Following our wee visit to the area the other day, Mel and I arranged a viewing. We arrived a little early, so we had time to notice that the village fête is on Saturday week. Good opportunity to get the vibe and sample the neighbourhood baking.
We found some recently extracted skirting boards piled outside
number 9, and the door wide open. It was raining, so we went on in.
There was somebody working in one of the downstairs flats, but nobody
paid us any attention. The stair door does have the
usual entryphone buzzer system, but that never stops the patient
or opportunists like us. Double baby buggy on the ground floor.
It's a fairly standard tenement stair. No fancy tiling like yer real posh places, just paint. The paintwork is in good order and I didn't notice any significant detritus (chewing gum, fag ends, none o'that). There's a skylight pointing south, and even on a dull day it seemed ok. Lots of people put pot plants on the top landing of tenements, and this could be an ideal spot for that, but there aren't any at the moment. Of course, we had no way to check what the lighting is like at night.
The door you can see is the outer door, which is a pretty solid lump of wood. Behind it the inner door has a top half with frosted glass. Both have locks (didn't count them or see what sort, but it's easy to change them or add more). Opportunists would have a harder time getting through those.
Robert from the solicitors showed up and let us in. He seemed happy to let us poke about and ask questions, rather than giving us a spiel. The place seemed clean and tidy. We didn't get the feeling it had had a makeover for sales purposes. Quite a lot of light, and it is quite high up in the block.
I include this shot of the stair (and Mel's feet) largely for artistic reasons. Or something.
OK, wandering around the individual rooms, without a fish-eye lens...
This is the view from the living room bay window out over the communal garden. Some lawn; heterogeneous patches of whatever.
The living room feels reasonably-sized but by no means opulent. Minimalist furnishing advisable. You could feel comfortable having a few friends round but a party might feel cramped.
The front windows here and in the dining room are single-glazed
sash windows. The paintwork and the woodwork appear to be in good
order inside. On the outside of the bay window, the paintwork needs
redone in the not too distant: some bare wood, but no rot Mel could
see. We didn't try hoisting the windows. They're a completely
traditional design, and it's hard to get double glazing that's in
keeping.
We speculated that there might even be some sort of
preservation order (this often happens), and in any case it's
a saleable ‘period feature’, honest. Good thick curtains
for cold winter nights recommended. There's also an extra wee radiator
in the bay, to supplement the more serious radiator on the back wall.
We asked Robert if the fireplace was operational and he said that as far as he knew it was. I also expect that as far as he knew it wasn't. But it did appear to have real soot in it.
Below, you can see the back wall of the living room with the door
to the hallway, looking through to the bathroom. The other door opens
to a glory hole of reasonable proportion. Image supplied (left). There are shelves
in to the left of the door. Also, there you are: the room's about four doors
wide, Johnny Fisheye or no. You pays your money...
The floorboards have been stripped, sanded, and polished. They're in good order. (This is generally the case around the flat, although in the hallway, the floorboards are clearly younger and lighter in colour. We imagine the originals would have suffered from lifting and relaying over the years, with rewiring, plumbing, blah, blah, blah.) There are currently a few (remarkably unslippery) rugs which we didn't peer beneath. I wouldn't hope to inherit them.
Meanwhile, the ceilings in both the front rooms were in pretty good shape and they've got some fancy plasterwork going on.
Mel spotted that there were
four double power sockets in the room. (Other rooms were similarly
well electrified, and the fuse box (in the hall) was modern,
suggesting that the flat's been rewired in the not-too-distant past.)
I also noted a phone extension wire running from the main socket in
the hall through to the living room, and if I'm not mistaken, a cable
bearing high-speed televisual turds right atcha, but possibly also
half-reasonable broadband internet.
Here's the dining room shot without a flash. The funny shape in the window is the ‘for sale’ sign. I had worried that the table for six was a cunning ploy to make the room look big, and that it might turn out to be for dwarves, but it's a reasonable enough table for non-dwarves. The room isn't huge, but it works.
For us, the biggest mystery about the dining room was the cardboard shoved in at the top of the windows (also single-glazed sash). Robert had no idea why. Draught excluders? Something left over from painting? Peculiar. Poor contrast in my photo, but you can just about make it out.
The cupboard to the left of the fireplace is only a shelf/fireplace
deep. At the moment, it mostly contains spirits. Some decent whiskies.
It left me wondering what the current owner is up to. He doesn't
live here, but he's left quite a lot of stuff behind. I wonder how
much of it he wants.
The back of the room has an uncupboarded alcove currently occupied
by freestanding shelves. And a radiator. But this is boring, and Mel's
already off looking at the next room.
This is quite narrow, with some sort of bed-settee. I didn't take a photo:
the one in the schedule (compensating for fish-eye) tells the story.
Plausible small no-frills guest bedroom. Reasonable study.
The window at the back is double-glazed and looks out over the back
garden. It's also shared, but it's quite mossy because it doesn't
get much light. Episcopalians.
That's the back of the block on Holyrood Crescent, which on that side isn't quite as tidy as Holyrood Quadrant. You can also see the back of the aforemention Episcopalian Cathedral. If I'd shot a bit further left, you'd see (a) the shed with the communal rubbish/recycling bins in, and (b) past the Cathedral through a wee gap to Great Western Road. It's not completely blocked off, but double glazing seems enough to kill the traffic sound unless you're listening for it.
Standard tenement narrow narrow bathroom. Basin, bath, bog, window. It seems clean and functional. Water pressure seems ok and the bog flushes enthusiastically. The bath has the usual two-taps-one-spout deal, with redirect to the shower head. So that's the regular awful British plumbing then.
I just noticed that the floor has been redone and the radiator repainted since the photo for the schedule was taken...
Now is as good a time as any to mention the boiler. This is yer now standard gas combination boiler, on-demand hot water and central heating. You can see it (back left) in the photo of the kitchen in the schedule. It looks more recent than the one in our current flat, with some degree of digital timer control. So...
I took one shot of the fridge,
largely for pornographic purposes, and then the camera batteries
died. If I'd known that was going to happen, I'd have shot something
more useful. Still, you do get to see that the stairs take a slice off
the doorway.
I asked Robert if he knew whether any of the appliances were up for sale with the house. He said he didn't. The place has been on the market for most of this calendar year, and the current owner hasn't moved any of the big stuff. That could mean he has a new life with new appliances, or that he's renting somewhere furnished until he can flog his old house and buy a new place with room for his things. Nothing to stop you making an offer.
Unlikely that the cooker would move, though. It's gas hob, gas grill, gas oven. It's a standard size and it doesn't appear to be fitted to the worktops on either side, so it should be replaceable if you feel so inclined. Plenty of storage, including a shallow door-sized cupboard opposite the doorway to the hall. Unremarkable but functional units (MFI or Ikea or something). The cutlery drawer left of the cooker sticks a bit, and is still full of cutlery.
Spacewise, the fish-eye again deceives, but you could work one each side without any risk of bum collision. You wouldn't put a table in the middle.
Oddly, the one place the schedule makes appear smaller than it is is the dining enclave. You could fit a slightly larger table in there, and probably a third seat, but it feels like a place to snack rather than dine, or to sit with a glass of wine watching someone else cook.
I couldn't help thinking I'd turn bedroom 3 into a bathroom and enlarge the kitchen with the space from the old bathroom. It would make the kitchen into a really good social space, but knock about thirty grand off the value of the flat.
On up the stairs without a working camera.
These seem well-lit and in good order. Neutral carpet, nice wooden hand-rail. There's a rather old iron-framed single-glazed velux window at the top. Its seals appear to have been replaced fairly recently, but it doesn't look the best.
This is a nice big room with plenty of light. If you look at the photo in the schedule (which exaggerates the width a little, but under-represents the depth), I'll tell you what's not in it. Left of shot is the doorway to the stairs; right is a built-in cupboard of generous size. Behind you and to the left is a window overlooking the back garden, the Cathedral, and Great Western Road.
That window was the thing which annoyed me most about the whole flat. It's single glazed and the woodwork (despite a recent lick of paint) is clearly in bad shape. Standing at that window, you can hear noticeably more traffic than through the double-glazed back windows downstairs. I still wouldn't say the sound-levels were particularly intrusive, but that's what I heard when I went to listen. I don't see why it would be tricky to replace, and it's something I'd make a priority, more from the condition of the old window than because of noise. Wouldn't take much to fix.
The velux over at the bed end is double-glazed. That's the quiet side of the house, and the quiet end of the room. I opened the velux and could hear the birds sing.
One last thing: if you look at the photo, you can see that the floor over by the radiator has quite a wave in it. Probably not a problem.
This is a really cute room, especially the wee stairs up to the window so that a small person can peer out and see the garden. It's also quite a small room. The photo in the schedule has a serious fish-eye factor: the bed is a child's bed. You could squeeze a double bed into the far end for a reasonable guest room, or it would make a good wee study.
We thought the plasterwork was mostly in good shape. We've certainly seen a lot worse. We did notice a few settling cracks above doors in the hallway, also above the door in the living room. Mel wonders if they're post-rewiring. Unlikely to indicate any structural issues, and the house has been standing for the best part of a century. Robert didn't know if there had been any recent surveys, but the solicitors' office should have that information.
Robert told us that interest in the flat had been fairly slow. That may be symptomatic of the market in general. He seemed to expect that you could get away with waiting until you've seen the place yourselves before you do anything rash with money. We think it's certainly worth taking a look. He did, however, say that someone had recently given the place a second viewing, although nothing has yet come of that. It might be worth making the estate agents aware that you're interested and asking them to keep you posted in case there are any developments.