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June 9th, 2008
08:46 pm
So big news!
A lot of you have heard us muttering about this, or even outright stating it, but we didn't want to jinx anything so we haven't talked about it much.
Friday we got countersigned papers back, so now it's official.
We're buying a house!
Ok, so condo, but buying!
It's the first floor of a 2-family, so much like what we have now. Slightly smaller, but with a great garden and patio out back that's all ours, half the basement, garage, and ours! Like, we can build shit and break shit and fix shit without dealing with landlords and/or just throwing money into someone else's house! And established garden with great soil, and a big old established grape vine that an old Italian couple made wine from every year when they lived there!
It's in West Somerville a few blocks from Teele square, and exactly a mile from Davis, which is the furthest we wanted to be from the T. I'll make a friends only post at some later point with the actual address, likely closer to closing (which is currently set for the end of June baring some outstanding legal paperwork shiznit). We hadn't really been looking, but we found a place that hit everything on our list of what we wanted, except not a single-family. But we couldn't have afforded a single-family in the davis/porter neighborhood anyway, so it was mostly a pipe-dream.
Literally everything on the list of "needs/wants in a house" got checked off with this place. And we can afford it. *boggle*
Wheeeeee!
(Anyone know a good structural engineer? we wanna rip the hell out of the kitchen ASAP and need to make sure we're not going to collapse anything.)
mood:  calm
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*o*
so grown up! ;)
that's really awesome though. I want to buy my own place, but, in Arlington where the market is still doing well, that is NOT going to happen unless I win the lottery. ![[User Picture]](https://l-userpic.livejournal.com/3615578/62356) | | From: |  oceanic |
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| Date: | June 10th, 2008 01:22 am (UTC) |
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so excited when do you move in can't wait to see it squeeeeeeeee!! we're currently thinking August 1st, but there's some paperwork up in the air yet. Hopefully it'll land soon. ^_^ | | From: | oceanic |
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| Date: | June 10th, 2008 01:45 am (UTC) |
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man, by this september it'll be a whole new living-situation world...
oh noes, we will have to attend multiple housewarming parties.
*weeps* ![[User Picture]](https://l-userpic.livejournal.com/70964474/1515402) | | From: | beah |
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| Date: | June 10th, 2008 02:17 am (UTC) |
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Congratulations! mrf_arch is an architect, so he might be able to give you an opinion on the stability of the kitchen. ![[User Picture]](https://l-userpic.livejournal.com/43904787/9716220) | | From: | swaan |
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| Date: | June 10th, 2008 03:05 am (UTC) |
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still....*bouncing*...! wow, congratulations!!
You probably don't need a full-scale structural engineer, in those houses most often there's abearing wall running from front to back down the middle of the house (you can verify this by looking in the basement for the columns- they are there to hold up the bearing wall(s). Just measure back up to the walls that sit on top of them- you have to either leabe them, or replace with a big honkin' beam. A reputable builder/contractor should be able to do that.
As for anything else that may be up once you get the walls open... in older houses sometimes you can't tell till you get in there. I'd be happy to take a look (used to work in construction) or you can get someone else clueful (your contractor) to have a look around once the walls are open.
The nice thing is, these Somerville 2-families are pretty standard, so people should know what to look for. Sometimes you find little gotchas though, like the time the plumber sawed through all the joists to put a pipe in, that's always fun :) arr.
My dad's a GC, we sat down with him and looked over plans and he basically said the same thing. "Eh, you could probably take them out, but you're best off slapping in a lam-beam." A more authoritative answer would be appreciated. ;-)
We wouldn't be touching the bearing wall, we're just worried about any supporting walls on the second floor. If we need to do a support beam, that would be fine too, but we'd like to open it fully if we can. what really matters is how much you want to "open it up".
Yes the main bearing wall is there to stabilize the house through the middle of it, but the side walls off of that are generally bearing as well. (if the layout on the second floor is the same as the first, then generally that's the case) Something has to hold the roof up.
It is true that you don't know what you're looking at until you open the wall. There could be all sorts of things barring you from making space. (IE electrical, plumbing, bearing) All of which you can't see until the wall is opened.
We'll be in the Ville in mid August, so I can offer the 5 years of construction/demolition/reconstruction experience :)
![[User Picture]](https://l-userpic.livejournal.com/63393930/5063) | | From: | bbbsg |
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| Date: | June 10th, 2008 03:30 am (UTC) |
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woot! ![[User Picture]](https://l-userpic.livejournal.com/21651648/738245) | | From: | miyyu |
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| Date: | June 10th, 2008 10:14 am (UTC) |
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Congratulations! How exciting for you both! ![[User Picture]](https://l-userpic.livejournal.com/81765183/440714) | | From: | catya |
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| Date: | June 10th, 2008 11:17 am (UTC) |
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Congratulations!!!! :) congratulations! big step, but lots of fun too. Congrats! I'm sure you'll have a lot of fun smashing walls! :-) that's soooooo awesome!!!!!
when Mike and i got our place, we hadn't really been looking. i think that's the best way - just sort of roll over sleepily and then HOUSE!
can't wait to see pictures. ![[User Picture]](https://l-userpic.livejournal.com/127046361/7435430) | | From: | drwex |
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| Date: | June 10th, 2008 03:13 pm (UTC) |
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I'm so happy for you guys! If you don't have a direct lead on engineers I'll introduce you to MRF, who is a professional architect and knows the local scene pretty well. Yeah, we've gotten informal advice on it from ex-contractors, etc., but we'd like a more formal assessment.
I'll ping MRF about it one of these days. ^_^ Yay, that's so exciting! Congratulations! I look forward to seeing pictures. Wonderful! Can we see pictures, or the house itself, at some point?
Wonderful wonderful wonderful...
::happy dance for you:: |
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