Our House

	Our House
Our house was a 4/2 purchased in 1995 from the original owner who had paid $23,650 for it in 1957 (with easy payments of $152/month INCLUDING taxes and insurance!). When we first viewed it with intent to purchase, it was being used as a half-way house and had 11 people living in it. It did not, as we say in the trade, 'show well'.
BEFORE		AFTER
	There were 3 refrigerators in the living room/kitchen, two sets of bunkbeds in the master bedroom, a payphone on the wall of the living room, mini blinds were falling apart, the pile on the carpeting was coming unglued, the linoleum in the living room had peeled back almost to the center of the room, there was no landscaping to speak of and hardly any lawn, the fence was propped up with a 4X4 in the back and holes patched with the closet doors, the outside of the house was stained from the dirt splashing up on the walls. We made an offer ($390K) which was accepted the same day. We had seen enough Eichlers of similar floor plan that we were able to visualize how the house would look with some minor fix-up but I was actually in tears when we later went over to the neighbors house to ask him whether he'd go in with a new fence with us and his house had stacked of recycling all over, the walls were brown, drapes were closed, too much and too dark furniture. What had we gotten into!! We took possession and immediately painted the walls white (sheetrock would have been more desirable, but, alas, we had financial constraints after coming down with a 17% down payment (owner financing). When we started repainting the ceiling with a spray gun, all the gravel and dirt filtering down from the roof got sprayed onto the clean walls which we had just painted. The careting guy was coming in two days so.... A friend came over with a rented air compressor and blew out the dirt and gravel ahead of my husband who followed with the paint sprayer. Needless to say there was fine gravel and dirt everywhere! Next the carpeting guy laid down some new neutral blue-gray carpeting and we had someone replace the fences on both sides and build them higher for privacy. We moved in about a week later.