Building Our House

We visited #8, the little house on the medium lot, this morning.

The house itself was actually nicer than I expected. Wood floors underneath the linoleum (in who-knows-what sort of shape of course), wood paneling walls (not the plywood-derived stuff used in basements, but actual pieces of wood). Windows all recent double-paned replacements.  Original wood doors - including the bathroom door which is slightly shorter than I am.  The water heater is a washing-machine-sized box sitting in the kitchen.  There is a hookup for a washing machine, but none currently installed - it would take a chunk out of the kitchen.

The big oil heater taking up most of the hall/central room was an interesting feature - ceiling fans running in the four rooms (2 bedrooms, living room, kitchen) to distribute the heat.  No AC, clearly.  Would probably have to do something about those two things.

The woods in back are OK - rather poison-ivy-filled, rather flat.  There are some nice trees in the yard around the house, including a big magnolia (limbed up unfortunately).  Jeff was quite charmed by the yard and house.

But.  A lot of road noise.  A lot.  The land slopes down slightly from the road, which is 45mph and apparently quite well-used, especially at rush hour.  So your head is at tire height.  I suppose judicious plantings and perhaps a fence/wall buried inside a wall of shrubbery might make a dent - but it’s not going to be quiet.  The area is not too developed right now, but I’m sure it will be filling up with developments so traffic will only get heavier.

I didn’t notice the noise much from inside the house, and our new house would be further back and presumably well insulated - but we also want to spend time outside in the yard and on porches.  Traffic noise at our current house bugs Jeff a lot - and that’s a 25mph speed limit, not that most cars go that slowly but it’s still slower than the 45 would be.

Not looking good for #8.  But at least it only had one serious flaw.  That seems like an improvement.  And we feel good about the general outline of Plan B, land with existing house.