Halpz! - Part One (Exterior Bushes)

SO I spoke with the mortgage guy, and he said we're all but a go.  :)  Yay!!  I'm still not considering it ours until it comes out of underwriting with a stamp of approval, but I'm letting myself get excited again.

And in honor of this, I've decided to start plotting.  I already sort of have an idea of the interior, but the exterior is kind of all over the place.  So I need your thoughts/advice/personal choices.  I'm focusing on the front right now, since that's going to be one of the first places I tackle on the outside.

The painters pretty much destroyed the palm tree up front, and it didn't really go with the whole theme of the house.  i can't figure out what the theme is yet, but despite my love of palm trees, I agree with husband that it just didn't quite...fit.

It wasn't in the best shape before...

...and it's in even-worse shape now.

Destructo-Tron!

Plus, it wasn't the sago-palm look I like anyway.  It just looks sad and mopey.  And the rest of that area is barren:

So...what to plant here?!

I spoke with husband on the matter, and his words were pretty much, "I don't care.  The less I have to mess with it, the better.  I trust you implicitly that you'll make it gorgeous."  Which is awesome in terms of letting my creative juices flow, but sucks in terms of having a HUGE range of options to go with.


So I'd like to plant two bushes on either side of the breakfast nook (last photo above), replacing the sad palm.

Me and husband both agree that we want to bring color to this area, but keep it pretty neutral in terms of the paint colors that are already present.  Meaning, I don't want to have a bunch of vibrant colors going on that take the eye away from the house.  I'm intending to stick in the blue-purple-white category.  Thankfully, this keeps a pretty wide range of available stuff to plant!

Here is where I would like some feedback.

1) What bushes should I plant?  I'm pretty much trying to decide between two.

A) Mandevilla are gorgeous and bloom from spring to winter (which is great), are heat and drought tolerant, but I believe their cold tolerance only goes to 35F(ish).  I'd probably have to worry about these babies when it dips into the colder weather.  This one is probably my favorite.

D) White Annabelle Hydrangea don't require a lot of work for the area they'd be planted in, and I think they'd bring a bushiness to the area when they aren't in bloom.  They can get overrun with flower-balls (that's what i call them :P) if you don't prune, but they're apparently otherwise very hearty.

So vote! Mandevillas or Hydrangeas!

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.

Before Photos - Upstairs

And finally, we venture upstairs.

...or downstairs, from this angle!

The carpet's in good shape, and I dig the open layout here, especially as we turn toward the upstairs hall:

Tiniest. Ceiling Fan. Ever!

Pay no attention to the wall-unit.  That (theoretically) will be gone by the time we move in.

From this view, the door immediately to the left is the guest bedroom.

Guest bedroom!

 It's got a great view of treeline, so you can't see the neighbors at all unless you're really trying.  It's good a good-sized closet with mirrored sliding-door, and we all know how mirrors open up a room.  It's not a huge room, but while the specs say it's 10x10, it feels a good deal bigger. 

I don't really understand why they have a locked mini-door to the attic, though...

Between the guest bedroom and the upstairs bathroom is a big linen closet that's in just as urgent a need for paint job as the kitchen pantry.  It's like they spilled coke all over it and then couldn't be bothered to clean it up.

Next door in the hallway is the upstairs bathroom.

I was actually surprised how good a shape this room was in.  Other than a fresh paint job, it really doesn't need any work. 

And finally, from the hallway, headed straight we go into the room that made me glee when I walked into it.  I call it the nursery room, but really it'll likely be the office.  For awhile.

I officially drool all over these bay windows.

Plus it has these pretty cool built-in shelves on both sides and it's a good closet size as well. 

The carpet's not in the best shape up here.  I'm hoping that all it needs is a solid carpet cleaning, but it'll last us through when we flip it, unless we decide to stay in it for ever.

So...that was the official tour!  What do you think?

Before Photos - The Master Suite

Onward to the master suite.

I like to call this shade, "Hooker Red."

This room is huge...I mean LARGE.  (And look at that vaulted ceiling!)  Which, essentially, means we're going to spend three cans of Kilz trying to cover this color up. :)

But at least the carpet's in good shape!  But before I progress to my favorite room in the house, I will preamble:


One of the things we loved most about this place was the amount of storage.  Big pantry in the kitchen, lots of storage space in the laundry room (I only have one blurry shot at present), big coat closet and aforementioned stair-closet.  Which brings me to...

The master closet.

I'm not going to post 20 pics of the closet, because I tried from five different angles to accurately illustrate how enormous this thing is, and every picture just made it look like a normal closet.  Suffice to say, you could fit a king size bed in this closet and it would fit.  It's HUGE.  This pic only comprises like, 30% of the closet.

From the second master-bedroom pic (I won't ask you to go back and look, because I understand that the red is probably making your eyes bleed), you'll see that it leads you to the master bath. 

Let me say before I post pics, that the master bathroom and the kitchen are going to be the two largest remodeling jobs we do.  These remodeling ideas will be fully addressed in future posts, so I'll just say that the bathroom is likely going to undergo a complete overhaul.  I think only the tile, the half-bath cabinet and mirror, and the main bath cabinets are going to stay...and that's only an "I think" statement.  The elusive-animal-which-we-think-was-a-dog has torn up the edges of the cabinets in such a way that they may need to be replaced, and if they get replaced, so does the tile.  :\  But that's a post for another time!  Pictures!

The master-bath counter/cabinets/lack-of-mirror area.

It needs more work than you can see from the photos. The master tub is disgusting.  I don't believe we'll be using it until it's replaced.

It's not supposed to be that color.

To the left of this photo, you can see light streaming in.  That's from a patio door.  No, I'm not kidding.  Thank goodness the door falls behind the gate. 

To the right of the above photo, you can see a badly-beaten folding door.  That is going to be heading to the junkyard very quickly.  If you head through the beaten door, you will come to this half-bath location:

Other than paint and a new toilet, this area doesn't really need any work.  But wait!  If this is the half-bath...then that means....yep!  You guessed it!  Our master bath also doubles as a guest bath.  It may sound bad, but it's positioned in a way that really works.  I actually kind of dig this setup.

Before Photos - Downstairs

You see now why I love this house, right?  Because, wow.  And it looks great from far away!

Looking toward the kitchen and, theoretically, dining area.

It definitely needs a new paint job, though.  These kind of scratches are seen throughout the home.  We suspect a dog shared the home with the previous owners.

Love the window seat-esque area.  Don't love the view, and the hanging light's gotta go.

Looking from the living room toward the front door. 

 We're lucky that the living room floors have been recently laid with wood laminate, and it's in great shape, despite our suspicion of dog.  There are only a few spots in the corners where it looks like the installer didn't quite know what to do with the extra space, and didn't have the time/ability to cut a tiny piece of laminate to seal that spot.  It's definitely not noticeable unless you're a perfectionist (husband), or looking for imperfections. 

The tile in the kitchen and bathrooms is in good shape as well, but there are a few "interesting" tiling options in less-conspicuous areas.  Witness the tile in the back corner of the under-stairs storage space.

Really?!

Apparently.

Onward to the kitchen!

Uh...

 Yep.  That's magenta.  Yep, that's 1978-era fake-wood countertops.  No, you aren't having a nightmare.

I kid you not, that light?  Comes to my chest.

The pantry is visible in the above photo, and it's actually quite large...

It's also kind of gross.  Please to paint now!

The pics don't even do it justice.

Before Photos - Outdoors/Garage

So, after much request (already!), here are the current photos of the home, in its present condition.

You already saw the front, so we'll move on to the rest of the outside and garage photos!

Sad, neglected palm tree along the front walkway

The official entrance to the backyard from the front.  I think it needs a shrub or tree or something.

Back porch is covered, which is a plus!

Needs some landscaping, but a good base!

Um, the garage needs a good once-over with some paint.  And bonus, there's leftover paint right there!  Too bad that it's magenta and neon red...

Plenty of room for motorcycle and husband-tools!