Saturday, December 1, 2012

Introducing House Stalking Saturdays!

Yeah, I really enjoyed writing last week's post about terrible real estate photos. Part of my love is that I love stalking real estate sites, so this lets me share my favorite of the week.

This is a house I'm a little in love with.

All photos from Zillow
I'm going to make a completely unsurprising admission-I love Grandma houses. They are called different names. Mid century ranches or bungalow or ranchalows. Pam calls them Mid-Century Modests. Whatever. I love them. Our forever house will probably (hopefully) be one. Also, youngins, I learned from watching a sick uncle and then dealing with a severely sprained ankle that one floor living is WONDERFUL when you are sick or injured. My poor uncle lived in a split level while terminally ill, and it added a LOT of difficulty to his day to day living. J spent the first few months of our marriage dragging me up the stairs to our second floor walk-up after I hurt my ankle. Not fun.

ANYWAY. I like my Grandma houses in their original condition. Okay, I want a good roof and I want it well maintained and all that, but I want it untouched. How can you determine from real estate pictures if your ranch home is in original condition?


It helps if the real estate photos have furniture in them. Although hipsters have made this more difficult! The Chippendale chairs, vintage sofa, super cool set of tables instead of a traditional coffee table, rocking chair, and faded Oriental rug could just as easily belong to Zooey Deschanel as to your typical Greatest Generation-er. (Oh, and I'm pretty sure that open door leads to the kitchen.) However...


The television set is a dead giveaway. Hipsters will go far, but their technology choices are basically no TV or a flatscreen. No way will 99% of hipsters be cool with this energy sucking/poor screen quality floor model.


Ah, the kitchen. Your true test of vintage charm. This kitchen is pretty charming (and its in a super Yuppie part of town, so it's time is probably at an end). Look at that vintage refrigerator!


Another view of the kitchen. See the sink with built-in drainboard? It's the little details, people! You can also check out the vintage vinyl floor. As I stare at the cabinets I'm beginning to think they might be metal or steel kitchen cabinets. The real estate listing says they are vintage to the house. A nice fresh coat of paint, replace the window valance, and maybe go with a pendent instead of the baby light and you'd have an adorable kitchen that retains its vintage charms!

Okay, so the washing machine is in the kitchen and I HATE that. But there's a screened in porch, it's the South, go ahead and make it a service porch! Then you can pop in a dishwasher (the plumbing's obviously there!). And replace the black stove. Please. There's more to the kitchen (see the counter/table/something on the right side?) so it's probably more spacious than it looks!


One of the three bedrooms. The floors are in fantastic condition! And I'm totally digging that bed frame.



Ah, yes! Vintage tiled bathrooms make my heart sing! And this tile looks NICE. Someone was a good housekeeper (another plus of grandma ranches that haven't been used as rentals!). I love the pistachio green tile with the black trim. Imagine the walls painted a nice smoky gray. Also, the bathroom has a linen closet (mega important!).



The rest of the bathroom. Cast iron tub, and more proof the tile and fixtures are in pristine condition. Cast iron tubs will survive the apocalypse, people. And will be the only time a cockroach will ever get near this beauty. I wish there was a better picture of the floor, but it looks like some sort of basketweave pattern.


The screened in porch. Do I even NEED to say anything about the fantasticwonderfulawesomeamazingness of that glider? Yeah, I didn't think so.


The backyard, complete with brick barbecue! Add some wrought iron outdoor dining furniture and you are good to go.

This house is in an awesome part of Atlanta, and lists for $260,000. I love it! What was your favorite part?



3 comments:

  1. It's now listing for $235,000 according to the listing as of today's date! Looks like there aren't many other aficionados of "Grandma Houses" in the market! At least nobody has bought it up at this point with miles of "remuddles" in mind.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Oh dear - I just clicked on the link above (With the listing price) to see this listing, and just glancing at the top of it, I noticed the price was down, and the photo of the front of the house is the same. But I seem to have spoken too soon when I posted that the price was down and left it at that. BUT - that's where the similarities end!

    I went back just now and looked into it a little further, and SOMEBODY has completely (almost anyway) remuddled the inside, and it is unrecognizable from the photos you posted! In fact I first thought I had the wrong house completely. It's not really badly done - I wouldn't turn it down at all if someone wanted to give it to me, but it's not at all the same cute little "Grandma house" we first saw.

    According to the listing information, they are crowing about the $40,000 in renovations that has been put into the KITCHEN, the dining area, the addition of a new laundry closet with stacked appliances outside the bathroom, and so on. It's all GONE - there's about 4 pictures that are the same as the original listing - the outside, the porch with the glider, the inside of the bathroom (left the lovely tile and fixtures ALONE thank goodness!) and the inside of the bedroom with the furniture all gone. The living room seems to have been "staged" with different furniture completely.

    To add insult to injury, the first line of the listing says the following - "WATCH the RENOVATION on SELL THIS HOUSE EXTREME on A&E-May 11!!"

    One thing that puzzles me is there is a link at the top of most of the pictures that says "Older picture?" and when you click on it, a window pops up and says "This photo is from a previous listing of this home." I am puzzled because they only appear on what seems to be pictures of all the "redoings" - not the ones that we first saw here. It's been on the market over a year, and the price has yo-yo'd a bit from when it first hit the market, and is now LOWER than it has been since it first hit the listings, even with the renovations. Sad.....

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. They maybe took down the listing during the A&E shooting?

      It's not the worst renovation I've ever seen, but it's SO 2013! Eh. I liked the original best.

      Delete

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