Indy Bungalow

When I first moved in I took care of a few things little things, mostly weather related.

First off, a programmable thermostat. This little guy is well worth the money and easy to install as long as you remember to buy batteries for it.

When I first looked at the house the owner warned me that the basement leaked from around an old water pipe in the basement. I quickly learned this the first time it rained as a stream of mud flowed across my basement floor. (She may have failed to mention that dirt came in with the water.)

Some hydraulic cement took care of the hole but not necessarily the water as it continued to leak in from small cracks here and there. The real solution was probably the most obvious one, run the water away from the house. The clay pipe which the downspout fed into had become clogged so all the water from the roof was just accumulating next to my foundation.

To prep for the demo of the main kitchen and because I would not be using (nor heating) the upstairs bathroom the water lines were cut to both of these rooms. This was somewhat of a fun project as I had never done any plumbing before. I bought some lengths of iron pipe to thread in where i cut away the old pipe and valve for each end to be able to shut off the water to the kitchen and the bathroom again in the future. After removing some of the pipe it became obvious that the valves probably were not needed.

The iron pipes were highly corroded and really should be replaced. Looks like I have yet another plumbing project ahead of me: replacing all the old pipe.

Shortly after moving in weather stripping was applied to some of the windows and doors and insulation put in a couple of particularly drafty places. I also vented the dryer to the outside (as it had been venting right into the basement) and sanded the edge of a painted door just to see what was underneath. A currently white door was cream, which was a greenish-blue, which was a light red, which was white, which was originally stained dark like the trim in the rest of the house. With that many layers I should not be surprised the door does not fully shut.

Main Living Room-In the corner is a small built in cabinet. It is tough to find a decent bungalow without a built in of some kind. Apparently at a garage sale before the house was sold someone attempted to buy it and pull it out of the house. The double doors to the dining room were removed long ago. They are in the basement but in pretty poor condition.

Dining Room-At one point in time all of the doors and trim were this great dark brown color, unfortunately many of them have been painted numerous times over the years. The kitchen once had a door, it is also in the basement.

Kitchen-The kitchen was once one large room but at some point a half-bath was added right in the middle. Probably at the same time the house was split into a duplex. It looks like the kitchen was remodeled 40-50 years ago and the hardwood floors covered. I think the original cabinets are in the basement and garage.

Small Living Room-The rental sides living room. Similar to the main living room but with a fireplace and no built in. When the house was built this was the other half of the main living room.

Small Kitchen-The rental sides kitchen and hallway. Not much to it.

1st Floor Full Bath-Recently remodeled and probably the nicest room in the house. Though it too needs a little work.

1st Floor Bedroom-Originally this was probably not a bedroom but I will discuss that later. No picture of it, it is a rectangular room with windows. Imagine that.

2nd Floor Full Bath-This bathroom is pretty rough.

2nd Floor Bedroom-The floor in this room is quite warped. Some have called it “the half-pipe”. It has a lot of character, which in this case is not necessarily a good thing.

Master Bedroom-Similar to the 2nd floor bedroom but with a portion out over the living rooms. Only carpeted room in the house, maybe at one point in time it was a half-pipe too.

The backyard-There will not be much to mow in the spring as most of it is currently gravel. Someday it could be a nice backyard. Note the huge tumbleweed, that was growing up the side of the house before the new roof.

…to be a little more exact I bought an old house. I partially have my cousin to blame for the old aspect. Yes Matt I am talking about you. If I had not stayed in your old bungalow at graduation I probably would not have desired to live in one myself.
I’m getting ahead of myself. In May I graduated from Purdue in Indianapolis with my Masters in Mechanical Engineering and started working full time. Initially I had thought of buying a sports car like a 350Z or an older Porsche. Owning a nice car, especially one which I may want to work on myself led me to the conclusion I needed a garage. So in the name of “good judgement” it was decided that a house (with garage of course) was in order.

While I think most peoples primary criteria for a home is location or price mine was type. As someone who has always loved architecture I have always had certain styles which I have liked. After my aforementioned stay with my cousin I was sold on just the kind I wanted: an early 1900’s 1-1/2 story bungalow.

Location was of course still an important consideration. I definitely wanted to stay in the city, so it had to be a neighborhood that was old enough but not too old, that was reasonably safe. While there are many neighborhoods around downtown Indy with great houses there are few that really meet the second criteria. It worked out well that I lived in such a neighborhood which bordered a couple of other fine neighborhoods.

Finally, I had to be able to afford it. They don’t just give houses away in decent old neighborhoods so I had to look around a bit for one I could afford. Thankfully I like working on things so a house in need of repair would be ideal and could potentially save me some money.

While I initially tried a realtor I found them useless at even trying to meet what I wanted. They often tried to show me houses which did not meet the number one criteria. So after many hours on the internet and checking the newspaper I eventually found my house while riding my bike about a mile from my apartment.

I have finished implementing what I consider a very minimal set of features in my financial tracking program (Digital Wallet). You can now register for an account and you will recieve via email a random password. Once you login you can then change that password. Some of the other features which I recently added include the ability to edit or delete an existing transaction. As I continue to add more features I will post information here to let you know.

I just finished installing wordpress on the celabs.com domain. Ryan and I will use this now to make it easier to post stuff on the site. I am still working on my game system. I’ll have to a link to it on the side bar.