After months of looking for the prefect home in NE Portland, OR, Riley, my husband, and I decided to find a house to remodel. Riley is quite tall and finding that cute bungalow/tudor/craftsman that he fit comfortably in, with a yard for our pup, in a nice neighborhood, at the right price seemed almost impossible!
We discovered an amazing builder/designer, Oliver Olson of Olson Design|Build, through Riley's brother & sister-in-law's purchase of his latest home project and immediately fell in love with his style and quality. After a very short search for a house to re-do, we found one in the lovely Grant Park neighborhood.
We offered a little low on the house, had a smooth negotiation process with the sellers and ended up at a price that will allow us to stay on budget. We were thrilled to have an accepted offer on a house with an over-sized lot in a neighborhood we love!
The house is currently a 3 bed, 2.5 bath (kind of, the upstairs is one open room with the master bed/bath in one!), with 2,540 over 2 stories and an unfinished basement. We plan on keeping the same foundation/footprint, finishing the basement, enlarging the kitchen, opening up the main floor layout and creating a new top story with 3 beds, 2 full baths up, 1 bed & a 1/2 bath on the main, and possibly a 5th bedroom and full bath in the basement.
Last week, we had the inspections. They went relatively well for a 1926 house with various remodels over the last 15+ years. No oil tank was found on the premises (phew!), the overall foundation/structure was sound and the inspector deemed it a solid choice for our project. The largest issue found was the sewer. The house is currently on a party-line with the neighbors sewer and the line from the house needs to be replaced. Thankfully, the sellers agreed to reduce the selling price of the house to off-set the replacement costs!
Today we signed to close on the house and if all goes well, it should record tomorrow. As part of our negotiation, the sellers are going to live in the house for 30 days after closing, so we won't actually have possession until August 21st. During this time, Oliver and his team will be acquiring permits and creating design options for us to chose from for the layout and exterior of the house. We're so excited to see what they come up with!
It's great to have the house hunt over and we're really looking forward to starting the process of creating our perfect Portland home. I hope you enjoy following our progress on here and I promise that not all my blog posts will be this long!
I'll be posting some "before" photos soon. In the meantime, check out the Olson Design|Build website for examples of their work :)
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