The Second Visit… The Inside

I said before that I thought it would either be on a bad block, or it would be in abominable condition on the inside. We’d already seen that the former was not true, and we were about to see that the latter wasn’t true, either…

To be sure, it’s a mess right now. Like I mentioned, it is a pre-foreclosure short sale; the seller and bank both want to avoid foreclosure. We have learned that what we are paying is approximately $100,000 less than what the seller owes the bank, but the bank has approved the sale at this price. It’s all a sad story on the seller’s part, something to do with a divorce… and alcoholism. The house is being sold “as is, no seller’s disclosure, no inspections.” The mess left behind, we’ll inherit… a few trashed pieces of furniture, a lot of garbage (including moldy food sitting out on the kitchen counters), and miscellaneous, random belongings.

But we were able to see past all of this. Left to our own devices, since we’d been left the key and had no agent accompanying us, we wandered the (to us) enormous house. Every turn brought a surprise or new discovery; even the light switches were never where we expected them to be and had to be hunted down. Instead of the trash on the floors, our eyes were drawn to the wood trim and doors, the pocket doors, the old fireplace mantles, the built-in hutch in the dining room… the grand, split/double staircase – with one set of stairs presumably intended for the servants…







And of course, it was enormous. The 1st floor consists of a foyer, a living room, a formal dining room, a kitchen, and a half bath. Up the beautiful staircase, we found two very large bedrooms, two small bedrooms, and a full bathroom. Off one of the smaller bedrooms, there is a balcony. Up another flight of stairs… to the attic; it is completely finished into one enormous room, with another full bath (in dire need of a makeover), more hardwood floors, exposed beams, and great views in all four directions.



It needs a serious cleaning. It needs some stuff replaced (like the knob & tube wiring visible in the basement; our insurance company has given us 12 months to replace that). All of the systems are old and likely to need replacement before too long: the A/C, the furnace, the boiler, and the hot-water heater.

But… it is also amazing. It has original floors, original doors, original windows, original wood trim – almost all of which has never been defiled with paint. We think that even many light fixtures and bathroom fixtures are original. The original windows work incredibly well, opening smoothly and easily despite their size; I’ve learned that they operate on a weight & pulley system (they actually did know how to build things, back in the day!). We have learned that the doors (and quite possibly the trim and other items) are all made of something that is an Arts & Crafts style hallmark called “quarter-sawn oak” and would likely cost ~$500 each to replace today; and there are loads of them – there’s even one laid atop 2 sawhorses in the garage, as if it was used as a work surface.

The house has its quirks, to be sure. There is a bizarre shower-and-heat-lamp amalgamation amidst concrete walls in the basement… Our inspector took one look at the proximity of the heat lamp to the shower head and said, “Do me a favor – promise me you’ll never use this shower.” The “finished” part of the basement is gross and needs loads of work, except that we’d never need to use it. And then there is the crooked toilet in the 1st floor half-bath…. Yes, it is plumbed this way:



But there is actually incredibly little work that MUST be done to the house. There are various cosmetic revamps to do, and plenty of money to spend, but nothing that couldn’t be lived with, for a while…

We went back home. I texted the agent, told him we really liked the house, and asked if we could get an inspection done as long as we did it prior to making an offer (so the contract would not need to be contingent upon it). He said Yes. He hastened to remind me that the seller would not pay for any inspections or do any repairs, and to make sure I knew that this would be the case even if we did not get the house. In short, it was our $350 to gamble and nobody else’s. I said yep, I know.

It was well worth the risk.