Purchase

We looked for a home for nearly a year and had accepted offers that fell through on two other homes before this one. I wanted a bit of DIY, but everything on the market in our area and within our price range seemed to be either a recently renovated home (top of market value) or was a major renovation project (like falling ceilings, gut the walls style renovations.) I loved all the historic Victorians and grey-stone townhouses in the Grand Boulevard area of Chicago, but couldn't find any we could afford that weren't on the edge of being condemned or that had been stripped of all of their original trimming/woodwork. Since college I have insisted that I wanted to live in a place with hardwood floors and high ceilings. My allergies also insist that carpeting is kept to a minimum. 

When we first found our current home in the historic North Kenwood neighborhood I was super excited about the amount of original, unpainted, wood craftsmanship. There were three fireplace surrounds, a built-in within the dining room, a giant (working!) sliding pocket door, and a beautiful staircase with unique spindles. Almost every door was original and had beautiful brass or copper hardware. 12" wood baseboards surrounded every room and 10' ceilings with a cove feature in the plaster made for an open feel. The previous owner had done stained glass and there were several nice stained glass windows throughout the house. 

There were also downsides and I felt certain that if my husband saw them he would nix the house. (He was never excited about a DIY, and to my knowledge at the time had no DIY skills, whereas I had a degree in sculpture and both a father and grandfather that had been contractors and had exposed me to tools and knowledge indirectly throughout my life. 

1. The house had poor water pressure, some water leak issues, and old galvanized pipes (which in our area was both a sign of corrosion in the pipes and a likelihood of high lead levels.) 

2. Almost every room on the 1st and 2nd floor, as welll as the main staircase, were carpeted. While the realtor claimed they were hardwood and I peeled back a few inches in a couple of corners to confirm, there were no guarantees as to the quality. 

3. The furnace and water heater were old and there were two very old, possibly non-functioning window A/C units in place. 

4. The floors in 3 bathrooms were old, uneven, poorly tiled, and in the basement, rotting. 

5. There were a few signs of current or previous water damage including an upstairs ceiling that the inspector told us was not currently moist, and the kitchen ceiling, which was (and we hoped was from the upstairs bathroom sink drain which was poorly attached and had a visible leak.

5. There was no parking space available with no option for adding as this is one of a few areas in the city with no alleyway access. 

6. The small front and back yards had raised beds with no grass for maintenance, but also very little growing that either of us felt strongly about keeping. They were enclosed with a mix of paving/landscaping stones in various shapes and sizes.

7. The walls ALL needed updating. Orange paint covered 2/3 of the rooms and the whole upstairs hallway with matching orange drapery (and carpeting!) The bathrooms and kitchen had bizarre color choices including dark lavender and mocha brown with textured aluminum sheeting tacked up on walls and cabinets. Two rooms had peeling and outdated styles of wallpaper. Several areas had cheap, dark, wood paneling or bead board (of multiple styles) tacked up to the plaster walls (often with exposed brad or square head nails sticking out.) Paint had been applied poorly often roughly slopping up onto wood trim or hardware around doors and windows. Plaster had cracks from minor to major throughout the home, many places with poor/rough repairs. Many of the walls had paint over previous layers of wallpaper that had started to peel from the wall or show large seam lines or cracks.  

Despite all of this, and inconvenient timing both due to our upcoming wedding celebration and the time of day for showings, I dragged my husband out of bed on a Saturday afternoon (after having worked a night shift) and he saw it, listened to my arguments in it's favor, and agreed to make an offer on the house. We made an offer over asking price as we were told there were already two offers on the table and sat back and waited.

A few days later our offer was denied. Then a few days later 

accepted. 

Having already had two offers fall through we were hesitant to get our hopes up. We hired an inspector and also had a re-piping company and a plumber come out to give estimates and quotes. 

In addition to a few things mentioned above, the inspector found all three chimneys were blocked or in poor  condition, the roof was in good shape but the chimneys were not. There was some tuck-pointing that needed done, a tree growing out of some of the front parapet wall, the electric-lines did not have a grounding wire and some outlets were reversed. Most rooms had only a couple of outlets and very few had light switches. (There were many lamps and fans with pull strings.) Several wood windows had crumbling paint which may indicate leaks or poor sealing on the exterior, two had rotting portions, and the upstairs A/C unit was non-functioning. There were a lot of pictures of peeling and chipping paint and cracks in plaster.

The quote for the water re-piping alone was  over $11,700. We talked to our realtor and our financing company about options as we knew that prior to moving in we would want the floors and water supply lines redone. If we stayed in our apartment for an extra month after purchase we would be able to have these done as well as have time to replace all the bathroom sinks. (Something the plumbing guy at Home Depot assured me I could do on my own.) The hope was that that would solve all of the leaking and removing the lead-encrusted piping and 30 year old carpeting would make the space clean and livable. The rest of the fixes and improvements would be solved over time and could mostly be done by us (or at least me.) Of all the houses we had looked at, this was the most "livable" fixer-upper we had seen, and we both enjoyed the neighborhood and thought it a good investment and a place we could see ourselves in long-term. Despite that the out-front costs could be high. In addition to the Repiping bill (which they offered a one-year zero percent financing on) we also budgeted up to $15K for floors and had potential costs of up to $5K for a new furnace and a few thousand for a roof/ceiling leak. Based on what our financing company suggested we reduced our offer to a lower down payment and asked for the maximum closing credit (about $9K - which was still giving the seller above the asking price) We went back and forth a bit where they wanted to back out, but we had our lawyer and realtor intercede explaining that we love the house but need the money for repairs before we could move in. At one point we were sure it wouldn't happen. 

Finally, with a some adjustments for the previous owner to find a new place and us to have our wedding celebration we settled on a closing date of July 3rd.  On the morning of our closing we went on our final walk through. We fretted a bit about the dirt in the basement tub but were happy she had left us with a washer & dryer, a grandfather clock, a full sized bed, and some printed and original artwork.