Day 11: House Tour

So... we bought a house! It looks something like this:

Here is a little photo tour:
(Some of the photos were taken before closing and include items belonging to the previous owner.)

Front Exterior

The house is a pretty typical Foursquare-type style found all over Kitchener-Waterloo. We've been told it was built in 1930 and the seller bought the house with her husband in 1943 when she was our age!

Laneway to the right and two trees in the front yard	On the front semi-enclosed porch

Backyard, Garden and Garage

The backyard is pretty small but there's a fair sized garden and a vine against the garage that we're hoping will produce some delicious grapes. The garage has been outfitted with a few work tables and lots of little cubby holes and storage cabinets - and with room still for a car! We aren't planning to change much of the space behind the house other than planting a tasty veggie garden.

Back extension and garden shed on the back of the house	Vine-y garage

No more measly tomato plants in buckets!	Unlike the crate, no ladder was left behind for us to find :(

View from the back (south western) corner of the property

Foyer

Note one of the biggest selling features of the house - the beautiful original trim throughout. From the entrance you get a glimpse of the kitchen through what we'll call the coat "alcove" that leads to the basement and side door.

View from front door

Coat "alcove"

Living Room

To the left of the foyer is the living room with a nice big window on the front. There's also a little window on the side wall behind the hanging picture… and the wood paneling and even the plaster! The previous owners must have really not approved of that window - not sure what it did to offend them so.

Who needs a window when you have a giant print of a park scene?	Large windows on the front of the house, complete with valence lights

Dining Room

To make up for the lack of window on the side wall in the dining room, a bay window extension was built in the dining room but it's not much of an extension as it only adds about a foot of space. It is lovely to have so much light coming in from the south and this will be a great spot to get seeds going.

	Ample amounts of natural light = priceless

Kitchen

The current kitchen is split between two rooms: the fridge and sink are in the main room and the stove is in the back extension. It seems the previous owners were using both the rooms on the left side of the house as living space and had an eat-in kitchen. The thinking right now is to pull down the wall between the kitchen and dining room (which we'll probably need to replace with a beam to take the load) and put in a peninsula. This would not only add work space in the kitchen but also open up the space and bring a lot more light through from that big dining room window. The stove will come back into the kitchen and the extension will become a mud room.

That's the front door you can spy through the opening	View from the alcove. The wall on the left is the candidate for peninsula space.

Back extension complete with 1971 Enterprise stove made in Sackville, NB	The back extension adds an extra side door to the house

Moving on upstairs…

	Right-Left: Bathroom, Attic, Back Bedroom

Bathroom

The upstairs bathroom is the first major project we'll be tackling in the house. Current issues: galvanized pipes, no shower, fan sitting where it would be doused with water once a shower is put in, giant 13L toilet. Since this is the only real bathroom in the house at the moment (other than a toilet stall in the basement), we're bringing in outside help to get the work done quickly before we move at the end of March. We have lots of ideas but the small space is proving to be a challenge. You'll also notice the extra door that complicates things. This leads out to a small balcony on the roof of the extension. We're considering changing this door to a window since the balcony isn't serving much of a purpose - one of the costlier items on our wish list for the bathroom.

View from balcony: backyard and garden, garage, laneway

Attic

Depending on your genes, you may be able to stand up straight while right in the middle of the attic. As a walk-up attic, it will be a great space for storage.

Back Bedroom

We've named the bedrooms arbitrarily after too many "Wait, which bedroom?" type conversations. The names will be especially arbitrary with us as we plan to bounce around fixing up one room at a time. The back bedroom (with window to backyard) features a fully cedar lined closet.

Master Bedroom

Pretty much the same size as the back bedroom, the "master" sits above the living room with window looking out over the street.

Front Bedroom

This is easily our favourite room upstairs, despite being the smallest bedroom. It has the least offensive wallpaper that we wouldn't mind keeping and those built-in drawers are golden!

Heading down to the basement...

	View from alcove of the side door

Cold Room

Ample food storage space and a beast of a chest freezer that's been rounded up by the OPA. Thank goodness for that! When the guy who gets paid to move fridges and freezers yells, "Yeah! You've got some heavy appliances!" as he hauls them up the stairs, you're especially grateful that you're not the one doing it.

View from the bottom of the basement stairs

Den / Furnace Room / Utilities Room

I think we can call this room a "den" if only by virtue of the wood panelling on the side of the ductwork! The only thing getting in the way is the giant furnace! A tiny utilities room tucked behind the furnace is where you'll find the hot water tank and heat recovery ventilator/air exchanger or, if you are lucky, a nose full of coal dust.

	Check out those wood-paneled ducts!

Tiny utility room for hot water tank and air exchanger

Laundry Space and Toilet Stall

Our official second bathroom: toilet in a stall! We've seen much, much worse and it's great that the plumbing is already in place so we can turn this into a proper second bath. The laundry tub is paired with a genuine functioning hand pump that brings in water from a cistern which, in turn, is fed by all the eavestroughs on the house.

That fridge was rounded up with the freezer. Cool retro vibe, nasty energy footprint and unfortunate stench.

Note the hand pump beside the tub with large pipe coming out

Last updated: January 16, 2012