The realtor, Jeff, opened the front door and the musty, earthy smell of mold hit us all. It had been bottled up in this house for weeks. When the front door opened the odor rushed past us as the house seemed to gasp for a fresh breath.
It was then that Jeff gave us a little history lesson featuring this house. The first owner had this house built “just for them” and they had loved it. A special place had been created for a very large potted tree in the lower level when the house was built. The tree had grown up into an open space in the main floor under two skylights and was view-able from the living room. I was thankful the tree was gone!
He also noted that “she” liked to decorate using a southwest color palette. Yea, I’d noticed the peach colored trim and mauve carpet. I had yet to see the dusty blue and salmon colored wallpaper in the master bath. lol And they had loved their yard; filling areas with ferns and hostas. It was sad that none of the landscaping had survived.
The history lesson continued as Jeff explained that the original owners had sold the house. And the new owners had had the unfortunate experience of losing the house to foreclosure. This family liked bright colors, and they had painted every room that didn’t require scaffolding. When standing in the living room I could see paint colors of bright purple, red, mustard and blue. I like color too, but this was waaaay too much for me.
But…….what about the MOLD? What happened?
Jeff said, “You might have noticed that the house needs a new roof. It’s the original shake shingle roof and it was patched last fall.” He went on to tell us that squirrels had chewed a large hole through the roof. And then it rained that summer. And it rained, and rained and rained. The house was vacant at this point, and no one knew because the hole was on the back side of the house.
When early fall arrived someone became interested in the house. I’m sure it took some doing, but they convinced the bank, who owned the house, to patch the roof. And then they became uninterested in the house. Why? Who knows…….
It was at this point someone made a very BIG mistake. The furnace was turned up. Then ‘the someone’ locked the house up and left. They had just created a petri-dish perfect for growing mold.
As Jeff was telling the story, I was taking it all in. Not just the story, but the character of the house. Here are some of the thoughts I had…….
The door into the kitchen is really narrow.
The kitchen is closed off from the living area.
I’m never going to have a tree growing in the basement. lol
There is a sunken peach colored tub in the master. I’ll never use it.
The kitchen needs to be gutted and reconfigured
This house has soooo much potential
Love the big trees in the yard.
Love the windows along the back wall.
Love the fireplace.
Oh my goodness! I could see so much potential!
We thanked Jeff for his time and went home thinking about this house. Could it possibly work for us? The more I thought about it, the more I knew this house was for us. I knew that I wanted to remove a big section of wall between the living room and kitchen. I also knew that I would gut the kitchen and start over with a new cabinet layout. Hmmm. What else? I never ever take baths or soak so the tub could go and we could make the shower bigger. (I do not need the shower to be the size where 4 people would fit into it, but I did want one larger than 30″ x 36″.) I could hardly wait to go back and look at it with my TAPE MEASURE! lol
Oh, you’re thinking about the mold!!!! I was thinking……mold? What mold?
Ohhhhh thaaaaaat mold.
Psssh. I knew that would be easy to deal with.
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