House Hunters: Lingwood Edition (Episode 2.5)

It's time for a midseason home buying update! Ok, probably past time, but you get what you get.

I last left off with mention of our inspections going mostly well. On our "way" to Australia, we stopped in Lafayette for a couple of days so that we could be present for the big home inspections. About a week before our trip we were told that the seller's agent got wind of the bank's intention to approve the short sale and begin normal escrow very soon. It was important to Mark and I that we were physically present for the inspections because we felt like if something really negative came up, we'd have an easier time walking away from the house if we could see it for ourselves. We also had been advised by pretty much everyone that if you ask the right questions during your inspection, you can get a lot of "off the record" advice. So, about six days prior to our Australia departure, we decided to rebook tickets and plan for time in Lafayette to be there for inspections on a home that technically was "under contract but not in escrow."

Here's my summary of the inspections, in order that they occurred. I hope they are accurate because it's been nearly two months and I'm too lazy to cross reference the actual reports.

Inspection #1: Termites. 
They found some scrap wood under the house in the crawl space and called it termite food, but there was no evidence of active termites. No need to tent. Check. We have a couple spots around the roof that need repair from prior damage, and we need to remove the pieces of wood from our crawl space.

Inspection #2: Foundation and retaining wall. 
Before we put an offer on the home we knew that the front retaining wall would need to be replaced. We had a retaining wall and foundation specialist come out to inspect it and give us a bid. We were thrilled to find out that despite the home being on a hill and the front yard retaining wall looking so awful, our foundation looks great! We actually had three people (this guy, the termite guy, and the main inspector) tell us the foundation looked great, but this was the only "on record" report. There are a couple of piers that need to be connected back into the foundation but the condition was good. And the bid for the front retaining wall came in a bit lower than I imagined! At this point we started waiting for "the catch". What was actually wrong with the home?

Inspection #3: Formal home inspection.
This was the "big" inspection where you have someone who comes out and goes through your entire home to tell you if you got a dud. Our inspector wasn't Mike Holmes, but he was awesome. Mark followed him through much of the inspection and sure enough, we were able to squeeze out a ton of off the record advice and interpretations. For example, after a lot of prying, we were told (emphatically off the record) that we could easily take care of the mold in the master and master bath with a water/bleach mix and some killz paint. Like most homes that are nearing their 60th birthday, this house does indeed have a lot of work that needs to be done. But a lot of work and being a good house aren't mutually exclusive. We didn't have any big surprises other than feeling that most things were good and the things that weren't fell under the "we can handle it" scope. I don't mean "we can fix it ourselves scope" because certainly we'll hire experts or contractors for a lot of things. Off the top of my head, I can list the following repairs: new gutters, regrade the drainage in the backyard, fix the wiring in the garage and ground the outlets in the house, install ventilation fans in the bathrooms, reseat and/or replace the toilets, replace the garage door opener, put a handrail on the front porch steps, get someone to secure the random piers of the house that aren't attached to the foundation, and about a 100 little things.

Inspection #4: Hardwood floors.
We knew we wanted someone to refinish the hardwoods before we moved in, so we decided to get someone to come out to give us a bid while we were in town. Certainly this is not a normal part of escrow, it was just a well-calculated gamble on our part. The guy who came out was great and confirmed that our floors will be easy to refinish and the few repairs needed are very manageable. His bid came in very reasonable too!

Inspection #5: Sewer
After we left our real estate agent made time to get the sewer inspected. Unfortunately, it turns out that we need the entire sewer line replaced because it's the original clay pipe and what's left of it is in terrible condition. Luckily they can do a trenchless sewer and this bid also came in at a relatively reasonable price. We can add "replace sewers" to the list though.

Inspection #6: PG&E gas
At some point in the next few days we'll get the gas turned back on and PG&E can come check out the gas. I'm so, so excited to move back somewhere with gas! Cooking on an electric stove has been absolutely awful and I'm looking forward to a gas dryer and water heater again. I feel pretty confident that the gas inspection will go just fine, and if it doesn't whatever repairs needed are likely to be manageable.

Inspection #7: Chimney 
After we move in and certainly before winter we're going to have a chimney inspection. At the very least we need someone to come and clean out the chimney, and we suspect we might need a brick specialist to repair a couple of spots inside the chimney.

And that's it for inspections! We're going to be hiring a lot of contractors to do the big stuff in the coming months/year(s) like the kitchen, finishing out the space over the garage, and some of the more complicated repairs.

Coming soon-- an update on all things escrow with a short sale! I'll spoil the ending for you: we're nearly certainly going to get the house and we will close on or before July 12.

How To Take a Self Portrait

Knowing how to take good self portraits is a handy skill for any traveler. We at least try to get a few good pics of ourselves together on each trip, even though sometimes we'd rather not. But we're already sad about the lack of pictures we have of ourselves from the first many years we spent together, so we make a good effort. Here's how:

The person with the longest arms takes the picture. Since most cameras are made for right handed people, when you turn the camera around you have to use your left hand. It helps to have a view of yourself with a little flipper screen or a phone camera. Hold the camera slightly above your heads so you're both looking up. Take a ton of pictures in sequence as follows: 

Take your first picture. It looks good but inevitably your wife will complain that she looks waaay too short and you will think you can get a better shot. FYI, you can't so it's ok to stop the tutorial here. 

Take another one but forget to keep your eyes open or to adjust your stance to make your wife happy about how short she is looks. 

Attempt to smoosh your faces together but get a weird and blurry picture.

Try again with no success. Miss time the picture and make your wife look ugly.

Think "maybe a smooch will make the picture really sweet!"... It doesn't. You're just creepy now.

Try again but now you look odd because you're mid sentence when you click.

Ok ONE last try! Darn it, eyes closed.

Give up. Ask another person to take your picture.

Your wife will still look short but now it's not your fault.

Australia: Sydney Part 2

On Sunday of our trip we met up with a fellow HMB alum, Lynn (who writes facedowns) and we went to dim sum. How cool is it that we can travel the world and still find HMB friends? Pretty darn cool!

Next we took another ferry out to Bondi Beach, where we planned on doing a "short" cliff walk. By short, we were under the impression it would be a 1.5km walk... easy peasy. We were pretty tired from several days of walking and being on our feet, so this was supposed to be one short little jaunt we squeezed in before calling it a day.

Overlooking our starting point, Cogee Beach

First of all, no walk involving tons of stairs and steep inclines can be considered easy peasy. Easy Peasy is a stroll around a paved flat park, or walking through the climate controlled mall. However, we're both in somewhat ok shape and it was so breathtakingly gorgeous that we didn't notice the distance we were walking at first.

Random cove

 I would have wanted to swim in each little cove we discovered, except it was windy and cold.

Another cove

The sunlight and the ocean and the clouds seemed to be playing together. I think Mark stopped for a picture every five steps.

Being near the ocean, hearing the waves, and smelling the sea filled my soul. I guess a you can never really take the California beach out of the girl.

Creepy but cool old graveyard

We decided this would not be such a bad place to be put to rest. It was creepy, but really cool.

The last of the light fading away

After about two hours, we confirmed that we were completely wrong about the distance. As the sun started setting, we put away the camera and picked up the pace. Luckily the last of the path was well lit because we (stupidly) were not carrying our headlamps.

When I got home I mapped our route, and discovered our 1.5m walk was over 6km (nearly 4 miles!) Typically that distance would have been just fine, except it was super steep in many places, had a ton of stairs, and we had prepared for easy peasy, not moderate hike! Ahwell. It helped keep the cheeseburgers and gelato in check.

The next day we had a really big day planned. We spent the morning in Featherdale Wildlife Park and the afternoon at the Blue Mountains. In retrospect, we should have split those into two separate days.

The Featherdale Wildlife Park promised me a chance to meet and pet a koala bear, and they did not under deliver! We got to pet koalas, feed and pet kangaroos, watch a penguin talk/keeper feed, hold a snake and an owl, and see all kinds of neat birds and native animals. It was not like a zoo-- these animals were all tame and more like pets than anything. I think I have about 300 pictures so you can check those out in our Picasa albums if you're so inclined. Here are the highlights:

baby koala... aww! 

I'm REALLY excited about the baby koala... can you tell?

Adult koala

Our feed cups were cake cones filled with yummy green stuff

My possee 

Will accept pets for food!

This dingo thinks it's Sundog. 

 Koala climbing with the cool bird song in the background

There were lots of different kinds of owls... most were impossible to get a good picture of but still very cool!

After the wildlife park we continued our way by train up to the blue mountains. Rail travel is awesome, when it's not amtrak.

Once at the Blue Mountains we walked out to Echo Point. I was disappointed to learn that the hike I had hoped to do was nearly a six hour hike and we didn't have enough daylight for it. Mark and I were also reaching a point of exhaustion on our trip. So we just decided to do another "easy" cliff walk that was far from easy but still really cool.

View from Echo Point

 All that haze isn't smog.. it's oil from the eucalyptus groves. No wonder I felt so sick! (I'm allergic)

But the views were so worth it.

This video was part of our hike. Again, a far cry from an easy sidewalk stroll, but not too bad. And we had lovely birdsong to keep us entertained!

Tuesday was our last day in Sydney. We stopped by the Royal Botanic Gardens, listened to some buskers, did some shopping, and rode around on ferries.

Sydney Royal Botanic Gardens 

Another adorable ferry

We just didn't get tired of riding around ferries and enjoying the harbor views!

Can you believe this is a ferry dock? 

We spent our last evening in Watson's Bay and exploring a little of the Sydney Harbor National Park.

Another cliff walk.. this one actually was short and easy!

And so, after 10 exhausting but wonderful days, we spent our last Australian sunset eating gelato in the park. It doesn't get much better than that, folks!

Australia: Sydney Part 1

No apologies... just shameless procrastination on updating with our Sydney trip! Better late than never, so here goes.

Standing in the harbor with a view of the bridge

We left Melbourne early in the day on Friday. After getting to Sydney, checking our bags at the hotel (it was too early to check in) and having some lunch, we made our way out to the famous Harbor Bridge. Apparently you can walk over the top of the bridge with ropes and such (which was a road block on the Amazing Race a few seasons ago) but we opted to skip the fees and terrifying height in favor of a leisurely stroll on the very pedestrian friendly walkway.

Walkway over the bridge (lovely views, despite the fence)

View from the bridge

Bridges are cool. 

At the harbor, shortly before our bridge walk 

After returning to the hotel to check in and get changed, we headed back to the harbor for dinner and to catch the Sydney Symphony performing in the Opera House.

Our view of the symphony inside the opera house

 Seeing a show in the opera house has to be on any musician's/artist's/visual/performing arts fan's bucket list. So basically everyone's bucket list! We knew we wanted to catch the symphony but we also didn't want to spend all of our travel money on it, so we bought the cheapest tickets. They were dead center in the very back row. It turns out this was a great thing because not only could we fully appreciate the perfect acoustics, but we were able to see the entire concert hall. It was an amazing concert, though we were both so exhausted we had trouble staying awake.

Literally the BACK row. 

After sleeping in a bit on Saturday, we headed out towards Padington to explore an open air market and a really cute neighborhood.

On the other side of the street from the market

The market was full of locals and though it had a lot of cool stuff, none of it really peaked our interest enough for us to buy anything. The neighborhood really was cool though so we took a nice walk (we love foot tourism!) and Mark enjoyed snapping some pictures. This was the first neighborhood we visited that didn't feel like a generic American city. Even so, the row houses could have easily been plucked out of San Francisco or New England.

San Francisco? Not quite... notice the side of the street the cars are parked on!

After the market, we made our way towards Manly Beach. A lot of our trip was spent just cruising around on ferries, enjoying the views, and relaxing. At Manly Beach, we took the time to walk on the beach and put our feet in the water too!

One of our many ferry rides. Always special to us since we got engaged on a ferry boat!

The ferry view at night

I love the ocean.

And that was the first half of our Sydney visit!