ohgraciepie blog posts

Over the weekend we had our inspection on the house and all went well!

 Of course we ran into the expected issues of things you would find in any old home. For example: the original knob and tube electrical in sections of the house and two prong outlets!

So we will have to update those things eventually.

We were lucky enough to be there on the same morning as the family members who put the home up for sale and are the caretakers of Miss Ethel.

I was excited to hear some history on the home, all we knew was that there had been one owner.

We learned that Ethel was born in this house and lived her all her life.

She is now 89 and can no longer live alone and has been moved to a home.

She had a hard time leaving the house and putting it up for sale and they were glad that we recognized the character and charm the house offered.

 

Apparently there was a house on the same lot previous to this house.

It was built in 1905.

The house was torn down in 1925 and this house was built in it’s place.

The light fixtures in the living room were bought at Custer Hardware a long time family owned Hardware store in Renton.

Last year when the family first decided to put the house on the market, they had an antique dealer come through the home to appraise some items so they could decide what to take and what to leave with the home.

 These light fixtures were priced at over $500.00 a piece.

They are in perfect condition.

The 3 lamp light fixture in the dinning room is out of the original house that was built in 1905 and later moved into the newer home when it was built, so it is an even older piece.

Down stairs in the basement there is a section of old cabinetry with shutter latches and glass window cupboards along with a butcher block topped work bench.

This was out of the kitchen of the 1905 house!

A perfect place for an Arts n’ Crafts Station!

 It’s painted “my green” color too! I love it.

There were all kinds of treasures in the basement that hadn’t yet been moved out by the family.

Tools, nails, screws, wood trunks that used to keep fire wood, a drill press, bench vices, old wine decanters and jugs and the original kitchen stove form 1925!

Steve, the pack rat, convinced them to leave these things behind for us.

This kitchen stove runs off wood or coal.

The cast iron burners lift off the porcelain base with a hook and you load in your coals with a little shovel.

Obviously, not practical in this day and age but pretty cool to keep with the house as an original appliance. How many people have those kinds of things!?

In typical Renton fashion my parents know everyone.

No one gets out of Renton. I got out… and moved to California… and somehow came back and now I am buying a house there.

 If you had told me this was my future 5 years ago, I would have laughed in your face.

Anyway, my mom seems to run into someone she knows everywhere we go.

I am not talking friends here, these are strangers that are some how connected to her or someone she knows or a friend of a friend’s sister who knew her high school science teacher.

When we were talking to Ethel’s family members, one of them was wearing a Liberty High school sweatshirt.

My mom asked if he had kids that went there. He said yes, but he grew up in Renton and actually went to Hazen. Well, surprise surprise, so did my parents.

They know is sister.

It’s like twilight zone.

Oh and she used to work at the old Roxy theater downtown back in the day, which was managed by so and so, who mom also knows and another so and so grew up down the street and he owns a house around the corner and on and on….

I can’t take them anywhere.



I hope everyone has a great day today, whether you have a sweet heart or not.

Today should be celebrated !
Just because you don’t have a baby daddy in your life, remember all your friends and family that love you so much!

We are so excited to start this new chapter of our lives & create a place that is all our own!

This is a first home purchase for both of us and we are really looking forward to it.

 This weekend we have our inspection and then we can move forward with everything and hopefully have the keys to our new place in the next month if all goes well!

 

Recently I have been brainstorming how we will fit all our stuff in this place.

There is plenty of square footage for two people, don’t get me wrong.
But, let’s face it, this house was built in 1925. The room sizes and layouts are a little different than a modern day home.

Anyway, in researching décor and design this week, I have come across some neat ideas.

 

Maybe I should paint every room pink…..this is such a great compilation of

cottage meets girly eclectic bungalow.



Did I keep you in suspense long enough?

Are you wondering what the Alice in Wonder land house looked like in person?

If it was mind blowing and amazing or just a pile of rif raf?

Yeah, me too!

It just so happened that someone signed papers on it the morning we were suppose to see it! What are the odds of that?

It has been sitting on the market for 288 days and the morning we are going to see it, someone signs papers.

I guess it just wasn’t meant to be. I keep telling myself there was a reason why that happened.

Maybe if we had seen it, we would have bought it and it would have crumbled down in pieces. Who knows.

So, moving on.

We looked at 4 other homes Friday night and one of them we fell in love with, but not the price.

We pretty much gave up on it and went home wondering why were even looked at it in the first place.

I’ll tell you why, because it’s too pretty of a house not to!

I have been looking at the photos of this home’s interior for 2 months now and we have never went to see it in person.

You might remember a few of these pics from an earlier post.

It’s so dreamy.

 Last night we got a call from our Realtor and as luck would have it, it turns out the seller is planning on reducing the price this week, which puts it back in the game.

So last night Steve and I put in an offer on it! We should hear back sometime today.

This home was built in 1925 and has only has one owner. That’s right. ONE OWNER. Crazy.

Please Miss Ethel (that’s the seller’s name), let us buy your house.

We will take good care of it!!!!

Promise!

Everyone think good thoughts for us today!

This afternoon Steve and I will embark on a house hunt yet again.

We have quite the variety lined up.

We have dropped our original price range down a bit to allow those homes that need a little TLC into the mix. Sometimes there are diamonds in the rough and if we can find a good deal, we are willing to put in the work to make it awesome.

Really, the only house worth mentioning today is the home Steve and I have dubbed

 “The Alice and Wonderland house”

This structure is strange to say the least… but could… maybe… possibly have potential.

If anything, I just really really really want to see it in person, in all its splendor.

 I think changes have been made to it each decade and nothing has ever been removed.

So you can see that cool old craftsmen at the bottom layer, then we have some panelling added on top of that. Followed by

wall paper, drop ceilings, paint, the list goes on and on.

None of the rooms are consistent either. It’s like a different world through each doorway!

 What more could I possibly want!!?

It was built in 1909.

Check out this 2,360 sq ft hot mess.

Yes, this is a story about a tease.

After all the complaining I have been doing about finding a house that is even CLOSE to something we could call home, we found one.

It needs some major revamping, but the bones, property and neighborhood are everything we want. We made an offer on Thursday on our way out of town to go skiing in Idaho.

We got a phone call from the realtor Friday telling us the seller countered back.

We didn’t care for her offer back… and decided to move on..there will be more houses to choose from we told ourselves.

 I continued on with my ski trip, convinced this must not be the house for us.

We got home last night and our realtor called us.

The seller made another counter offer back to us… even though we never countered her first counter offer. Confusing, i know.

Basically we played hard to get and it worked.

But, by this point we had talked ourselves out of this home and decided we should keep looking.

So, back to the drawing board. I’m more stressed and confused than I was before… and disappointed that I found something I loved and then had to say goodbye.

Mentally, I hard already packed and moved into this place.

I redid the floors and replaced the shag carpet.

 ( that is still in excellent shape BTW! They built stuff to last back in the day)

And added a mantel to the brick fireplace

I tore down the wood paneling and painted the walls

I put together our new king size bed in the master

and fit our dinning room table that seats 12 into the formal space.

It all fit… in my mind.

It all worked out perfectly in my mind.

Sometimes it is so much easier to live in my head than real life.

 Real life can be so discouraging

Steve said we could live in a cardboard box and be happy as long as we have each other, which is true.

I know we have a lot more than so many people in this world.

I feel guilty being this sad over not getting a house that we were maybe kinda going to get.

Thank god we have families and jobs and clothes on our backs ….and a cat.

I really can’t complain I guess. But, I do.

“Every party needs a pooper, that’s why we invited you! Party pooper. Party Pooper.”

This week has been overwhelming.

 I have been preparing for our ski trip this weekend in Idaho as well as going out and looking at potential properties to move into.

Everyone says shopping for a house should be fun.

“That’s the fun part” I hear repeatedly.

I have yet to come to the fun part.

I feel like we are running around looking at places that are a waste of our time. At the moment there isn’t an incredible amount of listing in the area and price range we are looking in.

Plus the fact that it’s winter and people tend to sell in spring and summertime.

Tomorrow we are looking at a few more places before we head out of town.

For the first time I am feeling a little anxious about looking. In my opinion, tomorrow’s group of houses has the most potential so far.

At the same time, I don’t want to kid myself. The photos, we have found, are deceiving. Everything online looks amazing… in real life, it is a different story.

In between this all, I need to grocery shop, make cheesecake, pack our things and get myself out the door in time for work.

I need a vacation.

Here are tomorrow’s picks.