May 8 - 12, 2009
Total Miles: lots o' flying
Mountain View, CA to northern New Jersey
Tickets: 1
Mishaps: 0
Houses: 1
Feel free to click on the map to the right. "Street view" is available for Bloomfield Ave, which can give you an idea of the business district. And you can zoom out to get an idea of where we are in relation to the "rest of the world".
View Larger Map
The photos are a mix of ours and the ones that I snagged from the realtor's website. Naturally, the better photos are ours. We dropped the ball somewhat on this house, not taking nearly as many pictures as we took with other houses but hey, we saw a lot of houses that day and we were growing weary. For your own information, feel free to click on this link about Verona to learn more about the area that we are soon to call "home" (and where the name "Horseneck" came from). And if that wasn't enough or you want pretty graphs and hard numbers, here's another link to click on.
And for those who want to know more about Roche, here's a quick blurb about the history of their North American headquarters:
The house below was built in 1950 and doesn't show one year of wear. Research shows that the previous owner was a fireman "handy with a screwdriver" and it shows that he took good care of this house. (The fireman, we found out later, passed away last fall, possibly from complications resulting from his efforts on 9/11.)
The first floor is ready to go. Anything that Dan and I do to it will be because of our choosing (like repainting the blue bedroom or removing the mirrors from the wall in the dining room (not pictured - you should be thankful for that). There is a living room, dining room, kichen, full bath and two bedrooms on the main floor. But enough chatter - let's look at some pictures!!!
From the kitchen you can go up or down. If you go up, you find a very roomy but unfinished attic. It was exciting to see that I could easily walk up the stairs without fear of hitting my head. The room has nice windows, a high peaked ceiling and lots of room. Finishing the room means that we can include built-ins along the lower walls (something I really love) and insulating the floor for heat and sound. Oh, and all of those tubes? That's for the air conditioning: this was the only house we saw that had central air. That'll come in handy during the hot, humid summers that I ran away from all of those years ago, but it will also take some thinking to work around it during construction. (Yes, we're thinking very far ahead). Dan and I have great plans for this room and it will eventually become the entertainment center. We might even come up with a cool name for it, like The Firehall. Actually, I'm surprised that Dan hasn't suggested putting a firepole down to the basement yet.
And on to the basement - it's not as exciting as the attic, but it is much more useful. The ceiling is high enough that I can walk around without slumping, with inches to spare! I don't know if we'll ever finish off the basement more than it is now, but it would be possible. It's dry and clean and has a lot of room. The washer and dryer are down here, as well as the "half bath". I laughed out loud when I saw what passes for a "half bath": a utility sink and a curtain hung around toilet. At least it's a start and we can always make it proper at a later date. The boiler and hot water heater are in good shape and easy to get to.And there are even a couple of poles for Dan to slide down if he feels the whim.
I just realized that all we've shown you is a very (very!) narrow section of what we experienced on our long weekend. Below are some rather random photos. Some of them were taken by my dear friend Mark, who drove down from his home in Connecticut to visit us after house hunting hours.
