October 21, 2012

• House Lenore, Forevermore

  It’s still a bit from finalizing with the inspection tomorrow and 45 days to the keys but here are the sale pics of the temporarily named “Castle de Lenore”, a little 3 bedroom Cape Cod with a bit o’ yard and a bit o’ shack in the back.

   
  I’ve been calling it the Hello Kitty house.  The other house I looked at was called the Ron Swanson house.  If there’s anything wrong with this, I’m going full out on Ron Swanson.  Hello Kitty has new siding, refinished floors and a new roof which is what it had going for it compared to similar houses in the hood.  The people who cared for the home were very clean.  Quite impressed but really, when 98% of the other homes smelled like wet, moldy cigarettes with a dash of stale beer, I had to make sure my bar wasn’t reset too low.

  It’s got a nice front porch that . . . get this . . . IT’S NOT SINKING INTO THE GROUND. 

  
  
  It’s a musical family and they have what looks like one of my childhood pianos, a refurbished Baldwin.  I don’t have a keyboard anymore so that’s where I’m putting the bar and my house plants.

  
  The baby room will become the office/workout room.  It’s bright enough for me to see my screen.  My office right now is a dining room and it’s gloomy, hardly any natural light unless I open the door to the porch.

  
  I was surprised with the size of these bedrooms as they were actually bigger than I expected which was the opposite of what I was finding visiting houses the last two weeks.  There’s not much hallway to eat up a lot of extra space. 

  
  
  Hey!  Cabinets!  And counter space!  Believe it or not, this is about 200% more cabinet and counter than my current place.  The tile is new and so is the fridge.  The washer and dryer are probably worth more than my car right now.  There’s no dining room but for me, that’s ok.  Casual parties with people drinking in the living room is more my thing.  I’m thinking of updating the stove.  It needs a hood for recirculating air and I need a new microwave – might take care of all that early next year along with a portable dishwasher.

  

  New vanity and toilet in the bathroom, the tub is decent.  I’ll replace the showerhead to something more efficient and I’m still gathering ideas on the tile.  The checkerboard is okay but the tile is older.  Perfectly serviceable but older.  I need some warmth in there.

  
  The owners redid the upstairs and it’s roomy, almost the size of the entire living room to the back bedrooms and the kitchen.  They split the upstairs into the large room, a small room and a storage closet.  The closet needs some bracing for organization shelves and and hanging rods but there’s enough room for storage bins, too.  The small room will become a meditation space, an upstairs girl cave.  The large space will be the master bedroom which will be able to hold the king sized bed. 

  
  I have a nice sized flat backyard which is perfect for Pocky plus a fire pit!  Gotta make fresh s’mores for my moving party!  We can burn a year’s worth of junk mail as a starter, too. 

  So now . . . I’m thinking colors.  I’m looking to some of my favorite paintings for a flow of what I want going from room to room, something to link my Asian and Spanish heritage.  That kitchen is asking for some Spanish blue somewhere. 

  • 3:45 pm
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