House Pictures :-D

Ok, finally the much-requested pictures of the house we're in the process of buying! The sale is not final yet, but we're hoping it will be very soon. We're in escrow and planning to close in early August. Since there aren't really any pictures of the house online, I took pictures today when we went for our walk-through so that you could take a little tour with me. :-)

Note: the current owner is still in the process of packing/moving. The decorating/stuff/furniture you see in the pictures are his.

Here she is:The interesting rock/rose landscaping in the front. The rocks are wet because we were testing the sprinklers. The roses aren't looking so good . . . This is the front room. I'm standing back where he has a dining room table set up, looking back at the entrance. The stairs you see double back . . . this is the view from above. The picture I took of the dining area (swivel left) didn't turn out at all for some odd reason. Back on the ground floor now, directly below this picture . . . is a doorway to the living room.This is a Future Project. There used to be a gas fireplace on either side of this wall. It was disconnected and this pellet stove installed, but the fireplace on the wall behind is still there and has a cardboard insert with a picture of flowers on it!To the left is a little hallway. You're looking at the door to the garage, and the tiny laundry room/closet. Directly across the hall is a half bath: Garage (too bad the car's not included!!)
Neat little bit of trivia: Joe, the owner, is 90 years old and this still-functional beauty (a Ford Fairlane) you're looking at was his very first car! It was up on jacks when we first saw the house, because he'd been working on it!!We go back to the living room now. This is looking toward the kitchen. The blinds hide the sliding glass doors out to the back.The kitchenYou can see that we've made a full loop--that doorway leads back to the dining area/front room. :-)Now to the upstairs!
At the top of the stairs directly to your left is the master bedroom. This picture mostly just shows how much the carpet needs to be cleaned. Note: there IS in fact a wall on the left-side of the room. That wood you see is a dresser, not the banister as some people were led to believe from the picture, lol.There are these funny swinging doors to the master bath which will change . . . along with the window treatments!! Blech. Many window treatments in this house will be leaving. As you can see here, there is a separate shower and tub (this whole area is carpeted too, which is a little odd);The double sinks and little water closetIf you go to the right at the top of the stairs, you walk between the railing and a cabinet, which is only sort of pictured here, and into an open area where we'll put our office. There is a built-in desk in this area too, which means we can finally get rid of Erik's hideous monstrosity (insert exclamatory protest from Erik here). :-DDown the little hallway you see in the picture above is a full bath and two little bedrooms. And lastly, here is the tiny postage-stamp yard. You can see two little metal sheds which we would kind of like to take down to make more room, but it will be a lot of work as they are set on concrete slab. The tree you see is a citrus tree, I think oranges but I'm not sure we know (Joe wasn't there today and we forgot to ask the last time). We also discovered some grapefruit and plums falling over the fence from the neighbors trees. We're going to have to be diligent raking those plums up . . . I'm having visions of Purple Dogs running into the house on that light carpeting. :-/View of the back of the house from the yard (yes, this is the land of Close Neighbors)The patio . . . I'm wondering about the possibility of making this a grape arbor . . . I'll have to pick dad's brain a little.Yard from the corner--Joe has some tomatoes growing along the fence back there, but I don't think anyone has been taking care of them since he moved out (his sons are packing up his things).That's the whole tour! We hope you'll come visit us after we've moved!! :-D
The plan is to sign loan docs right away when we get back from vacation; they aren't ready yet. Then things should move along pretty quickly. Please keep praying that things will continue to go smoothly!

In other news, we leave for Ben & Pei's in less than 24-hours!! Short visit, some Shabu, and then they'll graciously take us to the airport. Think of us on the plane tomorrow at midnight! ;-D