A Knock On The Door

This morning at about 10am there was a knock at our front door. My husband has a horrible cold but I have this policy about not answering the door if I don't know who is on the other side. So, he got the job of answering. It ended up being the second owner of our house standing on the other side of the door! She wanted to know if she could come back later today with her family to see the house. This is the lady who happened to be very good friends with my mother's best friend and we have emailed about the house several times. I had not heard from her in quite some time. So, we set an appointment for 2pm when they returned.

At 2pm the owner showed up with her daughter, husband, granddaughter-in-law and grandson. It was so interesting to hear what they had to say about the house. They seemed to like the things we had done to it. I am going to type some of the things they told us about the house so that I don't forget. We started in the living room. She said when they moved in, the living room floor had just been carpeted with wool carpet for the sale of the house. We speculate this may have been the same carpet that was in the house when we moved in. She said the living room windows had white sheer panels when they lived there. We think they were the same ones on the windows when we moved in. They also told us they used the fireplace. We were told by the inspector that he thought there was no liner in the fireplace and we shouldn't use it until we know for sure. We haven't had it inspected by a chimney sweep yet but we suspect it does have a liner!

The kitchen was still terrazzo when they moved in but they covered it in linoleum. She thought the kitchen cabinets were white when they moved in and they had been painted due to damage. I was told that the cabinet that divides the living room and kitchen was moved further into the kitchen by them because they thought it went too far into the living room. She said the kitchen had a gourmet freezer/ fridge that was very large and had wood surrounding it. It was not very efficient and when it broke they couldn't find anyone to fix it so they replaced it. We think that was the original fridge for the house. She said it was very tall and flush with the kitchen cabinets. That is what I had speculated. The original owners had a laundry off the kitchen with a washer/ dryer all in one unit. That was removed and the laundry was added in the basement by these people.

The hallway leading to the family room.
The laundry room is on the left. The laundry
room and door leading into the family room
were not always here.

The pink and blueish/green carpet that was in the two smaller bedrooms when we moved in sounds like it was here when these people lived here. The pink was added by them. One bedroom has funny marks in the floor and ceiling right above and below each other. (I have been meaning to do a post about these to see if anyone knows what they are.) All I can think is that some kind of tension unit was in this spot. Maybe a lamp or a shelf. They said they don't remember having anything like this. I had suspected these were the owners who put the wallpaper in both of the bathrooms but they said they did not. The basement bathroom has tile on the floor that was also in the entry way. They said they don't remember this tile. They think the basement hallway and bathroom had carpet when they lived there.

This is the same floor covered in white splotches
at the "floor problems" link  below.

They used our guest room as a den which is also what I think the original owners used it for. The biggest surprise of their visit was learning about the rest of the basement. The rest of the basement had originally been a dog kennel. I know these people had removed the dog kennel. So, I assumed they had also refinished the basement and turned it into the laundry room and family room. But, they were not the ones who refinished the basement. They left it unfinished with a cement floor. What is now the laundry room and family room were all one big room. At one time the entire basement had a long hall that went from one end to a door that went outside. They said that hall was still there when they lived in the house. This was a very big surprise to us.

When you walk in the family room this divider is in front of you.
We assume it's there as support instead  of the original wall. You
can see the door to the carport past this divider.

I haven't included many pictures of the basement. That is where a large part of our floor problems happened. (Remember the story about the floors that got stained purple on accident?) I figure it is about time to post some photos of the basement. I'm sorry I didn't take them in the day when there was more light. We are just about moved in down there. For those of you wondering, our other house still has not sold!! So, we aren't completely moved into this house. We still have furniture at the other house. We do have an offer on the other house. It is supposed to close on June 24th. Hopefully everything will go through without any hitches. We are now in the process of moving the last of our furniture to the new house.

This is the divider from the opposite side.
The right side of this divider was where there
was a wall that ran the length of the family room
and created a hallway.

At our old house we had a lot of built in shelving in our family room. We were wondering how we were going to make up for all of that lost space. This past winter we got a shelving unit for the family room that comes in two pieces. They are supposed to be stacked on top of each other but we separated them. One unit is being used as an entertainment center. The other unit is being used as shelving for books. The unit was originally a beverage rack. I will have more photos soon of our guest bedroom. It has also been neglected in my photos. A new bedspread comes this week and we should be about done with that room. We finally had our front yard repaired after the new sewer line. So, be watching for more landscaping photos. We also have some new patio furniture.

It is our hope to paint the exterior of the house this summer. Choosing colors is not fun!! I wish someone could just tell me what will look great.

More to come soon!

This is the new storage unit we got in the winter. The piece on the left is actually supposed to stack on top of the piece
on the right. The top of the piece on the right is actually from our old house. My cousin built it to serve the same
purpose it serves now on top of a built in shelving unit where our TV sat. The two pieces on the right are not attached.

Where Do We Stand?

It has been a while since I have written a blog. I need to do a little update on where we stand right now. I haven't blogged because not a lot has happened since my last post. We have basically been trying to recover financially from the expense of all the work we did last winter. We also still have the financial obligations that come with still owning our old house. On top of those things I am feeling a bit poor due to the number of shoes I have purchased over the past year. For about a year now I have had very painful bursitis in both of my feet. (I think all of the cement floors in this house could be exacerbating the issue.) I have really struggled with finding comfortable shoes.  I would have much rather put the money I have spent on shoes into a new house project.

We were considering having the house painted this past summer. But, we did not get the roof damage I posted about here fixed until this past summer. We called in October of 2013 about getting the roof fixed and it took close to a year to finally get it repaired. The leak from the roof caused a lot of damage to the door frame of the storage shed in the carport. So, there was no point in painting until the roof was repaired. By the time the roof was fixed the weather wasn't very conducive to painting. The painting will most likely be next summer's project. We have no plans to make any drastic change to the color of the house. We just want to freshen it up.

We also have not had the yard and sidewalk repaired after putting in the new sewer line. We had to wait to let the ground settle. It has now settled and doesn't look quite as much like a giant mole went through our yard. Since the weather is cold this is most likely something that will be taken care of when the weather warms up. We would also like to eventually have some landscaping done to the yard. We are not planning to make any major changes but all of the bushes are very old (maybe even original). They have gotten very woody without having much green. We would like to freshen them up. There were also a few trees that were lost in the yard during large storms. There are some really key spots where trees are missing that we would like to have replaced. We also need to add some rock around the house to protect it from standing water.

Inside we still need to get a new dishwasher. Ours is really ugly and doesn't do the greatest job but it is limping along for now. Eventually we would like to get a stainless steel one to match the rest of the kitchen. We need to put new ceiling tiles in the family room (former dog kennel). The tiles that were there were sagging and didn't look very nice. Then when the toilet flooded last year some of the tiles got water damage. We also have yet to tackle the pink and blue bathroom. We finally have furniture in the guest bedroom. I will make a post about that later. Our family room is without a TV which is still at the other house. We need to eventually paint the laundry room. This isn't a pressing issue but when they stained the floor they got one large splash of stain on the laundry room wall which kind of annoys me. We also need to eventually get a new mailbox. Ours has an issue with collecting water. I will have to do a post about mailboxes at some point. I have found a cool one that I want.

As you can see there has not been a lot of action here so no new photos. Oh yes! I forgot to tell you that we got the door on the indoor kitchen grill repaired. It is now in great shape. Thank you to my wonderful cousin for taking care of that for us. I forgot to add the fireplace to our list of to dos. My husband would kill me if I forget to list it because I think it is at the top of his list! When we had the house inspected we were told they didn't think our fireplace was lined. Apparently not having a lined fireplace is extremely dangerous even though the fireplace has been used in the past. We need to have it inspected by an expert (along with the chimney to the kitchen grill) and then decide how we will proceed if it is not lined. There is a pretty good chance we will turn it into a gas fireplace.

Owner Number Two

This week I received an email from the second owners of the house! We will be owners number four. So, I have now had communication with every family that has lived in the house! It turns out that the second family to live there was very close friends with the family we grew up next to until I was in the fourth grade. The old neighbors are still close friends of our family. When they heard about the house we will be buying they contacted the second owners who they still keep in touch with even though they have moved from our town. Our friends had shared this blog with the previous owners and then they contacted me.

Owners number two lived in the house for only 6 years. They seem to be the ones who made some of the more obvious changes to the house. They said, "We did not cover the terrazzo floors in the kitchen but remember that the terrazzo was damaged in front of the double ovens - perhaps by a spill of some sort.  The rest of the house was carpeted though.  The great room was newly carpeted when we bought it and the rest of the house had wool carpet from the original owner.  We removed all of the indoor kennels and two of the outdoor kennels. The outside of the house had been painted (not stained) a redwood color before we bought it. We then painted it brown. The small room off the kitchen contained a washer / dryer unit. We removed it and put a washer and a dryer in the basement.  I used the small desk for a sewing machine. The kitchen had a "gourmet" refrigerator and freezer (two separate units built in). We removed those units and replaced them with a "normal" refrigerator / freezer."

We will be very relieved to see what the condition of the floors are under the carpet. Hopefully the stain mentioned can be sanded down. I also started thinking that there might be flaws in the basement concrete where the kennels once were. We were at the house the other day and noticed for the first time there are the remnants of old fencing posts from the kennels in the patio concrete. Again, hopefully anything like that inside the house can be ground down or filled in with new cement. I took some photos of those places in the concrete were the posts used to be and the places in the brick where the old outline of the doggy doors can be seen.

If you look closely you can see the outline of the three doggy doors in the brick. One is behind the pile of stuff. One is directly under the middle of the window and the last is to the right of the water spigot. We believe the window was added when the kennels were removed but we are not sure. It is definitely a newer window than the others.

You can see at the edge of the patio, next to the cracks, a circle that is the remains of a metal post from the kennels. There are several of them along the edge of the patio. I am wondering if there are more of these inside under the carpet. Or, maybe the kennels inside had walls instead of fencing. Another mystery!

The patio- You can see three circles from old fencing along the edge of the patio and you can see the doggy door marks in the brick.

We also decided that there were definitely trees that were lost in the big storm four years ago. The fence in the back has been damaged by a tree. Someone told us this but I can't remember who. It was very obviously crushed by a tree falling right on top of it. It was obviously a large tree. You can tell right where the tree used to be by the way the ground slopes, the grass grows and where some ornamental rocks are placed in the area. Yet, there is no stump to be seen. The owners must have had all of the stumps removed after the storm. We have also been told that so many trees were lost the day of the storm because the ground was so wet from a previous storm the night before. All of the trees came over with large root balls still attached. It would make sense that a tree in the spot fell since it is a low spot where water would collect. We have talked about planting another tree in the same spot.

In this photo you can see where the fence is leaning next to the gate. It has been crushed and is no longer attached. We think there was a large tree in front of the rocks in the sloped area that fell on the fence.

The Sister

The man forwarded my emails to his sister who was a wealth of information! She told us that the shelving units on the walls in two of the bedrooms and the den are System Cado. These are Scandinavian designed highly collectible floating wall units. Some of these wall units have metal brackets but these have more desirable wooden brackets.

This is the unit in one of the bedrooms. The desk at the left of the picture is NOT a part of the unit. It was left by the owners and will be moved.

The top of the unit in the above picture. This is the part above the desk.

This is the other top corner of the above unit.

This is the shelving system in the den.

This is part of the shelving unit in the other bedroom.

The last time we were at the house we noticed one of the shelving units was actually not part of the shelving system at all. It was a speaker! We couldn't figure out what in the heck it was for. The woman finally cleared up that mystery and told us that her parents got new speakers and decided to use this one as a shelf in her bedroom. It is STILL there over 40 years later. It is the coolest idea ever and doesn't look like any speaker I have ever seen. Old speakers were so much prettier than the ones we have today. I think we will continue to use it as a shelf!

Speaker shelf

I like to sew and had wondered where the lady of the house would put her sewing machine in 1960.  I know many women did their own sewing back then. There was a master bedroom, one bedroom for each child. A den which I feel certain was the husband's office. A very nice living room which surely was no place for a sewing machine. There definitely would not have been a sewing machine in the bathrooms, kitchen or dog kennel! I came to the conclusion that if the lady had enough money to have a custom built house she could have someone else do her sewing for her.

I forgot about one room! There is a butler's kitchen or prep kitchen next to the kitchen. It is a small room like a pantry with some counter space and kitchen sink. A place to prep your meal without dirtying your large kitchen. On the plans it is listed as a laundry room. The laundry is currently in the basement. The woman confirmed that the prep kitchen used to be the laundry room. There is a little "desk" in there with a telephone jack that looks like the perfect place to sit and pay your bills. She said that little "desk" was for a sewing machine! I told her my husband is the cook and I don't think he would be very excited if I told him that my sewing machine was going to be in his kitchen! This all brought about a new mystery. What did the current laundry room used to be?? It is the only unaccounted for space. It is next to the space that used to be the dog kennels but I don't think it was part of the dog kennel though it is possible.

The little desk in the prep kitchen that was made for a sewing machine.