April 22^nd, 2002

Well, I did it. After 5 months I’ve finally bought another house. Escrow won’t close for 6 weeks, but the process has begun. There is always a chance something could go wrong but it is looking good.

My new house bigger than I had anticipated buying. I may have bitten off more than I can chew with this one but what the heck, nothing ventured – nothing gained. The current owner says it is 4200 square feet, but I’m not sure he really knows. It also has a 6 car “Carriage House” (Garage) with two, one-bedroom apartments on the second floor of the carriage house. It is on a pretty good sized corner lot near “Old Town”. From the second story you can see all of Down Town and Old Town Eureka, Humboldt Bay, and the Samoa Peninsula.

The house was built in 1895 and the carriage house was built in 1922. The main house has five bedrooms, 3 or 4 bathrooms (I forget), two fire places, three stair cases (one leads to the attic), and – believe it or not – 3 kitchens. It seems to go on and on. I had wanted a smaller house but my two cats insisted on getting their own rooms. What could I do? My hands were tied.

The reason for the three kitchens (there were 4 at one time) is because the house used to be cut up into apartments. I’m guessing it was done back in the twenties at about the same time the carriage house was built. I think this for two reasons. One, there is only one electrical panel. These days when they cut up these big old houses into apartments they give each unit it’s own electrical service. Two, all of the bathrooms have claw foot tubs. No one would go to the expense of putting in claw foot tubs these days. Also, I know a lot of people don’t like them.

At this point only one of the kitchens is a working kitchen. There are two kitchens downstairs and one upstairs. This actually works out well. The working kitchen is the smallest of the two downstairs kitchens and it has a door leading to a small side porch. I can continue to use it while I remodel the larger of the two downstairs kitchens. The small downstairs kitchen can then be turned into a laundry/mud room. The upstairs kitchen is rather small and can be turned into another bathroom or maybe a walk-in closet. If I remember correctly it could work out where there are 4 bedrooms and 3 full baths upstairs. I’ll be working on the outside first so this is all years away.

The current owners bought the house 2 years ago and began the process of putting the house back into a single family home. They’ve done a really crappy job and it still needs work. The two fireplaces have elaborately carved wood and ceramic tile mantels. When you walk in the front door there is a really nice stair case leading to the second floor with ornately carved banisters that have never been painted. A lot of the trim and plaster walls are still intact but it is very rough in places. Some of the rooms have raised panel wainscoting or bead-board wainscoting. All of the floors are covered with carpet or some other modern floor covering so there is no telling what kind of condition they are in. If the original floors are still there they are either 4 inch wide, tong and grove fir boards, or 12 inch wide redwood planks.

The outside of the house is another story altogether. It needs a lot of work. There are 4 porches if you include the one on the carriage house. You can’t really tell from looking at them but they all need a lot of work from dry rot. Also, back in the fifties it was very popular to cover homes in this area with asbestos shingles and this house is covered from head to toe. Underneath the asbestos the second floor is done in fish-scale shingles and the bottom story is redwood siding. You can see the original siding in places where the asbestos shingles have fallen off. It will take me months to get all of the asbestos shingles off, and it could be costly to dispose of them. Even so this will be a top priority. The house also has problems underneath with powder post beetles (They are like termites). I crawled around underneath and it seems to be contained in one corner of the house. Unfortunately these are all common problems with these old houses. On the plus side, the roof is only 8 years old. A lot of the ginger bread was taken off when they put the asbestos shingles on but there are still some pieces remaining, along with some nice stained glass windows. Despite the problems it still looks good from the outside. When you look at the pictures you’ll need to use your imagination to picture it without the asbestos shingles.

At this point there is no telling when I will be able to move in. Part of the contract with the sellers states that I will rent the main house to them until they find a new home. This means that it could be as long as 3 months from today until I get to move in. In a way it works out well. I am really stretching myself financially with this house. When we actually sign the papers and I pay the down payment and fees I will be dead-flat broke. I must be able to rent out the 2 apartments over the carriage house to make this work. At this point only one of them is rented but I don’t really care for the tenants. As part of the contract the current owners are going to evict those tenants. When the house is officially mine I plan to move into one of the apartments while I rent the main house to the current owners. The rent from the main house will cover most of the mortgage while I clean up the apartments and get them ready to rent. The apartments are pretty good size and they look just like a 1920’s apartment with plaster walls and push button light switches, and, yes, more claw foot tubs. The carriage house itself has a kind of art deco roof line to it.

It is going to be a very interesting summer – several summers – with a lot of hard work.