We are getting to the point in the process where it is starting to get real. There is an offer on our house and we are already renting the new house. The devil is in all of the details for financing but we need to decide what inspections that we want to have on the house. I personally feel like I am pretty knowledgeable in the process and I am more likely to be more nonchalant about things. This is not to mention that the house is less than ten years old.

In the picture below, you can see our new kitchen. It is both cluttered because we have nothing in the cupboards or drawers and sparse because what you see is what we have. It looks nice and this is the view that you get when you tour the house to decide if you want to proceed. It has stainless appliances, quartz counter tops, contemporary finishes and a nice island.

I want to make it clear that I am not nitpicking anything. I know exactly where the faults are in my house. I know where the exterior paint is spattered on the interior wall because I didn’t realize there was wet paint on the bucket when I roughly set the bucket down and it is hard to reach but can only be seen at a certain angle. I see the door trim that does not reach the floor (not my work). I do my best to try and make it at least good enough and I never intend on leaving things done incorrectly to the point it is detrimental to life or safety.

Because we are renting the house until we can close on the current house, we have spent six nights at the place spread out since early December. This is a highly educational process. I talked about the heating earlier in the week, now let’s look at the kitchen.

In the upper left, the backsplash spans the entire length of the counter. This prevents the range from being pushed all the way to the wall, where it belongs. It is not terribly noticeable nor is it problematic, it is just not how things should be done. Our future plans include installing a larger gas range so we will live with that until such time.

The window trim has a wonky corner. From my brief look at it, I would say that the wood is warped and not nailed well to a solid surface. These are the kind of things that potentially turn out to be devastating. A small cosmetic detail that is hiding a much larger problem. However, this is an exterior wall and I see no problems on the other side.

The tile on the far west side of the the kitchen has a different color grout along with some small gaps. I am not sure what is going on there, but I would be willing to bet that this is a DIY faux pas. Something was changed from what it was originally or it was estimated incorrectly or this was a retrofit application that just wasn’t quite right. This is a cosmetic issue that is barely noticeable unless you are taking pictures like I am doing.

Finally, I took a picture of the drawer slides. I have used many of these in my shop projects. But what I am pointing out is that using this style of slide versus ball bearing slides is an indicator of the quality of the cabinet. I suspect like all decisions, there was an economic component. My mind goes to why would you spend money on the counter tops and have inexpensive cabinets? At this point, it is what it is but it goes to today’s HGTV culture. It looks good from a distance but might not be what it seems.

I want to reiterate that I am not nitpicking but that a person cannot possibly make a value proposition with a 30 minute breeze through. I saw the first picture the first couple of times I was in the house. All of those things I can live with or modify over time if it gets to that point. What I think is the problem is most people cannot look at a drawer slide and determine the value of a kitchen. That speaks to the cost of a house being appropriate or potentially other more devious problems.

The value of an inspector is that in theory, they should be able to go straight to the soft and vulnerable spots. While doing that, other observations are made. But, that is it. It is then up to the uneducated buyer who couldn’t do their own inspection to translate observations into deficiencies to then ask from the seller. This is at least my analysis of why our first deal fell through. The buyer wanted things that were actually wrong from a code standpoint based on observations.

Despite the fact that I am very knowledgeable about things, I do believe that we are going to have a septic inspection. That is something that I cannot see myself and admittedly I am weak on this new technology installed in this house. It is not just a gravity fed tank but it has pumps and other things I have never seen.

End Your Programming Routine: We very well might have a whole home inspection, I need to do some looking first. I am not so arrogant as to believe that I couldn’t learn something from an inspection. I could miss things and this is a whole new area and climate that might have nuances that I am not familiar. But, I am pretty confident that this is an appropriate deal for the price. I am not expecting any real problems to be found.