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THE HOUSE WITHOUT CURB APPEAL…..AND IT COULD BE OURS!

There it is…..from the other side of the overflow channel that takes excess water from Chico Creek to Butte Creek. At the time I took this photograph, Sandy hadn’t mentioned that it was for sale, so it’s pure serendipity that I got this - from the second floor of a different place we were looking at.

The stucco house on the far left over there across the canal was built in 2007, then lived in a fairly short time before being foreclosed on. The bank finally got it in late October, 2010 and it’s been on the market ever since. We understand that they got one offer, but that’s been it. To the left of the house are three lots, and the one next door has sold and will have a house on it fairly soon. All of the big oak trees to the left and behind the house are in a Blue Oak Preserve that will never be built on, so we “own” the views front and back.

There are some problems - drainage water from the section of the Preserve behind it runs through the property, and the builder (now reportedly fled the country after a mortgage scandal of some kind) dispensed with drains for the downspouts from the roof, so that adds to the hydrology difficulties. And the “street” in front is actually a private road, and we would own and be responsible for 1/7 of it. It’s also a fire lane, meaning there is no parking along the “curb”, and that’s why the “front yard” is a parking lot - two spaces required. Furthermore, the sewer system would belong to us, too….1/7 of the pipes, tank, sewer lift pump, etc.

It’s really no wonder people didn’t want the house very much at $225.00/square foot, it’s approximate original price. By the time we got there, it was down to about $155/foot, and we offered about $137. The bank wanted more and countered, but two days later they thought better of it and accepted the offer. You might ask why WE want it, with all the problems (there are more, but they appear relatively minor and we’ll know more after the inspection next week.) The first three reasons are, as with all real estate, “location, location, location”.....it’s on a private street with a Preserve behind and a canal lateral in front, so our views will never be marred by more houses! It’s about a mile from two of Gail’s brothers, where I will install my garden and work on a small orchard. And it’s two blocks from the lovely house that Laura and Leslie are renting, along with the two grand-girls!
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Besides, look again at that garage wall - it faces south, and there’s a cutout in the driveway at the base, so I’m going to plant grapes there and espalier them all over the wall! In two or three years, assuming there’s sufficient actual soil in that “planter”, the wall will be covered in lovely cool greenery, and we’ll be picking big beautiful seedless grapes every fall!

Furthermore, it’s got almost everything on our list and more besides….all hard surface floors with NO wall-to-wall carpet anywhere; no lawn to mow, but enough space to grow a few things; three bedrooms and two baths (plus a half); room for the grand piano as well as the dining room table and some living room furniture; south windows in the living area so we have cheery light in the wintertime; storage space (even though it’s in odd places); a garage big enough for the car, the tools and cupboards, the freezer, AND the shelves for canned goods; a tile roof we won’t have to replace or worry about; stucco to keep us cool in summer, etc. etc..

There ARE some downsides - we want to paint it inside and out…although both can wait a bit; we don’t like the kitchen sink - a lovely porcelain two-basin model that many people would swoon for, but we prefer single basin stainless; the kitchen counter surfaces are lovely stone (or porcelain “stone”), but rather dark…we’ll live with them a while and then see; there isn’t much view on the sides of the houses - neighbors are close, although screened with a high fence. I’ll get some photos to illustrate this next week. For now, let’s take a tour!
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This gives you an idea of the setting in front…that’s the canal lateral on the left, there are three more lots beyond “our” house on the end, and three more houses on this side.
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Closer up, you can see that the neighbor has planted three trees to screen his driveway so he doesn’t have to look at our place when he comes home at night! Plus you can see the mud stains on the street from the outflow off our property. The window is into the dining room, which also has a south window. It’s the coziest room in the house, and will become a sitting room/playroom/study for Gail when we move in. We’ll arrange something on the “driveway”, so that it can be a patio when we wish—and string up some kind of shade, so the Chico summers don’t cook us through that west-facing window. The view out of the house to the front is glorious, though—LOTS of sky and openness. I’ll get a photo to update you once we’re down there with Laura’s move.

The subdivision CC&Rs say that no structure is to be closer than 30 feet from the street, so I’ve got to check with the City next week—it certainly looks to me as if the garage is encroaching (just a bit!) on that 30 feet, so I want to be assured they won’t come and ask us to demolish it! Heh. Let’s go in the house:
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In this view to the east, there is a hall to the left that takes you past a closet and a 1/2 bath to the laundry room and garage access, plus two bedrooms - we’ll see all that, later. On the right as you go in is the “dining room”, and straight ahead you can see through the living room, which has the kitchen and breakfast area (our dining room) to the right (which is south - see the sunshine pouring in?). Clear at the back against the east-facing windows we’ll eventually go left to the master suite, and right to the back door and out onto the rear patio.
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Here we have stepped past the dining room and the hall and are looking at the “breakfast bar”, the kitchen and the dining room. Out the window you can see then fence that shields us from our neighbor’s windows, and through the arch on the far wall is the closet by the back door. At least part of that is going to be shelves for pantry.
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Here you see the breakfast bar on the right and the living room to the left. The piano will go in the space immediately left, and there will be a furniture grouping around the fireplace - it’s gas-fired and acts as a heater as well as a visual treat.
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From the fireplace we see the dining room, the back closet and just the barest slice of the trim around the back door, plus the three glorious windows to the back patio and the Blue Oak Preserve. This floor is throughout the house, by the way—it’s all PERGO which has come a LONG way since the first laminate went on sale. Our area rugs are going to look GREAT here.
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Now we’re looking back toward the front of the house - the front door is open and you can see the shine on the floor on the far right - from the dining room through the kitchen and into what will be our “sitting room”.
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This is the range (the pan-supporting pieces cover the entire surface - pots can’t fall off between burners, which is wonderful for canning) and the refrigerator slot, plus the breakfast bar. The cupboards have very few drawers, which we bemoan, but I can install pull-out shelves in these base cupboards without much trouble It’s going to be fine.
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On the other side, the ovens, sink, and five lonely drawers, plus the south window. Truly it’s rather nice…... To the right you can see the warm afternoon light coming in from the sitting room….
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...which we see here from the arch that leads to the hall and the living room. We’ll be switching light fixtures with the breakfast area, as it will be our dining room. The south window is on the left, and west window on the right - the view to the west gives you an idea, but can’t show the enormity of the sky…especially growing up in Ukiah, the “Big Sky” effect of Chico looking west is something I just never experienced. This room is SO cozy, even in February!
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We’re looking into the house from the front door again…..this time, we’re going to go all the way to the far end of the house and turn left, heading for the Master Suite:
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You can see another closet, backing up the fireplace, and the door to the Master, of which I have NO decent photograph:
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This one will have to do—at least it shows the three beautiful east windows. Also the higher-than-8-foot ceiling that much of the house has….and the fan that will keep us comfortable in the summer.
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This is the view back toward the entrance, which is in the far left corner. The closet is nice, although I will modify it considerably:
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and the bathroom is impossible to photograph! Here’s the left side going in….double sinks with the near one so close to the door, it would be lethal if you were brushing your teeth and someone came in without knocking. We’ll probably have the door reversed so it swings OUT - that will improve things considerably.
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Opposite the sinks we find:
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a genuine Jacuzzi whirlpool tub! Wheeeee!

Actually, we had an enormous whirlpool tub for 16 years at 3 College Avenue, and then a reasonably nice one in Tennessee for five years, and we found we didn’t use them a whole lot. Had we been planning this bath, we’d have done things differently and likely without the Jacuzzi…..but we’ll see how it goes.

Not shown are the toilet (aren’t you disappointed?) and the shower….they’re at the far end of the bathroom, and impossible to photograph properly with the equipment at hand, although we tried! The shower is particularly nice - lovely tile that looks like stone, and the shower head is in and around a corner so that it looks as though no shower curtain will be required. More light is definitely needed in there, so we’ll start with brighter bulbs and see if that takes care of it. I’m hoping.

Leaving the Master Suite, we see the back door on the other side of the house:
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...as well as the closet/pantry alongside. The back of the house from the walking path looks like this:
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You can see the door we just came out, and the Master Suite over there on the right. In addition to the three east windows, the Suite also has a single south window opening onto the covered part of the patio.

We’re rather excited about the “popup” with windows up there on the roof. The hope is that we might be able to put windows into the living room ceiling that would bring light in from these…we’ll see. I have to crawl around in that attic, I’m afraid!

Something else that is less exciting is also visible here—note the drifts of mulch washed up onto the patio near the house….. Just in front of the pillars is one of those “swimming pool” drains that runs from one side of the patio to the other, with a plastic strainer covering it - the water is intended to run into the flower bed to the left, where there’s a plastic drain pipe emerging from the ground. However, the opening is surrounded by the signs of a pool of water, so I’m suspicious that it’s not currently draining anything.

Looking down the “alley” running down the south side of the house
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It’s got LOADS of mulch, which may have been spread, or brought by the water….can’t tell. But, you can see the downspout from the roof spilling right into this space….. The really ugly thing is on the far side of the fence at the far end…..
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The light stuff in the middle is the dried mat of algae, and the board is for the meter-readers, I’m pretty sure—- both the gas and the electrical panel are right here. This doesn’t look good. On the other hand, this space is directly connected to the little “stream” that carries water along the south property line to the street. If the City can keep the Preserve run-off from running-off through our lot, I think our problem is solvable.

The NORTH alley, on the other hand….
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had a pool part way along it—this after a week or 10 days without rain! This needs investigation, as well. Where is it coming from? How can we collect and dump it? Where is a permissible place to direct it? There is a three-foot right of way for utilities between our lot and the one to the north - on the other side of this fence. Maybe they’ll run the drain from the Preserve down this corridor and we can dump our extra water into the same drain….we’ll see. Now, back to the patio and the view from the back door….
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Isn’t that nice? The morning sun will come up over the Blue Oaks every morning. Those are nice mature rose bushes on the right, while to the left….
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is the gardening area! From what I can deduce of how the sunlight will affect this spot in the summer, I’m guessing this will be a great place for herbs and maybe some leaf crops and a few roots. Experience will teach us, but the major garden is going to be over on brother Dan’s place, anyhow. More about that once we’ve moved.

I do beg that you will notice that there is NO LAWN at this house!! Wheeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee! Free at last, and all that! Here’s the view out our gate:
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This is going to be really beautiful in springtime…... Looking north, we see
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the pool from which water flows onto our lot and who knows where from there! Also another really nice scene of oak woodland. It’s wonderful to have this right behind the house…...

Now let’s go back to the front door and look in again -
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Do you see the vertical space behind the fan? It connects the higher living room ceiling to the lower ceiling on the back ‘hall”. THAT is where we might be able to put a “window” that would bring light in from the roof pop-up we saw from the back gate.

Next, let’s take a look down the hall to the bedroom wing…...
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Note the double-doored closet on the left…right opposite that is the powder-room 1/2-bath. Straight ahead is Bedroom #1 and to its left is the door to the laundry room and the garage. There’s a hall to the right back there that leads to Bedroom #2.

On the right of this picture is a strangely-placed set of adjustable shelves - they’re right there in what is kind of a “hall”, opposite the arch to the dining/sitting room, before you are genuinely “in” the living room. The shelves are narrow - might fit paperback books, cassette tapes, and maybe CDs or DVDs…..but why would it be HERE? I figured we could the space for display of art pieces or family photos, but it really doesn’t seem like a great place for such things. Anyhow, Gail had a brainstorm - we’ll have someone with the requisite skills make us doors from the same beadboard that is on the kitchen cabinets, and then we’ll use the space as a pantry! Heh.
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This is the powder-room - more “stone” around the sink, and you can see the nice linen cabinet in the mirror. Turning right into the hall, we see
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the doors to BR #1 on the right and to the laundry room on the left:
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Pretty standard….although no sink, which is not good news. On the other hand, our current (rental) house doesn’t have one, either. I’d love to have a sink in the garage, but suspect that it would be quite expensive….we’ll see. At 3 College Avenue, we had sinks in BOTH the garage and the laundry room—but that’s the advantage of designing and building the house yourself!
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The guest bath is really nice…in fact, whoever picked the fixtures and tile, etc. did a good job. And finally, bowing out with a whimper rather than a bang - the guest Bedroom (#2)
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Also fairly standard construction, although those baseboards are much better than the cheap-o stuff in a tract house…and they’re in every single room.

Remember that this may all be moot….issues could come up that we don’t want to deal with. But, they would have to be major. The house suits us in so many ways….it really does look like an answer to prayer.

I’ll take a few more photos when we’re down there next week and update this post with both pictures and a report on the inspections, the chat with the people at City Hall, etc.

Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on 02/13 at 01:30 PM

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