Chapter 3 - Come on in!

Let's take a walk though the house. I think you'll enjoy a tour of our fabulous fixer-upper. Starting with the entrance, the wrought iron gate opens into a small dark cove, lined with brick pavers and heavily carved Spanish-style doors. Open the door and you step from the the Latino-touch to the swinging 70's.

The tiled foyer has a curved iron staircase with open stairs and a step-down to a sunken living room. The generous front room has a 2-story pitched roof with a corner stone fireplace going all the way to the ceiling. A very large picture window and two sets of French doors lends an air of elegance but the doors lead to a small patio with a huge turquoise jacuzzi tub. Very strange for a formal living room. The walls are covered in 2 kinds of cream wallpaper - one with a brocade design and the other with a stripe design. Both wallpapers are now yellowing and falling down.

Underneath the stairs is a dirt pit with a cement bird bath fountain. The bird-bath has several water hoses attached but not one of them works. I'm sure that this was once a lovely garden area but now, since we knocked the bird's head clean off, we just affectionately call it the "Pit of Despair." Oh, one of the features that should be noted is that the dirt garden is lined with uneven orange rock...and it just looks ticky-tack. But really I should wait to use that word for the family room next to the kitchen.

Moving on to the Kitchen and Family Room, these rooms are by far my favorite time-capsule. The tile on the floor of the kitchen is priceless and I doubt the world will ever see the likes of it again (hopefully). The brown cabinetry is dark and depressing but the drop ceiling with plastic ceiling tiles over fluorescent lighting brings it down to a whole new level of sad. If you look carefully, you can see the outside window that looks like it is stained glass. No, we were not so honored with a lovely piece of beautiful art - it is just plastic, holding together the broken window. The kitchen will be one of our biggest enterprises and I can't wait to see this downtrodden room turned into a beautiful, airy kitchen, fit for a chef.

Stay tune for a continuation of our tour.....