Thanksgiving in Portland - New House

[dreamshark]

So Amber and Olin found this cute little house just over the border into Milwaukie, an improbably named suburb south of Portland. It's got new floors, a huge yard, and more storage space than they ever imagined they could have. It's only 6 miles to Amber's school - accessible by a lovely off-road bike path.


 Best of all, closing was schedule for Nov 30 - right in the middle of our Thanksgiving trip! How great is that? Of course it didn't quite work out that way. By Nov 30 the sellers weren't even close to finishing all the stuff they had promised to fix and had barely started moving out. Closing  got pushed to Dec 3, but the realtor arranged the "final inspection" for Tues, Dec 1, so we could see the inside of the house before we had to fly home. We were really excited to see it and glad we did, but the state of affairs 2 days before closing was pretty disheartening.
 
Yet somehow by Dec 4 (Friday) they had it all done. The papers got signed and the keys were handed over. Here they are in their new house on Friday evening.

Of course Lena started feeling better shortly after the grandparents left the scene, and was just as delighted as her parents. Today they rented a truck and moved all the stuff from the storage locker into the house. Amber reports that Lena had a wonderful time tearing around in the empty house. 

Comments

[seekerval.livejournal.com]

Looks like a fine house. Love the well-lit living room with fireplace and big glass patio doors. That white kitchen hutch they're standing in front of is very nice, as well. Do they have particular plans for all that yard?

Glad to hear little Lena is feeling better. Always feel bad for sick little ones.

[dreamshark.livejournal.com]

That's actually a bay window rather than patio doors, but it is a very attractive dining area. It's a 1926 home with several built-in shelves and cabinets like the kitchen hutch, which was one of the features they liked a lot.

Amber is very excited about the big yard and can hardly wait to start building raised flower beds. Olin, having zero lawn mowing experience, is apprehensive about the size of the lawn. They both want to add some fencing and/or shrubbery to provide a little more privacy. And they liked my suggestion of filling in the whole space between the house and the garage with nice patio bricks - that much less to mow.

[seekerval.livejournal.com]

I love bay windows! Had one put in on the south wall of our dining room within a year of buying the house. But it is definitely not that big.

Sounds like they have some very good plans for the big yard.

[vgqn.livejournal.com]

Exciting! So, did they get the mysterious garage hermit moved out as well?

[dreamshark.livejournal.com]

Well... eventually. Actually, when they showed up to start moving in their storage locker stuff they found him there trying to figure out how to get his giant home entertainment system out of the basement. They helped him carry it up the new stairs from the egress door. Amber said he was actually a very nice guy and helpfully showed them all the house quirks that they hadn't figured out yet (mostly involving small things that were broken but hadn't been noticed during the inspection - light switches and the like). He also proceeded to haul away the broken stove that was still sitting next to the garage. And he explained that what they thought was an old archery target in the back yard was actually an axe throwing target. I think he offered to take that away too if they didn't want it.