Mystery House

First off, thank you for all the warm wishes from the last post! It feels so good to finally be able to move ahead rather than sit around doing "the wait"!

Since we're still in the same zip code, moving hasn't been too stressful. Transferring utilities and such on the other hand is another story. Being without internet for the last couple weeks was crippling (though probably better for the productivity). Utilities was especially tiring since I just went through this a few months ago with the name changing process. So many phone calls, so much "can you hold, please?".

Anyway, after the fumigation someone came to turn the gas back on, and as I led the utility worker down to the water heater she exclaimed, "Whoa, this is like the Winchester Mystery House!"

Which would have more impact if I had been to the Winchester Mystery House. (Don't worry! We'll go eventually!) But just imagine a very weird-borderline-creepy house with lots of stairs.

As one can imagine, that's the first reason why we fell in love with our house.

And since I talk too much, here's some photos of the more interesting parts of our 3 bed/2 bath hill-side home (pictures taken while it was still staged-up by the seller):

Super-loud, old-school door chime

Facing the front door, a retro looking glass brick, uh..reception window? 5 cents please.

In the checkerboard kitchen, an ironing board! I think I'll use it as a table, cause we definitely don't iron...

Not really a bedroom, but a bonus nook with twin bed-sized loft

Kid-friendly loft.  Though Penga-Sis is still too much of a chicken-wuss to sleep there. 

Probably due to there being a creepy door to who-knows-where up top. (I think it's the attic crawlspace.)

Downstairs in the pink room (pink carpet, seriously), there's a full wet bar, with sink, mini-fridge and microwave. Sak has designated the large room his man-cave, for TV/compy and other electronic devices. His pink man cave. *pfffttt hahah*

Though not quite a redwood tree, there's a mature walnut tree out back.  I'll have to fight the squirrels for the nuts though!

There's also a big sump pump in the front, because when you live on a hill, you have to keep water away from your house.  It's cool cause it shoots out to the street gutters like a water gun when it's raining!

And downstairs there's a full on crypt!

It gives me the heebs to go down here alone, but it's awesome for storage (and Halloween haunted houses?)

And that would have been enough on it's own, but we were 200% sold when it came to reason #2:

An absolutely ridiculous view all the way up and down the peninsula. I could sit on the deck all day and just gaze. You know, on the lawn chairs I found in the dumpster at the old apartments.

I'll have to work on getting some better pictures, but you can see pretty far.  A bit of SF if it's not too foggy, the Bay Bridge and San Mateo Bridge, and the Caltrain (which is helpful since we can see if there's a stuck train that might impede the commute).

I can't wait for fourth of July to see if we can see the fireworks from here too! Party party party!

It's funny, but on our home assessment, the land value by itself (as if there was just an empty lot and no house at all) was worth nearly 55% of the price tag. Expensive view! But as Sak says, even when the house falls down the hill, the hill itself is still worth a bit. Positive thinking right there.

Hard to tell, but the whole house really is on quite a slope.

Anyway, we're both pretty happy with the house we bought, though the design and home maintenance aspects are pretty daunting to us still! I have no idea where to start, really. Do I work with the pink, or try to hide it? Do I buy furniture now, or wait until I find the exact-right-piece at the thrift store?

More to come, I suppose, but for now we'll just try and get situated. It still doesn't really feel like *our* house. Though I suspect that after the first mortgage payment it might, ha!