Write this one in permanent ink
Well, it's official, Nick and I are home owners. Homes owners, to be exact. On April 29th we closed on a two family house on the main street of "historic" Hopewell Borough, New Jersey.
Hopewell Borough is about 10 minutes from Princeton, 1 hour from Philly, and, for those of you familiar with the area, about 20 minutes from New Hope, PA and Lambertville, NJ. The town is an actual, real live town - with a coffeehouse, 2 ice cream shops, 6 restaurants, and 1 bar. All within walking distance of our house. We're right around the corner from Franco's (sometimes, for some unknown reason, called Vincenzo's) the best little pizza shop and across the street from the "historic" Hopewell House Liquor Store. At Hopewell House, you can have a "house" account, if you're a regular. There's a tiny library where they still have a card catalog and where they still stamp your book with the due date. The library closes at 5 for the dinner break and re-opens at 7 pm. So, in buying this place, I've met my requirements of being able to walk to:
a cup of coffee
a beer
a good take out restaurant
a nice restaurant
Nick has also met his requirements of green space (the town is surrounded by protected parkland and protected farms) and lots of room to store crazy engineering supplies he's been lugging around for 30 years. And parking. We have a driveway. No more crazy Somerville parking nightmares. Ahh... the good old days.
Alright, already, enough of the blather Susan (I bet you are thinking this right now), get to the good part - tell us about the house. The houses.
It's a side by side two family. A very old, side by side two family. The side our tenant lives in used to be a blacksmith's shop, back in 1890. The side we live in used to be the blacksmith's residence.
Our side has 3 bedrooms (read: GUESTROOMS, hint, hint); 1 1/2 baths; a full walk up attic; living room, dining room, big eat in kitchen, and a room on the first floor that we are calling the office. The tenant side has 2 bedrooms, 1 bathroom, livingroom, dining room and kitchen.
The people we bought the place from had bought it solely as an investment - they fixed the major stuff - new roof, windows, re-did the kitchen, new gas heating system. We're finding that, while the big stuff is fixed, in a really old house, there are a lot of little things that need to be dealt with.
Maizie has taken to the place well. She even made some new friends. Like a bat. That she caught. And presented to Nick. I, thank goodness, was in the basement doing laundry (I'll save my perfect washing machine dream come true for another entry). When Nick came down to tell me, I asked if the bat was dead when Maizie brought it to him. "Mostly Dead" was his response. I have convinced myself that the bat came down from the attic - which means I will never go up in the attic again. Which is fine, because it's filled with all of the boxes that we don't want to deal with.
So, in my next entry, I will post pictures of our house and regale you with stores of leaky bathtubs, overflowing toilets, crooked sidewalks, and dining rooms without electricity.
I keep meaning to send out a clever moving card - but I can't find my clever moving card supplies. Maybe they are in one of those boxes in the attic. I would (actually I did) post our new contact info here - but Nick got a little freaked out by that. So if you send me an email - I will send you our address and phone number ...
Will post more, soon, I promise.
xoxo,
Susan
Hopewell Borough is about 10 minutes from Princeton, 1 hour from Philly, and, for those of you familiar with the area, about 20 minutes from New Hope, PA and Lambertville, NJ. The town is an actual, real live town - with a coffeehouse, 2 ice cream shops, 6 restaurants, and 1 bar. All within walking distance of our house. We're right around the corner from Franco's (sometimes, for some unknown reason, called Vincenzo's) the best little pizza shop and across the street from the "historic" Hopewell House Liquor Store. At Hopewell House, you can have a "house" account, if you're a regular. There's a tiny library where they still have a card catalog and where they still stamp your book with the due date. The library closes at 5 for the dinner break and re-opens at 7 pm. So, in buying this place, I've met my requirements of being able to walk to:
a cup of coffee
a beer
a good take out restaurant
a nice restaurant
Nick has also met his requirements of green space (the town is surrounded by protected parkland and protected farms) and lots of room to store crazy engineering supplies he's been lugging around for 30 years. And parking. We have a driveway. No more crazy Somerville parking nightmares. Ahh... the good old days.
Alright, already, enough of the blather Susan (I bet you are thinking this right now), get to the good part - tell us about the house. The houses.
It's a side by side two family. A very old, side by side two family. The side our tenant lives in used to be a blacksmith's shop, back in 1890. The side we live in used to be the blacksmith's residence.
Our side has 3 bedrooms (read: GUESTROOMS, hint, hint); 1 1/2 baths; a full walk up attic; living room, dining room, big eat in kitchen, and a room on the first floor that we are calling the office. The tenant side has 2 bedrooms, 1 bathroom, livingroom, dining room and kitchen.
The people we bought the place from had bought it solely as an investment - they fixed the major stuff - new roof, windows, re-did the kitchen, new gas heating system. We're finding that, while the big stuff is fixed, in a really old house, there are a lot of little things that need to be dealt with.
Maizie has taken to the place well. She even made some new friends. Like a bat. That she caught. And presented to Nick. I, thank goodness, was in the basement doing laundry (I'll save my perfect washing machine dream come true for another entry). When Nick came down to tell me, I asked if the bat was dead when Maizie brought it to him. "Mostly Dead" was his response. I have convinced myself that the bat came down from the attic - which means I will never go up in the attic again. Which is fine, because it's filled with all of the boxes that we don't want to deal with.
So, in my next entry, I will post pictures of our house and regale you with stores of leaky bathtubs, overflowing toilets, crooked sidewalks, and dining rooms without electricity.
I keep meaning to send out a clever moving card - but I can't find my clever moving card supplies. Maybe they are in one of those boxes in the attic. I would (actually I did) post our new contact info here - but Nick got a little freaked out by that. So if you send me an email - I will send you our address and phone number ...
Will post more, soon, I promise.
xoxo,
Susan
posted by Susan P. at 9:09 PM
1 comments
