30-31 Aug 2016: Isn't the water supposed to be on the outside?
Busy Tuesday!
We had a look at three properties, in Powell, Far North Knoxville, and Corryton. The first two were disappointing - much work needed to get the houses even vaguely habitable. The one in Corryton was a surprise; the listing on the 'Net was somewhat unprepossessing, but in person the house was very nice indeed, even if it does have vinyl siding. The land, hm. It wasn't at all clear exactly how much and which land is included (and the Knox County on-line public-records system is much less helpful than the state's version, used for counties that don't have their own), but it was certainly very pretty. So, between that and the one in Sweetwater, we've now seen two examples of quite plausible house-and-land options that fit the projected budget.
[Update: The boundaries of the Corryton property get even more confusing if one looks at Google maps; according to Google, House Mountain State Natural Area starts just back of the detached carport, making the listing's claim of 15 acres more than a little suspect. But... the county's map shows the House Mountain park-or-whatever being a totally different shape from what Google has, without actually being actually useful for seeing how the boundaries line up with the various private property lines.]
[Update 2: I later found a higher-res (i.e., somewhat legible) version of the boundary drawing included in the listing; it is indeed 15 acres, including the old barn, and mostly extending back into the forest.]
Then a late lunch, a short rest break, and off to meet up with Cat Faber, whom I know from USENET and a con or two (Consonance, and maybe Baycon, back in the day). She took us canoeing on a quiet little bay of Cherokee Lake, in a trio of beautifully-crafted wooden canoes. Which she'd made herself. From scratch.
Well, it took a while to get everything together (including affixing one canoe to the roof of the rental car without damaging anything) and get to the lake (above 27 MPH, the straps made a thrum-thrumm-thrummm-wub-wub-wub sound on the way out; on the way back, they sounded like a Flash Gordon rocket-ship, so I kept looking around for Ming ships, just in case). Then get the canoes off the cars, and into the water, and people into the canoes, and... hey, these things do handle nicely! And: oh, wow! A double rainbow! Wait, didn't we see one of those back in Indiana, just before that huge storm hit us? And: is that rain we're feeling?
We didn't get a fierce thunderstorm, but it did rain fairly heavily for a few minutes as we sheltered from the wind. Then, soggy, we had a nice paddle around, admiring the scenery and various birds. As the sun set, 'twas time to return to shore and pack everything up. (The rental car has a back-up camera, which turns out to be handy for parking spaces and also boat ramps!)
The little fishies in the shallows of Cherokee Lake like to nibble on feet. My feet, anyway. It tickles considerably.
It did get a mite late, and they roll up the sidewalks early 'round these parts, so finding dinner turned out to be a challenge, but we did find an open eatery (Cardin's Drive-In) on the way back to the motel.
Then, Wednesday. Out to Kingston to look at another property that's kind of out of the projected price range, but might be of interest, especially if there's room to haggle. Apparently it's for sale due to a divorce. The house is glorious, with some oddities; the land (just under 20 acres) is nice, though the pond is rather small and murky. Oddities? Well... it seems to have been partially fixed up, before the process was interrupted (bonus room over garage partially drywalled; one of the upstairs bedrooms partially repainted). The partially-repainted bedroom has three closets; the door of one appears to have been smashed open from the inside after someone was locked in that closet - yes, the door can be locked from the outside. Something to do with the divorce? Or... well, that sort of lock (and why was there a lockable knob on a closet door anyway, never mind being installed wrong-way-out?) can be inadvertently locked, and the door closed, and then one is locked on the wrong side of it, so it could have been a solo mishap.
Anyway... glorious, as I noted, but the price is out of bounds. Seems it's been on the market for 2 years now, with no takers at that price; the agent who showed it to us suggests that if it doesn't sell soon, it'll likely go to foreclosure, and I speculate that the mortgage sets a price floor. Oops! Probably go much cheaper at foreclosure auction.
But, well... there's a fair bit of opportunity for haggling the price down on the mansionette we looked at first, and that could be made glorious at not too great an expense, so the total cost of acquisition and improvement on that one would be considerably lower, leaving money in the budget for a detached workshop and some industrial-strength landscaping.
Then we took a look at a couple of senior-living places. Much more spacious and luxurious than the ones in the Bay Area! Also, much less institutional-feeling. Dunno if my parents could really be persuaded to relocate, but the existence of a senior-resort-type place with apartments nearly the size of their house, and set up for a range of lifestyle options from mostly-independent to total care, is a useful datum.
Wednesday afternoon, laundry. Pesky chores!
Dinner was the IHOP "Split Decision": pancakes and French toast and eggs and bacon and sausage. If you're having breakfast for dinner, might as well overdo it.
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