Inspections and Insights

So, a little backstory.

When we put the offer on the house, we did a total low-ball offer.  I mean, we offered list price, contingent on the fact that they fixed the AC unit (a few grand) and replaced all the rotted wood around the entire house (another few grand, and endless hours of labor by doing it outside), and repainted all the wood the same color.

We expected them to come back with "y'all are out of your minds", but they actually said okay.  We were shocked.

We went over to check out the progress Friday evening.  The inspector had just come, and we got a mostly-green light on the house.  Most of the damage he detected, we already knew about (doors not on hinges, window screens not on their windows, insulation installed backward in the attic, no gutters, the AC (which hasn't been fixed yet), etc.  The only thing that wasn't cosmetic or easy/cheap to fix was an electrical port problem that I don't quite understand, and we don't know the scope of the cost to fix it yet, if it even needs to be fixed immediately.  That's being investigated at present, so we'll see.

Anyway, onward to the pictures of updates!  I don't have many 'before' pics of the outside where we can do a side-by-side comparison, but I will say that, even though they weren't finished painting when we came over, it looks SO much better.  Like, they basically ended up repainting and refinishing the whole house.

Before, clearly.

And now...

Yes, that's our motorcycle!

You probably can't tell the difference, but in person it just looks so much better.  The wood is fresh and new and the paint is all shiny.  :)

Midway through the paint process.  Time for some blue trim!

 

Brand new, all the way around.

 Here's my one good before and after photo, though this hanging-down part was kind of a theme throughout the lining of the house:

Before...

And after!

That side-by-side shows you the newness of the paint in the after-photo.  That blue is richer and deeper now, and looks great!

The painters destroyed most of this plant, so it's probably gonna have to go.

We didn't even take a picture of this area before, because it had the busted-up mailbox and a whole bunch of trash laying out.  I guess the bonus of painters was that they doubled as trash-collectors!  I'm already envisioning a nice potted plant here (there's not enough room for a bench).

And some flowers here:

And here:

There's not a lot of work done around the back, but I took pictures, so you will look at them!

Husband inspecting the wood work.  Please note the patio door into our master bath...

Thanks for breaking the half-fence...

 

The backyard tree situation isn't that amazing, but it's at least promising.  There's one corner full of dead palm trees that we'll have to dig up, and the above tree that's starting to flower.  Our initial thought was that it was a Dogwood, but upon further inspection from looking at the flowers, my research tells me it's a Washington Hawthorne.

The name sounds very presidential.

I will spare you the twelve pictures of the porch (which will also eventually have to go, particularly since it's resident to Carpenter Bees).

So now, we just have to get a reasonable estimate from the inspector on what he thinks it'll cost to fix the electrical box-or-whatever problem.  Once we determine that, we have to either renegotiate the cost and do A WHOLE NEW CONTRACT, sigh....or we can just proceed as planned.  If we don't push asking for more things to be repaired (and I'm not inclined to push since they're already fixing other stuff and probably won't fix anything else), we can move forward with having the appraiser come.  If s/he gives the thumbs up, the process moves along.  If the appraiser demands repairs, we'll have to either eat the cost, get the sellers to fix it, or walk.

Can't wait for THAT.  Whoo.