The House

Before moving onto regularly scheduled blogging, I forgot an event of utmost importance, Davey-poo's birthday was on the 3rd. We celebrated with cookie cake and fried chicken, cooked in the deep fryer that Brian and I got him for Christmas.

Yum.

The frosting was supposed to be purple. I clearly need to work on my primary color coordination. 

Okay. Onward.

The House

On Friday morning, Brian and I went and re-toured our *hopefully* to be home. We also looked at another town home on the same street, exact same layout as ours, that is not a short sale and is currently on the market. We did this to get a gauge of what these people have put into the house and what they were trying to sell it for. It is currently at a reduced price of $80,000. The only upgrades were ceramic tiles in the foyer and kitchen and laminate flooring in the living room. Also, they had put in french doors instead of a sliding glass door. These are all upgrades that we intend to put into the house. In addition to those, we want to redo the counter tops, refinish the cabinets and update the hardware, and possibly eventually add a deck outside. 

Onto pictures. =)

I adore this house and see it for its potential. I have already painted  it and refloored it and updated things in my head. I will be sorely disappointed if our offer is not accepted. 

This is the Front of our little town home

We would need to repaint and replace some of the boards and probably change the front door and the overhang, as well as some landscaping. But, it is an end unit and I am glad.

This is the kitchen area, to the left when you walk in. It has a cute little breakfast nook, and ample cabinet space. I like that it has a bar into the living room, both for the social aspect and to keep it a little more open. I would like a newer refrigerator and we intend to change the look of the cabinets and the counters. The boys like the "woodsy" feel of the cabinets, I think that they just look outdated. 

This is the living room area. I love that we have a fireplace, it gives the room a real focal point. I am sure at some point the HGTV in me will want to change the facing of the fireplace, but for now, I just like that it has one. As for that nook on the side, my intention is to put a full length built in desk and storage in the form of bookshelves. This is something that I would love to do, it would give an office space, as the house is lacking a third bedroom that would have been nice. After seeing the French doors in the other town home like ours, we would also like to replace the sliding glass doors. I think that it would give us more security and also a much cleaner look. It is not pictured, but to the right of this nook is a downstairs half bath. 

This is a view of the master, both bedrooms are en suites and have their own full baths. Ours has a walk in closet with built in shelves, which is a nice feature. It is slightly larger than the other room, although both rooms are pretty large in size.

This is the second bedroom. No walk in, but still ample closet space. I hate the blinds though, but I welcome the need for cosmetic changes, it makes it personal. 

Outside of the sliding glass doors in the living room is a screened in porch. and from where this picture was taken, there is a utility room with washer and dryer and some room for storage. The screening is torn and would need to be replaced or changed. Brian and I think that a possibility for a future project would be to take down the screening and making this into a back porch instead with a deck. I think he just wants less landscaping. 

This is view from the back of the yard. It is not a HUGE yard, but we don't need one. We intend to put a storage shed back here for all of our projects. Whether we build or buy has yet to be determined. A nice feature of having an end unit is that we also have a 6 ft gate into our  backyard. I am sure we will need to redo the privacy fence, but that is a worthwhile investment. 

Brian and I have probably spent several hours talking about all the things we would like to do. As I have a tendency to do, my mind is wild with ideas and projects. However, I want to be realistic. While we WILL be living here, the goal of buying this house is for it to be an investment, we want to be able to put in money and see a return on it. The housing market is in a slum right now, which is great for us as buyers, but we hope that it will have picked  up by the time we are looking to sell so that we can see a true return on this investment. I feel that most of the changes that we want to make will be worthwhile. It is amazing what a coat of paint and new floors does for the image in a room. If we get this house, we will need to come up with a realistic budget on what we want to actually put into the house. However, you have to spend money to make money. On the other hand, breaking even is definitely a no-go in this arrangement. I personally want to shoot for a 15,000 to 20,000 profit on this venture, after renovation costs. 

I think I watch too much HGTV.

Hopefully it will help me in my ideas. 

Anyways, enough for now, I could go on for megabytes more about this house. Fingers crossed that the bank accepts our offer. And then fingers, toes, eyes, and legs crossed that we are approved for FHA funding rather than a traditional loan.