The property is very long and irregular, and the house is set far to the back of it. The driveway runs along the south edge of the property. This is a picture of the driveway, looking back in the direction of the road, with the house about a hundred feet behind the camera.
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Stepping forward to clear the trees and panning slightly to the right, we can see some of the open field in front of the house, and that clump of low vegetation in the middle which surrounds a small natural pond (which cobalt adores).
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Continuing to pan to the right, we see more field and our neighbor to the north.
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Continuing to pan to the right, the field gives way to overgrowth. The entire property is overgrown like this, with occasional spots of open field. These trees look nice, but most of it is not so benign. Especially in the back, blackberry bramble and velcro weed dominate.
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Continuing to pan to the right, I have made a full 180 degree turn and am now facing the other way on the driveway, towards the house (which is barely visible).
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Walking back towards the house, I see another open area between the trees and patches of overgrowth. This appears to be a pile of mulch.
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Continuing to walk to the house, I snap a picture of some plants typical of those which dominate the landscape. Cobalt is very "earth-oriented". She needs to be in contact with wild or semi-wild ground. Sculpted landscapes just don't do it for her. This property certainly gives her what she needs (in spades).
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Continuing to walk to the house, I snap a picture of the front. There is plenty of parking, which is nice because we want to be able to entertain friends, throw barbeques, and serve as a meeting place for North Bay Herpetological Society (of which we are members; cobalt is an officer on its board). The house itself is on the left, and an outbuilding (the "office") is visible to the right.
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Stepping into the clearing in front of the house, I take it all in. This is a picture of the far left of the parking area, where the house meets the front yard's overgrowth.
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Panning right, I take in the front of the house.
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Continuing to pan right, this shows the office in more detail, also the gated fence to its little back yard (which is just a dirt surface).
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Continuing to pan right, we see a retaining wall, for erosion control. The area around Sebastopol is very wet, which means the ground itself flows like slow-motion ocean swells. Retaining walls such as these are necessary or the ground will run right over you.
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This is the front entrance to the office. Several of the boards in its front deck are rotten and will need to be replaced.
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This is the front entrance to the house. The red porch is a nice touch. You can tell it was added later because it renders one of the garage doors unusable (for cars, anyway).
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Entering the house, there is a hallway to the left and the door to the garage to the right. This is a picture of the entrance to the garage.
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These folks know how to use a garage!! It's full of tools and go-kart projects.
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Panning to the right to show more of the garage.
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Panning to the right to show the rightmost part of the garage.
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The garage is a good place to get some idea of the state of the roof. We could tell from the outside that it needed to be reshingled, but that's the easy part. Sagging or damaged load-bearing structures will be more evident looking at it from the underneath. The rest of the house has a ceiling occluding the rafters and joists, but in the garage these are easily visible.
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Rafters and joists look old, but in good shape.
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Using zoom and a bit of flashbulb to get a closer look, the roof seems to be okay (at least in this part of the house).
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Exiting the garage again and returning to the front door, we se a long hallway leading from the front door to the rest of the house. It looks very nice and tasteful. Cobalt and I both approve of the lack of carpeting.
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The hallway terminates at the interface to the house's main "common spaces" -- the living room and the kitchen, which are arranged as one big open space.
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Standing in the entrance to the common space, I start at the far left and start doing that panoramic thang again. Windows overlook the front and north side of the house from the kitchen. A small dining table is visible in the southwest corner. We're looking forward to having a dining room table again -- we've been eating on the floor or on the couch for five years now, and it's getting quite old. Plus, reading the newspaper on the floor becomes impossible if a cat or dog decides the paper is the perfect place to frolic and vie for your attention. Yep, we're definitely looking forward to having a table. Our current rental simply hasn't room for one.
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Panning to the right, we see the kitchen (just beyond the island in the middle of the picture) and the northeastern corner of the room which has been converted into a small study. The island is cute, and useful. My mother-in-law's house has a similar setup (a big kitchen with an island in the middle), and cobalt and I both like it. Islands are better than counters in a way because it's easy for two or more people to work on it, out of each others' way but able to reach everything easily.
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Continuing to pan right, we see the living room area, windows overlooking the back yard to the north, and the back door. The hardwood floor was a pleasant surprise. We knew we wanted wood floors in our new place, but were expecting to have to rip up carpeting and have hardwood installed. This house has it already in place, and it looks great.
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Continuing to pan right, we come to the fireplace. To our delight it remains a fireplace, and not a wood-burning stove installed over a fireplace. Every other house we've looked at, the fireplace was sealed with a metal plate and a wood-burning stove installed in front of it. We like the fireplace better, even if it will make the house a little harder to keep warm.
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Stepping into the kitchen, I snap a picture of the "triangle" .. well, almost. The fridge is just outside this picture's edge, to the right. There isn't enough cabinet space, but the stovetop is to die for. It's a commercial-grade Viking gas stove, with burner grates a good inch and a half tall (which will make for excellent heat distribution; hot spots are the bane of gas cooking). We both cook, so it's something we can both appreciate.
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To the right of the fireplace is a short hallway to the bedrooms. There are three: a master bedroom and two smaller bedrooms.
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At the end of the hall, on the northern edge of the house, is the master bedroom.
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As one steps into the bedroom, the bathroom is attached to the right.
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This is an utterly uninspired picture of the inside of the master bedroom. It serves no function except completeness, being the leftmost image of another series of panoramic shots.
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Panning right, we see the edge of a sliding glass door to the back yard, and the closet. It's not a walk-in closet, but it's at least a little deeper than the closets we're using at the rental. It's not quite as wide as the rental house's closet, which means not all of cobalt's skirts and dresses will fit in it.
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In the hallway next to one of the bedrooms is a cute little nook. It looks like it served as a tiny office space.
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Outside again, I snap a picture of the black cat which stalked us all the while we were looking at the property.
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Behind the house is a small, neat back lawn (which I did not photograph for some reason) and attached deck. It is all robustly fenced off from the rest of the back yard, so their dog has a place to live without getting into trouble. We greatly appreciate this; it means our own dogs (which are primarily indoor) will have a place to go without risking getting them lost. The property's outside perimeter is only patchily fenced, and there are long segments where the only thing separating us from the neighbors' properties is dense patches of plants. The creek also looked like it might be dangerous to small animals. Anyway, this picture is of the deck, taken from behind (so the house is beyond the deck from where I'm standing). Obviously there is some grade to the land.
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Behind the house is another outbuilding, about 120 square feet in size (like the "office" outbuilding in the front). It seems to be in a state of disrepair, and I'm not sure what we'll be doing with it.
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Panning right, I take in the rest of the outbuilding and a bit of the open field next to it.
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Panning further right, we see a grassy open area with two raised garden beds.
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Stepping in the direction of the garden beds, I turn left and snap a picture of the blackberry bramble which has consumed the east end of the outbuilding. There is a small shed here built into the east wall, but I couldn't get close enough to it to see what was inside; the blackberry had completely sealed it off. If we close escrow on this place, I'll have my work cut out for me.
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Swinging to the right, we see the trees blocking off the eastmost edge of the property.
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The well is near where I'm standing. This is the first property we've seen where the well is out in the open like this, and not covered by a shed structure.
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Stepping into the outbuilding reveals that the well pump and filtering systems are installed in a room on the west end of the outbuilding. It is not visible from this picture, but there is a low concrete wall separating this room from the rest of the outbuilding, so that if something breaks and starts spewing water, it will at least not flood the main room. It does not look particularly clean or well-maintained.
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In the main room of the outbuilding again, I try to snap a picture of the south wall, but the light from the window causes the camera to underexpose the shot. I've kept it anyway because it's evident from this angle that the window is crooked in its frame.
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We can pretend I'm panning right from the wellhouse-room. This came out better, now that I'm not centered on the bright window. It looks like the sellers aren't sure what to do with this building either; it's currently being used to store boxes of mysterious stuff.
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Continuing to pan right, we see a cabinet which does not appear to be used. Perhaps it is being stored here as well?
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Looking at the outbuilding's ceiling, it is obvious that the seams of this structure are not very well-sealed, and the entire structure seems to be sagging slighty to one side.
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Back outside, I see a gateway which adjoins the fenced-in back yard area. A narrow path leads up to the back yard.
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Panning up and to the right shows the house.
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Panning up and to the right again, we see the backside of the back yard wooden deck again.
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Continuing to pan to the right, I see cobalt and Nancy our realtor tromping off to the north beside the seasonal creek. The property curves around the house, leading us to the front yard again. This shot was taken facing east-by-northeast.
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The front yard has more open space than I realized at first. To the right, a corral is barely visible. It does not appear to have been used, and cobalt intends to convert it into her chicken run.
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Continuing east, we come to a narrow path that leads up to the parking area. It's just steep and craggy enough to give cobalt some trouble.
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Turning north, I snap a picture of more open space, and more of the blackberry which plagues the grounds. It's everywhere. I love blackberry, but would prefer it if it stayed on the perimeter of the property. No such luck, it seems to be everywhere.
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Back in the front of the house, I snap a close-up of the fenced-in area behind the office outbuilding. That gate is going to need replacing. Also, someone tried to nail a sheet of plywood to the rafters to make a slight shelter (visible to the left). The nails had mostly pulled out, and only one nail remained in a rafter to keep the entire board from falling to the ground. I wasn't brave enough to get under it to look too closely. Methinks the previous owners were no master craftsmen. Still, once it's been cleaned up a little (okay, a lot) this could be a pretty nifty area, usable for a lot of projects.
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