Our inspection came back with a leaky roof. To be honest, we did not need an inspection to know that the roof was bad. The sellers did not want to change the roof before selling, and they agreed to the concession so that we could save the closing costs and have the money to fix the roof. We were OK with it because even with a bad roof, the house is a great deal. What we did not expect was a puddle of water in our living room the next day after closing.
Tuesday, after the closing, we got some really bad rain, and when Joe went to check on the house, he found a little waterfall going down the window and all the way to the floor. I am not sure how the sellers were dealing with this because it's been raining every day in NY for a month. They must have laid down some rugs and hoped for the closing day to finally come.
Anyways, when I got back home, we went to Home Depot, got some rugs and some Henry (the roof cement). Joe got on the ladder and patched the outside, while I cleaned up the leak, and tore away some of the soaked sheetrock from the ceiling. The patching did not help at all - the hole must have been higher up and leaking underneath the shingles. That's when I had a moment of brilliance: when you can't stop the water, you have to divert it :)
In the basement, the sellers left behind some plastic covers for the ceiling lights they had there. I remembered that they were pretty soft. I removed the pieces of sheetrock and rotten beam so that nothing was in the way of the plastic cover piece. I then pushed it all the way into the attic and angled it so that the water would go down the plastic and into the soffit. Yes, that messes up the soffit, but a least the water could leak out, and was not destroying our wooden floors. Then, Joe helped me staple it to the ceiling so that it would stay in place. Pretty good solution:
Today, we had a few roofers come in and give us the estimates of what it would cost to have our roof done. We got three estimates, and are waiting for one more. I hope it's not going to be more than $10K.
Anyways, not to something nicer :) Pictures of the house!!
So far, I only took the pictures of the top floor and I will get to the basement in the next post. Upstairs we have about 1,100 sq ft and that includes three bedrooms, a bathroom, a kitchen, a dining nook and a living room with a fireplace. Check them out:
The Kitchen
It's pretty small, but we can expand it by moving one wall... one day :)
Somehow we already made a mess there :)
On the other side of the above, the kitchen looks like this:
We are ripping off those tacky pretend-doors and we can one day move these cabinets to expand the kitchen.
The Bathroom:
It's currently light green color, but you can tell they have not done anything with it in the last 15 years. The tub has a weird cover that makes it feel spongy and I am pretty sure they have been using this curtain since the day they moved.
See that window? Joe and I don't like the windows in the shower, so we will be replacing it with those awesome glass cube tiles that will be perfectly sealed, and will look pretty, while giving us some privacy.
Yes, all of this is going to the dump! I am thinking brilliant white sink and dark brown cabinet and mirror frame.
The Bedrooms:
This one will be Joe's office until we have the first kid.
This is a larger one and will become our guest room until we have more kids :)
This is one corner of our bedroom. It's larger than what we have now and the windows make it perfectly bright but cozy.
This is one closet in our bedroom - a little smaller than what I have now, but we will have more space in the new house so I don't care.
Bet no one will guess what this is... keep trying... entrance to the attic!!!
Here I have to take a little break to make a comment... WHAT THE HECK???? The sellers used to keep their luggage there, and when it was needed to make a trip to the attic, they would use a step ladder. I mean, yes, it's a giant hole in the wall... and you can hide it behind a picture or a mirror?
When we went to the attic, we found an unopened huge carpet. My guess is: they put it up there last time they fixed the roof some 30 years ago, and never figured out how to take it back and out this hole.
The Living room
We are pulling these wood panels, but I will want to paint the wall same shade of brown. The lights will be gone too, and in the spot where you can see the shelves, we will have a door from the garage. Our garage is weirdly long, and Joe is giving me some of that space for a nice mudroom :)
I love our brick fireplace. I am thinking of cutting the right side of the bricks to match the left in size, and changing the top to a brighter color wood. I need to clean the sod too! I heard Coca Cola was awesome for it :)
The space between the living room and the kitchen makes a little dining nook. I hope to be able to take this part wall down, and the fake plants go too. They were covered with 30 year dust.
My favorite part of our home - the wall of windows and our deck. In the winter we will have an amazing sunset views. Right now there are too many trees covering the view, but I don't mind that, it's beautiful anyways.
The Deck
I love our deck. It's made of the wood composite, so it's goint to last long. It needs some TLC, and it will become my favorite place in the house during the summer... in the winter that will be the spot in front of the fireplace.
More deck
Because there are no trees between us and the neighbors, I will put up a nice screen with hanging flower potts along this railing to give us some privacy.
I did not take any good pictures of the front of our house, or the back, so I will post those later.
We are so excited about our home :) it needs a few little upgrades and we will make it a home very soon! Our property is a quarter acre, which gives me plenty of land to garden on, and plenty of space for Joe to have little projects around :)
