Santa Brought us a House!

Santa Brought us a House!

We sold our N. Chesterfield, VA house in January of 2022 and moved into a hotel for a month while Mike finished up work. Then up to Maine and stayed with Mike's parents while we house hunted. Bought a GeoPro 15TB camper as there were no houses in our price range or ideal location. We were looking for our forever home. Lived out of my brother's driveway in the camper in Maryland. Bounced around Maine, Maryland and Virginia still house hunting. Moved into an apt for the winter (Nov 2023) in the Richmond, VA area. Decided to postpone buying a house and focus on a trip to Alaska instead. Worked on preparing the camper for a long distance and lengthy road trip. Started selling off things I no longer need. Then our realtor, Rich, sent us a house and we decided we might as well go look at it.

We put an offer in, they countered, we accepted. Yippee under contract. We had the inspections of the house, garage, crawl space, septic and well. We inspected it all. Brand new roof within 2 months, brand new windows within 6 months, encapsulated crawl space which are all big ticket items that don't need to be revisited for decades. That was the good news. This is the bad news septic damaged, well has coliform, small cracks in the brick foundation and the detached garage and shed need repairs. First 3 items are things that need to be dealt with immediately and are costly. The garage and shed can wait. Of course there was the obvious things that we knew needed to be done as well. Update the original 1968 design of the house by removing the light fixtures, carpet, updating the appliances... 

...removing trees too close to the house plus the dead one that is leaning closer to the ground than the sky, and of course the bathrooms. 

We did some research and found out the costs of the most expensive fixes and sent that number to the buyers. They countered we did not budge, they accepted the offer and we were still under contract. We were amazed that they said yes. Meant to be right?

 

We closed on Jan. 8 at 10:30am.

There was a lovely welcome gift from our realtor, Rich, who I am sure is thrilled to be done working with us ...  for now!

We have been eating lunch from this for 4 days now! Delicious!!

Hours after closing we had several specialists out to give us quotes. The well guy, Sean, who happens to be our neighbor, came out and gave us a quote for what is wrong with the well. Turns out it is not coliform but E. coli (Escherichia coli) a type of bacteria. That is bad! No using the water until that is fixed. 

We are assuming the damaged septic might be a source for contamination. I am still waiting for the septic guy, Eric, to get back to me. He puttered around for an hour or so and left without a word. He put flags in the ground denoting the current leach field.

Zach, foundation guy, came out today and examined everything and on our first positive note said no structural issues. Minor repairs needed to the cracks in the foundation but simple fixes.

 

Everyone agrees we need better drainage. We were excited to see gutters on this roof but they drain a few inches from the house, so in the short term, we need to cut them and add 10 feet of length to get them to drain away from the foundation. I did not think to take a picture of the flooding during the huge wind and rainstorm with tornado warnings, nor the next day. This is 2 days after the storm. Soggy ground. Long term we need to add French drains, gutters that drain to the ditch close to the street that is built for removing the water, and grading the soil at the foundation to have more of a pitch away from the foundation walls.

Always end the day on a positive note. Mike ripped up a corner of all the rugged rooms.....

And there is hardwood under all of them that looks like it has never seen the light of day.

 

We are leaving the 1968 rugs down until we finish painting and then will remove the rugs and get a better idea if they need to be refinished.

Before painting we did a lot of prep: removed all the light fixtures from 1968, took off all the electrical face plates, removed the drapes and their hardware, removed closet doors, shelves and hanging rods, removed doors and hardware, removed the 3 smoke detectors that were side by side on one wall ...

... sanded and puttied holes and cracks, caulked settling windows and crown molding, vacuumed the electrical outlets and light fixtures, washed the walls and dusted the ceilings, and killed some weird dirt grim on baseboards and shelf mounting brackets.

We have painted the ceiling in the 3 bedrooms and the closets in each bedroom, the hallway leading from the bedrooms to the main part of the house, the foyer, and the front room (living room). Also took off the closet door and trim boards for a hall closet we will be removing to make the primary bathroom bigger.

A lot of progress in a few days.

Tomorrow we will pick out wall paint colors. Do we go with colors from our past houses; Mesa Tan, Cupola Yellow, Cucumber, Banana Cream, Sage or do we try something new? Time will tell.