We'll be putting in a bid for the house on Olympic Street on Monday, squeezing it in on top of two FHA backed buyers who want to move in asap so hopefully our more stable conventional loan with 20% down and willingness to work with the seller's timeline will work in our favor. The seller is apparently still clearing up some title issues before he's clear to sell and is looking at more of a 30-45 day wait before closing. Which we'd be more than happy with. We could go 60 even and be happy. But Seth really loves this house. It's a split level with four bedrooms in a very quiet and family friendly neighborhood a mile and a half from the metro. The neighbor next door had a 5ish year old kid playing outside when we were there.
The back yard also looks out on a stretch of the Matthew Henson State Park. Never heard of it? Me neither. But it makes the house feel more private and could be nice if we clear out some of the fallen branches and brush back there. It's not a very well maintained park apparently. At least on our end of it. A little googlefu revealed, however, that there is a running/walking trail back there through it so perhaps a little trailblazing from the backyard could link up with it. That'd be nice. Or there's an official entrance around the block somewhere I'm sure. It meets up with the Rock Creek trail system a couple miles away as well so if Seth gets a bike to go to the metro on every morning then we could go biking on it all through the area!
So the other thing I did this week in preparation of going house hunting was do a wee bit of shopping. I picked up a new minicamcorder, the handheld sort. It's the Kodak Playtouch.
I'd gone into Best Buy having intended to buy this model's predecessor since their website said they had it in stock and they had a display model on the shelf. However, as it turned out they'd gotten rid of their stock since this one had just been released and hadn't bothered taking the display off their shelf. So! Using my incredible bargaining powers I got the new model for the old one's price. (Saving $30) I gleefully made off with my shiny new toy, brought it home, busted out the user manual, plugged it in... and nothing happened. Wouldn't turn on. Went back to best buy, got it exchanged for one that did work. (I made them check it before I left the store with it.) And then talked them into giving me a discount on an 8GB SD chip for it. Turned out it was on sale for less than the discount they were going to give me, but lesson learned. Express mild displeasure at Best Buy and the manager will likely knock the price down for you. The service was pretty great and the return process was easier, but I still spent more time at Best Buy in one day than I like to.
So here are the videos and a few pictures I took with it. In 1080p even! On that itty bitty camera! It's pretty incredible. I am not an expert camera person and probably should have turned on the digital stabilization feature (oops >.>) while taping too... so please forgive my shaky video and seizure inducing testing of the zoom button in the backyard tour the second time we went through the house. Note to self, don't try to use the zoom while filming. This is what happened when I was watching it afterwards: Youtube: "Thudthudthudthud"
Seth: "Marianne, what IS that?"
Me: "The zoom?"
Seth: *facepalm*
First Walk Through Part I
First Walk Through Part II
Second Walk Through Inside
Second Walk Through Outside
And here's one area we found after I'd finished filming: In the wash room there's a half door and behind it... the Narnia of Storage. Seriously. That picture doesn't even do the size of that crawl space justice. It's ginormous, as big as half of the house with shelves build all along the right wall that you can see the corner of in the upper right hand corner. It'd be a pain to get at, but for things like, say, the fake Christmas Tree we own that may not get used again once I have my own house to get a real tree for, and things that only need to be pulled out once a year or so? Still, I'll probably make Seth put stuff in there and get stuff out. Dust and spiders you know.
2 comments:
Well, good luck on this one. Your camerawork on this video wasn't quite as good as the first one. :) Harder to keep up with, but I think Seth & the realtor might have been waiting for you. One thing to think about with all the hardwood floors and tile is that you're going to need to buy area rugs ($100 at the very cheapest) for each space. And they're awful for kids who are learning to walk, who fall over, etc. And they get super dusty, so you have to clean them a lot. (But, that same dust would be in your carpet, so they're supposed to be cleaner in that sense.) Anyhow. Just my 2 cents. Is the yard fenced? It's a huge advantage to have it fenced when you have kids. Then you don't have to worry about them wandering into the park reserve!
I know. I need more practice with the camera. It's an odder shape than my regular camera and the lense doesn't have as wide of an angle it seems.
Downside of carpets though is that pins get stuck in them and somehow they migrate everywhere. My superpower is to never step on them, but Seth doesn't have the same power and there's no guarantee that kids or a dog would inherit it. Hardwood floors are a lot easier to clean.
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