I bought a house!

[TomJoe]

I close on it next month! Well, as long as that pre-approval from my mortgage company is truly an actual approval. Otherwise I'll be living on the street with my pooches.

Isn't it loverly?

[wei yau]

Nice house, TomJoe!

Congratulations on your new home sweet home!

[Clutch Munny]

Looks very homey. I love the porch, the mature trees, and the green trim.

[TomJoe]

Thanks. We have the front porch and a nice sized deck on the back of the house too. There are 14 trees on the property so there is plenty of shade (and plenty of clean up during the fall/winter months). The fiancee fell in love with the house the moment she saw it, and even though we saw about 2 dozen additional houses after this one (it was #2 on the first day) this one always stuck with her. The owners were real cheapstakes when it came to haggling over a price, but all-in-all we're satisfied.

[Lauri D]

That's great TomJoe! I second the fact that the mature trees give it a really nice look, and porches are great. Congratulations!

[LadyShea]

Wow, nice looking home there. Congrats

[livius drusus]

It's charming, TomJoe. Is that brick chimney attached to a lovely working fireplace in the living room, perchance? I love fireplaces.

Congratulations to you and the future missus.

[Artemis Entreri]

You're such a HOMOwner.
Nice place.

[TomJoe]

Originally Posted by livius drusus

It's charming, TomJoe. Is that brick chimney attached to a lovely working fireplace in the living room, perchance? I love fireplaces.

It's a gas log fireplace. Almost all of the fireplaces down in SC that we saw were gas, instead of wood-burning (or were converted from wood-burning to gas).

Here is a picture of the living room (not the greatest, I was running through the house taking as many pictures as I could as we were narrowing down our choices to our "top 3" on the final day of house hunting and the day we were making our offer), showing the fireplace from the inside.

[livius drusus]

Exposed the brick the whole inner length of the chimney peaking in a cathedral ceiling! Oh man, that's gorgeous. I can see why the missus fell in love with the place.

The hardwood floor is beautiful too. It looks like it's in excellent condition, downright glossy, in fact.

[Artemis Entreri]

Well I guess that's alot less work and danger.
I had a wood burning fireplace last year when I was living in my grandparent's old house. But it had a cast iron surround that was designed to heat the house.
I really enjoyed busting wood for it. I used to do that every fall when I was a kid.
Seconds on the hard wood floors. Great place, man.

[TomJoe]

Originally Posted by livius drusus

Exposed the brick the whole inner length of the chimney peaking in a cathedral ceiling! Oh man, that's gorgeous. I can see why the missus fell in love with the place.

The hardwood floor is beautiful too. It looks like it's in excellent condition, downright glossy, in fact.

Yep, the hardwood floor extends into the hallway, though the bedrooms are carpetted. Of course, the fiancee has already set out of list of renovations, which start with hardwood flooring for three bedrooms and tiling the kitchen and bathrooms (as opposed to the current vinyl). I'm hoping her plans account for a couple of years saving prior to tackling those expenses.

The hardwood floors are in great condition, and the woodwork throughout the house is in great condition. All the windows and closets are trimmed in the same wood as you see at the top of the fireplace (at the ceiling) and it matches the kitchen cabinets as well. Though, I don't know what wood it is.

The fiancee said the house screamed "Home!" to her the minute she saw it, and while I liked the starkness of the some of the new builds (if I were still a bachelor, I'd have bought one of the bungalow style houses or a townhouse that we viewed), the yard won me over immediately.

Now I'm just sitting on pins and needles while the darn mortgage company goes over my financial life with a finetooth comb.

[TomJoe]

Originally Posted by Artemis Entreri

Well I guess that's alot less work and danger.
I had a wood burning fireplace last year when I was living in my grandparent's old house. But it had a cast iron surround that was designed to heat the house.
I really enjoyed busting wood for it. I used to do that every fall when I was a kid.
Seconds on the hard wood floors. Great place, man.

Probably, though to be honest ... I've never had any sort of fireplace, so I hope I don't blow the house up the first time we try to use it! I imagine wood fireplaces are less likely to explode. I do love the smell of a wood fire though, and I guess we won't get that with this one, though for heating purposes this one should work fine. I think.

[Artemis Entreri]

Peel back a corner of the carpet in one of the closets and see what's underneath. You never know, you might get lucky and find wood under there already.

[TomJoe]

Originally Posted by Artemis Entreri

Peel back a corner of the carpet in one of the closets and see what's underneath. You never know, you might get lucky and find wood under there already.

Very true. That would be sweet if that's the case!

[wei yau]

We have a wood fireplace, we thought about it having it converted to gas. We called one contractor and they said that they stopped doing the work because of too many explosions.

We decided to keep the wood fireplace.

[ms_ann_thrope]

Congrats, TomJoe! I'll keep for a smooth closing.

[TomJoe]

Originally Posted by wei yau

We have a wood fireplace, we thought about it having it converted to gas. We called one contractor and they said that they stopped doing the work because of too many explosions.

Errrr ...

That's so totally not what I needed to hear.

[ImGod]

Nice place. Take a blank sheet of paper and sign your name over and over on it until you can't feel your fingers. Then you'll be ready to close.

I've had two gas fireplaces, one that required you to open the valve and light it with a match and the current one that has a switch on the wall that turns it on. 15 years, no boom.

[Waluigi]

Nice house, I love the fireplace! Congrats!

[LadyShea]

Gas fireplaces are a lot less messy and you don't get chimney fires from the build up of soot. We couldn't afford the gas one and so had the woodburning installed, and only use it for ambience anyway as we don't need the fire for heating purposes down here.

[lisarea]

Wooo! Pretty!

Congratulations, TomJoe, and I hope your house doesn't explode very much!

(Have you had your home inspection yet? They should let you know if anything is dangerous or requires special explosion-prevention measures.)

[wei yau]

Don't worry, TomJoe. Frankly, I think that comment was more of a reflection on the workmanship of the contractor and not the safety of gas fireplaces.

I don't think my fireplace puts out enough heat to actually heat the room. But, I've never really built that big of a fire in there...on purpose.

[godfry n. glad]

Niiiiiiice, TomJoe.

The lot sounds even better. You might want to acquaint yourself with shade-tolerant grasses for your "lawn".

It looks cozy and "homey"....I can see why she fell for it.

I like the porch. I like the sound of all those trees. If you close on it and move in, maybe you'll get some time to survey what you have. I don't know how well they have been cared for, but if you need basic pointers on tree care, I'd be happy to help.

I've a typical woodburning fireplace. The thing is, when it was built, there was no damper installed. This means that when the wind was howling in from the east, across the top of the chimney, it was sucking the warm air produced by the furnace right up the chimney. Cold feet, literally. We went in and had the chimney cleaned, relined, and pointed, and a retro damper installed. We use it for ambience only...trying to heat with wood is only as good as long as you're chopping it. Burning it in the fireplace only generates heat for half the front room.

[pescifish]

Congrats, TomJoe! It's very lovely and it sounds like a real home for sure.

[ETA: Might I suggest a post here with a link back to this thread?]

* pescifish pimps the Member News concept!