Moving in and starting to dream..

Upon moving in, things went pretty well. The place was very livable but it soon became apparent that it had some quirks.. At the top of that list was the environmental factors..

On hot days the house would stay cool until around 1-2pm and it would warm up and stay hot until nearly midnight no matter what you did. I eventually learned to get a couple of portable air conditioners and kept one in my bedroom and the other in the tv room/office area.

On cold days the heater could be turned on but since it was only a single box in one room (the dining room), it took a half day to warm up the whole house. Much like one might do on a ship or submarine, I learned to close certain doors to strategically heat up the room or two that i wanted.

The windows. All were single pane double hung type common to that period. Some opened while others did not. Most had a weight and pulley system. Most leaked in some way or another. If you look closely you can see the ropes and wheels that are a part of the weight and pulley system..

There was no air conditioning to speak of. The two portable units that i eventually bought would futilely try to cool the house on days where the outside temp was 84+ without much success unless you were within about 10-15 feet of them. The house itself wouldn't start to cool off until after 10pm like a piece of iron retaining it's heat after pulling it out of a fire.

The floorplan wasn't the best. The home was listed as a 4br 2ba but with only 1248 sqft you can imagine how small some of the spaces are. The 4 bedrooms are aligned next to one another on the left while the living room, kitchen, and 2 bathrooms are along the right..

The kitchen was small. Fine for one person but forget it if you wanted two people in there doing anything. Counter space for prep or anything really was very minimal but at least everything was new.

Some of the plugs were quirky.. The electrical box had been redone and that included many plugs. All the lighting and ceiling fixtures however were still on knob and tube wiring..

It wasn't long before these quirks started to knaw at me.. I began to dream.. I began to formulate a list in my head..

• get rid of the various fruit trees, sheds, and hedges to be landscaped later. I didn't want to take care of them anyways. I wanted a lawn and eventually a dog :)
• replace the dilapidated fence-line.
• do an addition.. certainly the house could be widened and even lengthened..
• a second story would sure give me a nice view of the nearby mountains if it had a good layout..
• rebuild the dilapidated garage
• perhaps a pool and jacuzzi?

So.. what to do next?