Our Diamond in the Rough

In posting these pictures, I expect that a fair amount of the readers of this blog will think Steve and I are insane. But we're confident in our love of this house and what it can be.

That being said, I'm proud to present the first pictures of the house we're attempting to buy. (Quick update on that: we're still trying to get the utilities turned on, but we got our contractor bids and were pleased with them. We've selected a contractor that we both feel really comfortable with. It'll be something like $16k to get the house into basic, livable condition. That's excellent, since our guesstimate was $15-$20k.)

View from across the street:

Living room (photographer standing near the front door - the door next to the wall heater goes into the kitchen):

Living room (photographer standing near red shelving unit, looking toward the front door - the doorway next to the front door goes into the bedroom):

Bathroom (it's a bit of a bowling alley at 4' x 11'):

Bedroom (this angle mostly just shows the closet, but this room has two big windows and the same 10' ceilings as the living room and kitchen):

Two views of the kitchen (in top picture, the doors left to right are for the living room, bathroom and laundry room):

Laundry room (exits the house on to the back porch):

Back porch:

There's also a 9' x 9' "bonus" room off of the kitchen and a small backyard that we didn't get pictures of. 

The wait is driving us a little nuts. There are so many things to do and we want to jump in and get things going. But for now, all we can do is wait.

Artichoke Festival

On May 19, Steve and I attended the 53rd annual Artichoke Festival in Castroville. Castroville is a short drive South on Highway 1 from Santa Cruz. We had been meaning to go for years, but we always seemed to have other plans.

The festival was mostly the usual, local fair stuff. Game booths, lots of junk food, loud music, etc. The highlights for us were the farmer's market, artichoke food court, and the classic car show.

After acquiring a couple of really beautiful artichokes and a bunch of corn from the farmer's market, we hit the artichoke food court. We had some really excellent artichoke tacquitos and artichoke soup. Steve was initially dubious of the artichoke cupcake, but it was actually quite delicious.

The car show was awesome. It made me a little sad that we aren't likely to have a garage to house a classic car project for a long, long time.

I plead with Steve for a Corvair of my own:

We thought this early version of air conditioning was interesting:

I don't know that we'll bother to go back to the festival with any regularity, but it was a fine way to spend a few hours of our Saturday.

Steve's Seminar

On Wednesday, Steve presented his "capstone" seminar. This is the major project he had to do to get his Masters degree in Chemistry. As long as he completes the class he is currently taking (which will wrap up in early June), he'll get his degree.

He did an absolutely wonderful job. But you don't have to take his biased wife's word for it. I'm now going to embarrass him by sharing his academic committee's review of the presentation.

"Ste(v)en Loveridge presented a seminar on the development of the metastatic breast cancer drug Halaven for his Master's capstone presentation. This talk was truly outstanding, with a highly polished performance rarely seen even from graduate students at professional meetings, and slides that were clean, clear and error free.

There were many strengths evident from the talk. The topic choice was important and timely. The content was similarly impressive, with a detailed overview of the entire development story, including in depth coverage of primary literature from a wide array of different fields, presented in an approchable and comprehensive (manner). (H)is command of scientific terms and understanding of the literature was also first class. The committee was also impressed by his articulate response to the variety of questions asked at the end of the lecture.

Overall, an impressive performance, and a very strong pass."

All I can say is: "booyah!"

Forgive the quality of some of the pictures, they were taken on a cell phone (thanks for sending them along, Arnold!).

Steve with his boss and advisor, Phil Crews:

Steve with several friends from the chemistry department: Jack (farthest left - took over the NMR facility that Steve was helping with part-time - had absolutely glowing things to say about Steve), Eric (second from left - current Ph.D. student working with Steve), Katie (second from right - graduated Ph.D. student that Steve very much enjoyed working with for many years) and Laura (farthest to right - the incredibly awesome Ph.D. student who sat through Steve's practice presentations TWICE to give him feedback and still came to the real thing!):

(of course, his dorky wife is blinking... oh well)

Lastly, me and Steve, as he holds the traditional chemistry department "pimp cup" of victory, filled with champagne:

No rest for the weary...

As his research presentation nears to complete his masters degree, Steve is already the master of multitasking.

(on the phone with a company he consults for, balancing his laptop with research powerpoint presentation open and assembling a molecule for visualization purposes - a relaxing Sunday afternoon)

Flower Break

For a break in the house buying drama, some pretty views from our current garden:

Side Yard:

Our very first artichoke! I'm salivating just looking at it...

Very happy strawberry plant (in awesome rabbit planter I got from my mother-in-law):

Blooms on one of my little succulents:

Should've known better...

We got our general and pest inspections done this week on that darn house we're trying to buy. Both went well. The consensus was that there's certainly work to do, but the house is in remarkably good shape for being approximately 110 years old. Though upkeep faltered under the last owner, the owners before her took really good care of the place and did a lot of upgrades, including new wiring, plumbing, roof and foundation work. As Steve and I believed, it's much better than it looks.

 But we should have known better than to get too excited. The listing agent claimed that the water was on. Not only is it not on, but it hasn't been connected since 2008. Our realtor confirmed this with the city water department. Steve and I chatted with two of the neighbors who told us that the paranoid former occupant lived without running water, apparently bringing bottled water home for all her needs. She probably suspected that her water was being drugged/poisoned. Really sad stuff.

Anyway, point is that since the water has been turned off for so long, a new sewer connection fee has to be paid. All in all, it's something like $6,000. We were prepared to take care of it ourselves once we got the house and have the bank credit us at closing for the cost, but the lender is requiring that it be done before contractors bid on the work (which the lender uses to determine the amount of the renovation portion of our loan). So the bank has to do it. All we can do now is wait and see if/when they will comply. The ball's completely in their court now. We can't get the loan unless they do it, since we're certainly not willing to put up $6k of our own money before the house is officially ours. 

It's ridiculous that the listing agent and the bank had no information on the current utility status. The listing agent's assistant claimed (again) that the water was on and our realtor said "have you been getting a bill?" Apparently that stumped her. Unfortunately, we've gone back to getting a lot of attitude after a brief period of cooperation. The listing agent's assistant literally told our realtor to "just do your job and let me do mine" after we provided them with what we'd found out about the water status. Gee, we'd love to let you do your job. Let us know when you plan to start...

 I understand there's stress all around with the foreclosure mess. But being busy (and therefore brief in your correspondence) and being professional are not mutually exclusive. It would have been just as easy for them to say "we'll look into it and let you know what the bank wants to do" sans attitude. 

Our realtor is going to try and move up the food chain and see if we can get another attitude adjustment. I'm not holding my breath. But I'd like to think we're due for some good luck in this situation anytime now.