23 S Underwood

Sorry about the delay, folks. My new computer doesn't have a slot for the camera memory card, so I have to wait for Ian to upload the pictures and share them with me. In the week since I last posted, we have actually seen three houses. No, one of them was not 1803 Thompson. That one the owner never got back to us due to an illness, and we found out that while it was two bedrooms, the rooms were on different floors--not conducive to a new family. So we passed on that one. The other two we saw were 95 Goethals (no off-street parking, little hot yard, and one of the bedrooms was very small and disappointing) and 1622 S Everett Place (small yard with no fence, and the previous owners had a weird habit of just building shelves over unwanted doorways). We didn't even bother taking pictures at Everett Place, but I have a few of the Goethals house that I might post later.

But on with the real prize... 23 S Underwood!

I fell in love with this house the instant my coworker Christy showed it to me. I never would have looked at it if she hadn't pointed it out. It's got this beautiful 1950s exterior and a metal roof. Many of the windows have been replaced with vinyl, though not all. Central heat and air have been installed throughout, though there's still a wall A/C unit and they didn't bother to remove the wall heating units, though they're not hooked up. There's ugly carpet throughout, but underneath much of it is the original hardwood floors. There are three bedrooms and 1 1/2 bath, where the 1/2 bath is SOOOO ready for a shower, it just needs a basin and a shower head. The kitchen has the start of a remodel that just never got finished. There's a giant backyard with a nice old-growth maple and a covered patio. There's room for our future hot tub, and room for many parties. I can even imagine our baby getting married out there. There is lots of work to be done, but for our list of dream houses, this one fulfills so much, we knew we had to try for it.

So, without further ado, here it is:


Walk in the front door and the living room is off to the right. Yes, those ARE fluorescent lights on the ceiling! Don't worry, we're looking forward to revamping things in the 30 years to come. :)






Here's the little dining nook to the left of the front door. That doorway you see leads to the kitchen. We'll get to that later.







First bedroom in the original part of the house. Left window looks out over the covered patio... lots of potential to add French doors leading out to the deck someday!! Right window looks out onto the backyard.





Second bedroom in the original part of the house. Little window looks out onto the backyard, big window looks into the side yard, which currently boasts weeds taller than I am!






Very mod bathroom in the original part of the house.











Here's the little kitchen. As you can see, there's new sink, new oven, kinda older fridge, and some new cabinets. Some cabinets have the original doors, and some cabinets have no doors at all!






Here's where the dishwasher will go, but there are currently no hookups. Beyond that is the second living area.










Very stylish second half-to-almost-three-quarters bathroom









And here's the really-wants-to-be-a-shower







Kitchen cabinets looking into the second living area in the addition onto the house.







Third bedroom in the addition. That window is the one under the carport in the front of the house.







Big back patio, very nicely done.








Looking out onto the back of the house.








Big backyard, fenced all the way around. We could get a dog right away if we weren't facing the threat of five cats. Yikes!







Overgrown side yard. There's the cooling system buried somewhere in there. This is where my garden is going to go next spring. :)





So we put an offer on the house. We asked for $124,500 with the seller paying $4,500 in closing costs. We're supposed to hear back any time now. Keep your fingers crossed for us.

Next up: Counteroffer?

1310 Birch

The house we saw today was 1310 Birch. It's also a Richland Letter House, a Y house. Ian's mom's house is a Y house, so we're pretty familiar with the basic concept. This one had some notable updates, though. The living room/dining room has been opened up into one room, and utility room has been eliminated to make one large kitchen with a little eat-in nook. A portion of the living room has been removed to add space to the third bedroom, so that the little closet that used to be in the living room to the side of the front door is now the closet in the third bedroom. Pergo floors have been laid throughout the whole house, the lighting fixtures updated, and new paint applied to the walls. Except in the bedrooms. The bedrooms are mildly hideous. The carpet in the two largest rooms is pretty filthy, and there is no carpet in the third bedroom, just the concrete slab that the whole house sits on. And the paint choices in the third bedroom left something to be desired.

The other drawbacks to the house were mostly on the outside: The backyard had no tree, it looked like it had been cut down. The driveway needed to be repaved. The whole of the yards needed to be weed-whacked, tilled, and reseeded/sodded. The paint on the trim needed to be redone, and there was a patch on the roof that looked possibly warped. That's the thing that worried us the most.

Also, the house had no central heat & air, just baseboard heat and AC units in most of the windows.

All in all, though, if the roof passed the inspection, this would probably be our top choice. It's about four blocks from Kathy's house, and would feed into Jason Lee Elementary. The back yard is huge and has a six-foot fence around the whole thing save one little section into the neighbor's yard. Plus the repair work would be entirely doable. We could use the two carpeted bedrooms while we fix up the third room. And it's big enough that we could comfortably be there for the rest of our lives.

Provided, of course, that there's no roof problems.


Front door. It's been delineated from the living room by this little wall. Why? Dunno.






Living room. Great paint colors.










If two different colors aren't enough for the living room, there's a third to add into the mix. The good thing this does show is that there's an extra window in the living room.





Kitchen. This is all the cabinets/counters there are.








Unfinished countertops.








Little dining nook








Gap between trim and Pergo floors.








Bathroom.








Standard Bedroom #1: The equivalent of Ian's childhood bedroom. The previous owners really liked red and brown together.






Standard Bedroom #2: The equivalent of Ian's mom's room. Not as bad, though needs a good scrub.







Third bedroom. And you thought the red and brown was bad.









Hole in the concrete floor.







Back yard with little garden shed.









Back of the house. I love the French doors. :)







Questionable patch job on the roof.







Next up: 1803 Thompson

1924 Everest

This house was in north Richland, a neighborhood referred to as Richland Village. Apparently, this neighborhood was built in the 1950s, and the houses are all pretty good. Except for this one.

The previous owners obviously bought the house and didn't have much money to invest into it. There's a pergola over the front porch, and since this didn't provide enough shade, they stapled some plastic lattice over it. This is the same lattice you see under the porch. The yard is overgrown, and there's a weeping birch that hasn't done anything as far as leaves this year. It looks like there used to be a garage on the right side, but it was converted into additional living room/dining room area.

The first thing we noticed when we walked in was the overwhelming stench of cat urine. The carpet was stained and filthy, and there was debris everywhere. The linoleum, where there was any, was ancient and starting to curl up at the edges. When the real estate agent tried peeling up the carpet to see if there was hardwood underneath, the first time she said the carpet was damp (bad sign) and the second time, she was assaulted by spiders.

The bright spot of the house was the master suite. Not only was it vast, but it had a full-sized bathroom, a walk-in closet, and prettyish frosted windows. The backyard had a two-car garage that opened out onto George Washington Way, the town's busiest street. Also in the back, the chain-link fence on the south side was being held up by various sticks and stakes leaned against it, lean-to like.

There was also a basement. One room had a to-code window, making it a fourth bedroom for the house (there were three upstairs), but other than that, the basement was the thing nightmares are made of. Painted concrete, the creepiest laundry room ever, and a stench of mold throughout. The stairwell was very fashionable with its wood paneling.

All in all, there was so much work that needed to be done to this house, and the prices of the other houses in the neighborhood were so low, that the only possible good thing that could come of this is if a tornado struck it, someone bought the lot, and rebuilt. I honestly think it would cost too much to even tear it down to rebuild, the work was so extensive.

Grade: F-



Backyard: That apartment building is across GWay. The structure on the left is the garage. Notice the fence on the right.






Great architecture, original to the house. All additional items included in the sales price.







Dining area








Kitchen. Original cabinets, if you can believe it.








At least the bathroom didn't need TOO much work, there was just a weird little cabinet where some sort of vent from the basement fed up. (That's me looking at it with a perplexed expression.)







Basement of death






Next up: 1310 Birch

602 Adams

This house was located in the "shadier" part of Richland, if Richland were to have a shady area. No sidewalks installed in this part, but there is a strip of gravel in front of every house that is generally used for extra parking. Like most of Richland, the majority of the houses were built by the Army in the 1940s, when it was still a government town, feeding off the lifeblood of the Hanford Nuclear Reservation during the heyday of the Manhattan Project.

This house was obviously a flip. They took the original house and basically gutted it, and even added to the outside of it to make the walls thicker with more insulation. They did Pergo floors throughout, and all the updates were very impressive. It was three bedroom, one bath. The smallest bedroom was too small for anything but a twin bed and a very small dresser. The largest bedroom had access to the backyard, and also had the washer/dryer hookups in it.

We liked that it was VERY move-in ready. Everything was very tastefully done, the updates were all impressive. I liked that you could get to the back from the bedroom, though I didn't especially like that that was the ONLY exit to the backyard. I'm imagining backyard cookouts with everyone gathered, and someone has to use the restroom. I either have to tell them to go around front, or to go through my bedroom. We're not the cleanest people when it comes to the bedroom. The backyard was also really large, which I really liked.

What we didn't like was how small it was. The largest bedroom was a decent size, but again you have to leave room to access the laundry area on one side and room to access the back yard on the other. Also, I don't like the idea of having to go into the master bedroom to do laundry. The ceilings were really low--probably 6'9"--and there was no room for a dining set. And while there was a tree in the backyard, it grew straight up, and offered no shade.

All in all, it would be a very nice house for a couple expecting a little one who knew they would be able to upgrade in the next decade or less. But I think for us, we'll keep looking.

Grade: A-



open concept kitchen... to the very right is the front door. Just to the left of that would be where you'd have to put a table.









New appliances and cabinets... the kitchen was very nice.







Living room with its AC unit... the only one in the house








Second largest bedroom








Bathroom







Smallest bedroom (with great view of the next door neighbor's backyard)








Largest bedroom. Door to the outside is to the left, laundry closet with water heater to the right.







Large back yard. As you can see, at 2:00pm, there's not an inch of shade.






Next up: 1924 Everest

Dream House List

Ian wanted to start out our house hunt by making a list of features in our dream house. So here it is:

• Central heat & air
• Fenced backyard - nice wood, stone, or synthetic wood fence
  
• Hardwood/Pergo floors throughout
  
• Separate laundry room on main level
• Two car attached garage
• Shade tree in front and back yards
  
• Hot tub
• 3+ bedrooms, 1 1/2+ baths
• Basement or den
• Separate dining room
• UGS with timer
• Paved driveway
• Sidewalks
• Large deck in back
• New appliances
• New roof, new electrical, good plumbing
• New paint, new carpet if applicable
• New light fixtures
• New cabinets
• Good water pressure
• Walking distance from elementary school
• Walking distance from Kathy's house
  

I think that's it. Really, the big thing is that it be big enough for the family we want to have, and that the work that needs to be put into it be mostly cosmetic. We don't want to have to replace the roof the first winter we live there. Also, the house has to be in Richland. We want our kids to be in the Richland School District, so that's the long and short of it.

What was on YOUR dream house list when you were looking??

First up: 602 Adams