More On The Floors

A couple of weeks ago we had a company come in and measure and look at the floors. They seemed pretty excited about what was under the carpet. I guess it's not that common. Terrazzo, cork and polished cement will be virtually maintenance free and so much better for the allergies. We heard multiple times. "It is amazing what people will put carpet over!" We were waiting to hear on a proposal from them but we got a call saying "the boss" wanted to come look at things since the tile over the cement in the basement hallway is potentially asbestos. Ugh!! When I arrived and walked in the basement den "the boss" was pointing out to his employee that water had come in the basement and the cork underneath the carpet had some water damage. GREAT! At this point the house had already been inspected and no one said a word about water damage. There seemed to be some pretty obvious tell tale signs the flooring guy picked up on right away. The water issue doesn't seem like anything significant. I have always grown up with a basement and I just accept that water comes with the territory. As long as I'm not wading in it I'm not really concerned. But, it would have been nice to know. The multi-talented flooring people are also going to be able to take care of some landscaping that lead to the water issues. But, this now means the basement den will no longer be cork. The cork will also have to be pulled up and the cement underneath will be polished. The tile in the basement hallway won't be a problem. But there is a big question about how easy it will be to get the glue up and the glue from the linoleum in the kitchen. So, at this point we are praying the glue comes up easy and there is no other damage to any of the floors underneath. The flooring company also forgot to give us a quote on doing the steps which seem to be wood. Hopefully they will give us a reasonable deal on that. Immediately after we close we plan to go to the house and pull back as much of the carpet as easily possible so we can see the condition of what is underneath. Last week we put a 50% down payment on the floors. They are supposed to begin the work on July 3. The day after we close. We will be nervous until we know for sure exactly what is under the carpet and the condition it is in.

Intermission

This is where the story starts getting really good. But, before I get to the good stuff I have to tell a little bit more about the house and post some photos. The house has an intercom system! It also includes a radio. Our inspector said it doesn't work but I have read stories about people who have been able to fix them very easily or even just had to let them warm up for a while and they cranked right up. Eventually we would like to try fixing it or replacing it with a new version.

Control center for the intercom system

Intercom at the front door

There is a charcoal grill in the kitchen, a built in mix-master in the kitchen, a warming drawer under the stove, and a funny little outlet to plug in a special griddle that goes with it.

The charcoal grill- We will need have to fix the latch so that it doesn't need a piece of string to hold it shut.

The Mix-Master

The warming tray under the oven

The strange outlet for the griddle

The griddle

At this point you might be asking yourself what the heck a Mix-Master is. Well, we didn't even notice the thing the first two times we went to the house. When we finally did see it we had NO clue what it was. It was our friendly home inspector who enlightened us. It is a motor built into your counter with many different attachments like mixers, choppers, food processors etc. Basically, it's a built in Kitchen Aid. It sounds really cool to me and apparently you can still get them. The new ones look almost exactly like the old ones. The inspector says ours doesn't work. I would eventually like to try to get it working or replace it with the new version.

The house also has a bathroom scale that folds out of the wall!! According to Retro Renovation these things are one of the three most collectible vintage bathroom accessories. We also have the "concealed lavatory" discussed on that site as well as the relaxation unit which can be seen next to the toilet in the photo below. I would like to attempt getting the foot prints off the scale. Speaking of the bathroom. We still have not discussed the pink and blue bathroom issue. That is still coming.

Master bathroom scale

I like to joke that the house was built for the Jetsons. It appears that most of the Jetson type attributes were made by a company called NuTone which still exists today. Their website says they are the leader in Central Vacuum systems. I have a feeling there are still some other little nifty things we haven't yet discovered in this house. And, there are a few that are so neat I am going to save them for their own post.

I will mention the dog kennel right now. Yes, I did say dog kennel. As I said, the house was inspected and got an excellent report. We were told the house was built and maintained in a top notch quality manner and building with the same supplies today would put the cost through the roof. While the inspector was doing his thing I decided to look at the plans again. I can only look at them for a short period of time because they are very musty. I'm not sure why. They are currently stored in a kitchen cupboard but at some point they must have been somewhere else. The musty smell makes me feel sick. (This is part of the reason we have been coming across information in small bits and pieces.) On inspection day I noticed there was a dog kennel on the plans. Somewhere in the basement there was a dog kennel. Where?? Why?? What kind of dog gets their own indoor kennel? A cute little spoiled poodle? What was it's name? When did it live? So many questions and no answers! Back to my quest. I HAD to talk to the original owners of this house!