The Cul de Sac House

After putting offers on two houses and losing them, one to a cash buyer, we finally found our home to be on a cul de sac in the San Diego neighborhood of North Clairemont. What everyone says about buying a house is true. It's scary, exciting, and stressful (especially for first time homebuyers). We didn't even know what was going on more than half the time! It's a scary move to clean out your savings account and be unsure of what you're going to do if something goes wrong.

We do have to give a shout out to Kevin Dalzell (of the Dalzell group) who was a very supportive realtor and dealt with all of my insistent questions well. Also on our list of is Todd Pianin and Gabbi Matz at Samuel Scott Financial Group who helped us secure our FHA, 30 year fixed loan. Although according to Todd, we have the credit scores of 80 year olds and would have had no problems getting a loan anywhere (but thank you both as you were answering our questions at 10 PM at night so we could sleep well).

The thing that drew us to this house was that it is much larger (almost 1000 square feet larger) than the other houses we looked at as well as it has a true master suite, not a 11 x 12 room with a closet bathroom and tiny closet attached to it. It's an old house, built in 1959 and has at least three additions that have been added over the years.

The house is 2097 square feet, 4 bedroom, 2 1/2 bathroom, single story home. It has a large wrap around yard and is close to canyons with trails for hiking and biking. It's still close enough to the coast to keep it fairly cool; however, the weather will be warmer in the summer and colder in the winter than our little apartment in Point Loma was.

We think we got a good deal although we spent a lot more than we had thought we would. We just go so much more for a little bit more money. It was a bank owned foreclosure, but is in relatively good shape with only cosmetic things that need fixing.

The upside? fixed up, the house will gain instant equity.

The downside? There are a few:

1. Housing prices will most likely continue to drop for at LEAST the next year (maybe two).

2. Since it's been empty so long, the yard is dead except for our hibiscus bush (yeah) and our bouganville plant (double yeah).

3. We only have one working toilet.

4. The master shower needs to be recaulked, so we only have one shower working which is down an alternate hallway from our bedroom.

5. It looks like someone's 12 year old daughter who loves My Little Ponies decorated the house (and we're not joking).

To illustrate our point, here are several pictures of the house before we moved in:

As you walk into the house, you are greeted with this "Great Room" which will become our living room/dining room. We believe half of this room was added on. Yes folks, that's midnight blue carpet with yellow and purple walls and you can't quite see it, but popcorn ceilings.

As you look to your right, there is the first hallway which is part of the original house. This leads to the full bath, foyer closet, linen closet, and 3 bedrooms. Yes, the hallway is sky blue with a purple wall at the end, but look! No popcorn ceilings!

When you walk into the Great Room and look directly to your left, you see the family room (or sunken room as we call it since it's a step down). This room was also an addition and has a wood burning stove in it. This will become a nice reading/breakfast nook one day. Like the outdoor tile and Ruby Tuesday's light fixture?

While standing and looking directly at the Sunken Room, if you look to your left again, the entrance to the kitchen and on to the two car garage (that's the open door in the picture. As you can see, the kitchen needs some updating, but all in good time. Ugh! That tile!

Once you exit the kitchen and go down the first hall on your left, you are lead to the full bath (first door on the left). Look at that lovely tile. Say, "Hi," to MIL and thank her for us for cleaning that bathroom! And look! There's more of that lovely tile!

The first door on your right is the guest bedroom, check out that paint job. That is a wallpaper border just above those shelves! Like the contrasting colors? This room doesn't have any doors on the closet (we did not think you'd be interested in a picture of that).

As you continue down the hall, the second door on your left is the foyer closet and the third door on your left is the linen closet. Like the combination of wall paper and contact paper?

The last door on your right is what will one day become the nursery (don't get too excited, this room won't be touched for at LEAST another year).

The last door on your left leads to my office and that other door in the office? Well that leads to the half bath. There's another door in the half bath that leads to the Master Bedroom Hallway. This means our house does a giant circle. Little Mookie is loving it! For some reason we didn't take a before picture of the office, but it was just a plain white room, the only room in the house not painted at all!

OK, if you retreat back down the hallway to the Great Room and go down the second hallways (Master Bedroom Hallway), you pass French doors on your left which leads to the bistro area (this will most likely become hubby's Tiki Lounge). The door on your right leads to that half bath. The door at the end of the hallway leads to our Master Suite! You really get to see the purple in the walls in this hallway! Can you see the tile?

The Master Suite is complete with a walk-in closet and bathroom! *sigh* Yes the walls are peach, but I've already painted it...there are no after pictures as of yet. The Master Suite was also an addition.

Which brings us to the worst part of the house. We don't know what these people were thinking with this bathroom! Look at that shower! It's more like a kiddie pool! We're going to rip this out and we're thinking, standing shower and then a jacuzzi tub!

If you retreat back to the Great Room and exit via the sliding glass door, you see a covered deck and large wrap around yard (the yard might as well be 2 acres by San Diego standards). Like I said, it's dead and we have a lot to do...

And here's our front door! That bench is gone along with two or three others that were laying around.

So that's it, the before tour. Keep checking back for after updates...next installment, the great popcorn ceiling adventure and I break all the doors!