And the winner is....

Well, we've seen a bunch of houses in the last few months. Some of them have been really cool, others...well, others have been not as cool (think: kitchen ceiling on the floor. Surprise!).

However, after crunching numbers and staying up until 1:30am one night working out the parts of our budget that would allow us to make it work, we finally decided to put in an offer on a house that we really liked.

Our decision?

The Elisha Ave house!

They lowered the price to $74,000 while we were getting our finances together and we decided we should hop on it before someone else did.

We offered $70,000 and it was accepted by the sellers right away. However, since this is a short sale home, we have to wait to hear from their bank and whether or not the bank accepts it. This could take anywhere from a few weeks to 6-8 months.

We're cautiously optimistic about the outcome. It's been kind of fun discussing what we'd like to do to the house if we get it (how the black bathroom will be something other than black, for example), but we're also trying not to get too excited in case the bank comes back and says no.

For now, we wait. In the meantime, we're still planning on looking at other places as we don't want to get completely attached. More updates as we get them!

I've also added a few more pictures to the Elisha Ave blog entry that gives a little bit better picture of what the different rooms look like.

Fingers crossed, y'all! :)

Elisha Ave, Zion

We went onanother house tour today and saw some houses we picked out in Zion. We liked this one the best. It's an older home, built in 1909, and has a lot of interesting character. It's a little funky, but a nice, solid house. Here are the specs:

$75,000

4BR

2Ba

"INCREDIBLE WELL MAINTAINED HOME! IMPRESSIVE WOODWORK THRU-OUT. HARDWOOD FLOORS. OVER-SIZED YARD COMPLETELY FENCED WITH DECK AND LARGE PATIO FOR SUMMER FUN. UPDATED KITCHEN WITH WALK IN PANTRYPLUS LARGE FORMAL DINING ROOM. LIVING ROOM WITH WOOD BURNING STOVE. RELAX ON ENCLOSED FRONT PORCH. CONCRETE DRIVEWAY PERFECT FOR BASKETBALL COURT. 2.5 CAR CAR GARAGE."

Yeah, we liked this one a lot. Particularly because we found out the Pacific Ave house that we LOVED is now off the market because of a weird VA loan issue with the owner.

This one is also owned by a military family but it seems that these guys have their act together and it may close quickly (it's a short sale).

This is part of the entry way. We love the old woodwork.







This is the living room with it's weird little wood-burning stove in the corner. We weren't sure if we'd like that or not, but it works with the rest of the house really well when you're actually looking at the whole ensemble. Plus, it looks like it will save us a lot of money in heating costs in the winter, if we use it right.

Below this is the kitchen. It has kind of a cool butler's pantry off the back of it with extra counter space, which I like. :)
On the other side of the kitchen is a big, formal dining room. The ceilings are tall in this house so it creates a lot of space. We also like the arch to the living room.

On the back end of the dining room is one of two full baths. They were both clean and nice with no need for any noticable repairs, which we appreciated.

After that is the first and smallest bedroom, although the high ceilings again made it seem like there was more space.

Next to that was the next bedroom in size. We liked that both of these bedrooms had cork all over the walls. Clever.

The upstairs bathroom is a weird little bathroom. No shower, but an interesting tub configuration. Again, it was clean but this one will need to be updated at some point.

The next bedroom...well, all I can say his Holy Thomas the Tank Engine, Batman! Cute painting. I'm sure the child currently occupying that room really loves it. :)

The master bedroom is a good size and has a lot of closet and storage space. Of course, Mark was the only one that could reach the storage... :)

The basement was clean and nice and I got my revenge when the tall man had to stoop to move around down there. :) Everything looked pretty up to date, including the HVAC system which is only about 15 years old. There was also another, extra room down there that Mark thought might make a good Man Room. I told him he might have to kneel to enjoy it... ;)

We also really loved the yard. It's HUGE. There's enough room to have a very large party AND play volleyball or badminton, which was my priority. The deck is nice, too.

Sheridan Road, Wkgn

Here is a lovely, old victorian home we looked at on Sheridan Rd (where all the super fancy houses are up and down the north shore). We would never hope to ever be able to afford an older historic home like this but the seller is insanely motivated and so the price is right (see specs below).

It needs a lot of work and with all the work needed, as well as the astronomical property taxes (we're talking $8,000+ a year), it's looking like we won't be able to afford it. Bummer because it would be really fun to rehab.

It has a lot of fun nooks and crannys, particularly in the basement (TOTALLY creepy) so I'm putting pictures up so you all can get a fun inside peek. :)

Specs:

$89,900

3BR

2ba

"GREAT INVESTMENT PROPERTY / LOCATED ON LARGE LOT SIZE / LARGE 2 STORY HOME WITH A LOT OF POTENTIAL / 3 BEDROOMS, 2.1 BATHROOMS / FULL BASEMENT / PROOF OF FUNDING MUST ACCOMPANY ALL OFFERS / FAX ALL OFFERS TO THE OFFICE / NO EMAILS PLEASE. Seller may offer home warranty and may pay up to 3% buyers closing cost."

This is the side of the house. It's a tiny little yard and there's no place to park except for a patch of grass on this side of the fence. However, it's still charming to behold. :)

These are pictures of the back of the house. There's not a lot of room back here because there is a ravine behind the house that leads down to 1-2 acres of raw land. Very cool. It also explains why the taxes are so ridiculously high.

Another view of the side yard.

More backyard.

Stairs down to the ravine on the right.

A better shot of the stairs leading down. All that land down there and back a ways is part of the property.

Another shot of the ravine.

Shot of the back family room.

Front living area and solarium (that's right, I said it. Solarium.)

Solarium shots.

Front family room leading to formal dining room.

Stairs leading to second floor.

Woodwork in formal dining room. So cool.

Kitchen.

Frickin' awesome half bath off the kitchen and laundry room. Check the cabinetry!

Laundry room and cabinetry.

Weird stairwell leading down to basement.

Funky basement. This basement was the weirdest basement I've ever seen. There were so many odd rooms and bizarre twists that it was easy to get lost. Combine that with the fact that there were no working lights and the creep factor was pretty high. Taking pictures with flash was the only way we could really see a lot of the basement.

Here's a random cranny leading into a larger room (almost totally dark). The black marks on the wall are from when someone was practicing their racquetball shots.

This was the only area of the basement with windows.

No light in here except for the crack where the outside door was. It was a shock to see the blue wall after we took the picture. On the right is the old cistern. It was a monster.

Another random room.

Another random room that was dark until we took the picture. Again, the presence of color was a surprise.

Another random, dark room.

Ceiling of the cellary.

Monster old furnace. Never seen anything like it.

Random, unfinished shower. Again, didn't realize it was green until we took the picture.

Second set of stairs leading up to back family room.

Bedroom 1 and closet.

Bedroom 2

Closet in master bedroom.

Master bedroom and bathroom.

Random closet in the middle of the hallway upstairs.

Upstairs bathroom.