It’s time for another installment of Open House Sunday. Where you can join in the fun of James and my adventures of going through open houses.
Today we visited 5 houses, three in the Eagle Valley area of Preston and two in the Fisher Mills area of Hespeler. We saw everything from new builds to older homes and it was really interesting to see what our money could get us today.
After a random search for hot dogs was over, we headed through Preston and ended up passing houses for sale but nothing on Open House. As the street we were on lead right to the Surplus store, we took a small jaunt through to see what was there. As normal, nothing peaked our interest so we left and headed off. James was eager to check some places out but had no idea where to start.
Old habits die hard and I did check the listings at the start of the weekend to see if anything interesting was going on. Nothing had really caught my eye, but I did know that there were some open houses going on in Eagle Valley. The first one we checked out was the size of a townhouse and very well decorated. The basement was unfinished, so it allowed you to dream. It was very nicely decorated, the kitchen was a good size and so was the back yard. The only thing was that the rest of the house seemed really tiny. All in all it was a good value for a stand alone house, but without any outside storage and not enough room for our furniture it was pretty much counted off our list.
The agent at the house was great and we had a chat with him about the difference between newer houses with less issues and older houses which may have bigger bedrooms and more yard space. He wasn’t pressing us, but told us to check out another house he had on open house. Talking to him kind of sparked an interest and we headed over. What he said was true – the only issue was the walls were stark white and needed colour to liven it up. The other house was a link home – only linked at the garage and was an end unit – which is fabulous because it has a bigger yard. The yard was nicely decorated – but sadly overlooked by the house behind. Slightly open concept, good sized bedrooms, two and a half baths and in our price range. Definitely a contender.
From there we saw another Open House by Property Guys. I watch the website from time to time and knew that a few weeks ago there wasn’t anything of interest in our price range, but we decided to check it out. The house was gorgeous. The basement, again, was unfinished. Which seemed to be the name of the day. But it didn’t need to be by how big it was. The layout is identical to Devon and Steve’s house which I’ve always loved. We were drooling over the counter space in the kitchen. The attic space had skylights and hardwood floors and he paid extra to have the higher ceilings in the basement so when you do finish it, James could reach up and not hit it. I was blown away and so was James – and knew that there was no way we could afford it. And strangely enough, even if we could, the size of the house was too much. But we loved the jacuzzi tub and the deck out the back. The guy who owns the house was watching football and James liked that – and I couldn’t get over how the same house could look so different with different decor and colours. (Devon – I like yours better but I love this guys attic!!!)
After this we drove around the rest of the neighbourhood and passed a bunch more open houses. There seemed to be a blitz in this neighbourhood – but we decided to head up to Fisher Mills to see what was up there. If you ever have the joy of driving down Fisher Mills Road, you know that there pretty much is two stop signs, which lead into the other areas of the subdivision. Right leads to older homes, Left leads to newer homes. At Milton we came to signs leading both ways. James headed left. We followed the sign to a two storey red brick home that our realtor sent us. We both liked the look from the outside, and knew by pictures it had nice colours inside. Unfortunately, the pictures didn’t tell the whole story. It was so congested it was unreal. I know that there probably wouldn’t be as many people in it as were when we got there, but it seemed that all the doors lead to the same area by the front door. To your left is a two piece bathroom, then there is stairs leading upstairs and a doorway leading downstairs and then the door leading to the kitchen and then immediately to your right is a sitting area that is pretty much blocked off to everything other than the front hallway. You couldn’t really have more than three or four people inside it. The kitchen was a good sized eat in kitchen in a bright cranberry colour. The backyard was very private and had a good sized deck. We headed upstairs and found good sized bedrooms, but no clear defined master and a very SMALL bathroom with tub. It was very efficient. The basement was finished, which was nice but something about the house didn’t sit right. It didn’t seem to flow as well as we’d like. They always said that when you walk into the house for you, you’ll feel it. And after the other house in Preston, I know that we definitely didn’t feel it there. Even though it was probably bigger square footage wise.
With 15 minutes left to 4:oo we headed over to the last open house of the day. We crossed fisher mills and headed to probably the most memorable house of the day. Have you ever walked into a house and just knew that old people lived there? Well we had that with this house. The house was pretty much empty with all the furniture removed, but it had a certain odour that only comes with the elderly. There was wood parquet flooring and the bedrooms and back yards were a good size. But the decor, the smell and the state of well every fixture and plastic rail on the wall told us that this was just pretty much a joke. For kicks we went to the basement. The stairs were very steep and the floor was 1960’s original. The wallpaper too was so old that it was back in style, sort of. Each room had little catacombs built off of it that lead to secret hiding spaces and secret storage spaces. One of the storage rooms even lead to another one. There was a bedroom down there and what would be a sort of recroom with built in display areas. But the most memorable room was what would probably be a second kitchen. There were cabinets on the one wall, and in the middle of the room was a brassy chandelier hanging about 4 feet off the ground. It was so odd and so unexpected that James snapped a picture.
We both were looking at each other in wonder at how truly bad this house was for us when I noticed another door in one of the rooms that has catacombs. I said “Hey there’s a door do you think it’s a bathroom.”
“I think it’s dead bodies.”
By the smell of the house, I believed him.