from here and I have to wait for trains all the time.  But I wasn't going to judge the house just based on the fact that it was on the tracks, we could easily put up a privacy fence and some nice trees along the back of the yard. 

The other downside I saw before I even entered the house was that it was on a very very busy street.  So no street parking and traffic constantly, a lot of traffic.  I'm not really looking for a house on a busy street, there are so many downsides to it, the largest one being Yoda getting out and running across all those lanes of traffic, not good.  But again I wanted to see the inside of this one before I started to judge.

The house had hardwood floors throughout, which is always a plus in my book.  The floors were in really nice condition too, so I liked that a lot.   

There was a lovely wood burning fireplace in the living room, which we would probably not use, but it was in nice condition and it was pretty.

There were large windows looking out on the large back yard, which was pretty.  But again I would like a set of patio doors going out to a nice deck, so that would be something to add to the project list. 

The kitchen was nice.  It had a little bit more updated appliances then the other houses we had looked at.  The counter top was old and we would want to replace that, but overall the kitchen was nice.  It was roomy and a decent set up.  And one thing the whole house had was this great retro intercom system.  Every single room had one, even the bathrooms.

There was a 3/4 bath on the first floor which was nice, but no bedroom on the first floor.  All 5 bedrooms were upstairs.  The bedrooms were average size and did have lovely hard wood floors, but again they were all upstairs and me and J really don't need 5 bedrooms.  We would like at least one of the rooms downstairs because we feel it will be used more if it's not hidden away upstairs.

The full bath upstairs was all original, except for the toilet.  So again that would have to all be redone.  It was very retro, but I just don't want a green bathtub and sink, though I'm sure there are plenty of people out there that would.  It was an average size bathroom, we just would probably replace almost everything in it.  So more to add to the project list.

Then finally there was the basement.  Completely unfinished and not really able to be finished.  It was an old house, and it had an old basement.  That was that.  It had one room that looked like it was added on later that had some potential, but you would have to walk through the original part of the basement to get there.  It's just not really what we're looking for.

So though this house sounded great on paper; two car garage, hardwood floors, 5 bedrooms, over 2,000 square feet, it just wasn't for us.  We decided that someone with a big family would do great here.  There is plenty of room for everyone, but just not what me and J are looking for.

We looked at one other house that day, but I don't have any pictures.  I wasn't really thrilled with that one and all and we didn't plan on looking at it, the real estate agent just walked us over to show us.  So I didn't even take out the camera because it was nothing we were looking for and it needed a lot of work.

So that was our first weekend of open houses.  I know it will be a long journey and there will be a number of more open houses before we find the house that's perfect for us.  So I'll keep everyone updated on future houses we look at.  Then it's the fun part of fixing up the house and making it exactly what we are looking for.