zabbo

I’m told my hair smells like potato chips this evening. I’m not sure what to say about that other than that it sounds delicious.

The vastly more exciting news is that Alice and I joined the growing ranks of the proud warriors of household debt. We closed on our new house today. We have keys, money has been thrown around, and apparently the state has our name somewhere in its little brain. I’m not sure why I haven’t mentioned anything here about it before. I guess I didn’t want to jump up and down and make lots of noise before it was unmistakably official.

The house was built in 1906 and is located in “close-in” southeast Portland. It has an amazing number of the little details that we were looking for. We get a nice sized kitchen and eating area that will be great for meals and entertaining. The previous owners were renovating the basement for use as a second rental unit and so walled off a few rooms which gives me a place to hide the computers. Most critically there is a little balcony off of the master bedroom that Alice can enjoy with a cup of tea, weather permitting.

The friendly inspector man said it was in great shape to celebrate its 100th birthday next year. He didn’t have any critical complaints, though we did ask that the sellers have an electrician fix up some things in the panel. That said, there is certainly no shortage of work to be done.

I’m most interested in fixing up the crazy walls in the room that will be my office. It’s right at the top of the house so its external walls are all angled along with the roof. Roughly three-quarter height walls were framed off which also created some storage in the eaves. Something weird happened, though, as the walls were finished with rough boards that look like they’re only primed. I hope it won’t be too painful to throw up some drywall instead, perhaps running a few extra outlets while we have the walls open.

Alice is going to go nuts painting. Someone was not afraid of colour, which is great, but sometimes they leaned a bit too far towards darker colours. Quite a bit of trim is done in this sickly green that stands out once you notice it. I’m all for a few revitalizing coats.

I keep trying to take pictures of the place and keep coming away with cruddy photos. Tonight’s batch, done after sunset, were all far too dark. Sigh. Maybe it’ll be easier to get it right once we live there.

There isn’t a yard to speak of on the property. This is a bonus, I think, being the urbanites we are. It will be nice to occupy the sweet spot where we can grow some cute shrubs and herbs and not have to get a riding lawn mower. The back side of the proprety fits snugly into the inner-elbow of an L of condos that was put up on two corners of the block. The condos have this nice shared green space behind all the condos. Alice’s balcony then overlooks this bit of trees and grass and birds and such, which is very nice. Portlandmaps paints a pretty clear picture.

So the next big chore is the actual act of moving. Hopefully that won’t be too horrible.