House Explanation

These first two photos show some of the best of this home.  I would love waking up and getting to pass by
this window on my way down to my morning coffee!

This window contributes so well to one of the warmest, most welcoming foyers I've seen in awhile.

But these show only the beauty---only what's so right about this home.

However, there is much wrong.

All the beautiful hanging light fixtures have pull strings attached.

Yes, even this lovely gem below.

You cannot flip a switch in any room to turn on a light.

The house needs all new electrical wiring.

They attempted to update the kitchen with a dishwasher but stuck it at the end of the long counter, adding another part of a counter (doesn't match well) and butting everything up too close to the door of a beautiful floor to ceiling wood pantry.  Getting into it is a physical acrobatic act.

You can't see the other side of this middle counter but it's open and is plywood.  The entire kitchen is a hodge podge of what seems to be "after thoughts" or half-hearted attempts to modernize which only result in making this room more of an eye sore, esp. compared to the rest of the house.  The entire kitchen needs to be redone---ENTIRE.

This is just a glimpse of some problems outside.  Most of the gutters are rotted or not connected to anything or both! Lots of shingles are missing on the roof.   Sooooo--new roof, major gutter repair. None of the windows upstairs have storms and some are in terrible shape: new windows.

One of the ornaments from the roof has been left to further deteriorate on the front porch.

The porch is rotted through not only on the floor but in the banisters and well---everywhere: whole new porch --- to fully restore  it to original beauty would be quite costly.

Other problems:

Needs insulation--there is none.

There are NO HEAT DUCTS upstairs---none---little electric heaters are used to

warm the huge rooms.

Installing air conditioning would not be nearly as problematic or costly as putting in heat upstairs--

we would have to do both.

Basement is ancient and damp and has some kind of beetle damage (supposedly as bad as termites).

New plumbing is needed.

Garage is caving in and would have to be torn down and a new one built.

A conservative estimate for repairing this dream Victorian home

with my husband doing most of the work

is

$100,000.00

on top of their deluded asking price of $150,000.00.

The yard is bigger than most Victorian settings in Barnesville,

but it is still small and we would have to build a privacy fence

 in order to have the dog I so want.

Across the street, hidden behind my car (in one of pics in a previous post)

is a house trailer.

There are no zoning laws in this town regarding house trailers.

So you could sink a half a million into a house only to have

a rental house trailer

end up next to you.

Nothing against house trailers---I just don't want one next door to a home

I've sunk a lot of money in.

Actually rentals are becoming a norm here in this town

and too many end up in disrepair.

We could end up with someone buying the house next to us

and turning it into a rental and the renters not taking care of it.

So these are the reasons why we won't be buying the dream house.

I'm now okay with it.

Mike said if he were 20 years younger, he might consider it,

but he's just not up to that kind of long term physical labor.

Since I see do not want to be a widow living in this home,

I choose my husband over the house.

So we continue to look.

For background on this house, scroll down to previous posts.