House hunting

So we went house hunting last night and went through some PRETTY scary little magna houses. Buuuut if there was ever any doubt about the possibility of not finding houses under the 200 thou mark, look no further than magna. The first one had been a state funded home that they tore the old house off the foundation then built a new house on top, which turned out nicely.

Very cute house. However, the street that this particular house was on was...how to phrase this nicely...terrifying? not really terrifying, just the fact that there was an older gentleman going through the garbage in front of the house that yelled to us (in a kinda pissed off, angry at the world type tone) that no one was ever ever going to buy that house on that street for $185,000. (we didn't because of that dude and his garbage fettish, so in that sense he was correct)
We looked at another one just down the way from the first one that was really a cute little built in 1915 number.

It had been refurbished very nicely, but unfortunately the basement was a definite no no. There was some warping on the walls so we knew there had been water damage at somepoint but who knows if it was ever fixed. And jack was scared of the rodent possibility considering the area underneath the stairs was completely open to some of the creepiest crawl/storage spaces known to civilization.
The next home was also just down the way and was built in 1917,

the ad was very promising considering it was $129,900 4 bed 1 bath, new paint, new carpet, new waterheater, new gas stove, new shingles...blah blah blah. Those things may or may not have been new at one point but certainly not at this date. Full of mildewy smells, one of the bedrooms they were considering to be a "bedroom" was literally 4 ft wide X 7 ft long, with a closet occupying a good 2 X 2 ft area. Bedroom? I think not. The rest of the house was totally trashed either by squatters or the last owners condering it was now the bank's posession they may have thought "we'll show them for kicking us out."
Anywho with those houses out of the way the last home we went through was thrilling!

Built in 1952 the owner was a finish work carpenter, so he was constantly bettering the home and fixing anything close to a problem. There's a swing set a workshop, and a little wood shed that would eventually become a kids playhouse considering there is already a wood shed off the workshop closer to the house. It has 5 bedrooms, 1.5 baths, a storage room, and a large family room.They were the only owners of the home, both have passed away, and now the kids are selling the home. It has this AMAZING stove:

it's called a wedgewood stove, they were built in the fifties, after searching on the net I've found several web pages entitled "dream stoves" or "antique stoves" where they refurbish these old stoves and sell them for upwards of $4,000!!! Needless to say we've put in an offer, and hopefully things will move forward from here. Cross your fingers for us!! If all goes well plan on a paint party, or possibly refinishing the hardwood floors underneath the carpeting...ha ha. Let me know if any of you know anything about refinishing floors.