This house will go on the market next week. Joe gave us permission to view it beforehand and it is one of the nicest we have seen. However, it backs up to a road, which can be busy at times so we are concerned about that being a factor the next time someone purchases it in the future. Matt does not love it as much as I do and the heating is run on propane gas tanks, and electricity. (Propane tanks can be expensive) I noticed that some of the houses here have septic tanks, wells and no piped gas, even if they are close to DC. It depends on land size, the larger your land size, the more likely you are to have a septic or well.
The family is desperate to sell before Sept this year but there are many factors that prevent Matt from getting overly excited about it than I was about it.
Ok, I am not particularly keen on a Tudor styled home because they are so traditional and are known to be dark inside.
This is the driveway, with our car coming out of the driveway. The land in front is all part of the house but the back yard is smaller. The back yard backs onto the main road. You cannot hear the noise from inside but we were aware of it as we came outside.
The first thing we notice as we walk in was the grand staircase. The place was filled with light, so I was pleasantly surprised. The painters were there that day which was why there was plastic sheeting all over.
What drama! I loved the house immediately. The owner has a father who is an artist and he painted some of her paintings on the walls. This formal living room was the only living area in the house. Another bonus! We don’t see the point of having two of the living and dining areas when we hardly use the formal ones.
Another view of the living room.
As you walk through the foyer past the stairs, it opens up into the dining hall. The hall was big and the white french doors opened out to a gardened patio.
The whole place had high ceilings. This shot was taken from upstairs. The door on the left leads to the big kitchen.
The kitchen was being renovated at the time this was shot. The lady told us that she was putting in black granite on the countertops, a new sink, new appliances and new hardware. Most of all, it ran on gas!!! A lot of the houses here use electricity, and some do not have the option of piped gas, which meant we had to install propane tanks ourselves. They are not at all like tanks in Malaysia. The pipes run from a tank beneath or outside the house and the pipes run to the points in the house where heating is required, like the heater or stove. I did not like the flooring because it was vinyl! See in the background, the breakfast nook? This was my favourite part of the house. Wah! Matt, are you sure that you don’t want this house?
This was the landing to the rooms upstairs. The upstairs was strange. It had two big rooms, and one huge recreation room. Most recreation rooms are down in the basement. The master bedroom was on the ground floor, which opened also to the patio that I mentioned earlier.
This is the recreation room upstairs. The lady had painted the walls with the same material as the one used on whiteboards so her children could draw on the walls. That is all going to be repainted over. However, this long walkway leads to the room, and it only has skylights, no window.
Every room here has its own full bathroom, with shower, sink and toilet. That is a lot for me to clean. What makes it so strange is that the bathrooms are fully carpeted! She is taking them out and putting in brand new carpets.
The rec room. It can always be converted to a guest room as it is a huge room. The biggest downside of this place is that the basement is unfinished, which puts it to an extra $30K should we decide to complete it. As it is alone, it is big enough for our family and entertaining, but when winter arrives, there is nowhere for the boys to play.
Sigh…it has been a great 6 months looking for a place to stay. It has been an eye opener to say the least, how the whole real estate market works. It peaks in spring and summer, but dies off in July and August. We have decided to rent a house closer to church for a year. This place is very small, a single story home, called a rambler. It will be a challenge to fit all our things in the house and we might have to get a storage solution but we have left it to the very end to rent. We are finding there is not much in the market for rent, where we would like to live.
This is what a rambler looks like, although ours is a lot smaller and does not have a garage because the owner converted it to a kitchen. Strangely enough, Matt and I are excited to be moving into such a cute house. The neighbours are cops, which always helps and the owner is a real estate agent. There are buses running off the main road, which is great for Matt. It is not far from the station but there are no bicycle paths so he cannot cycle safely.
