Zillow tells me I bought the house on 9/10/1997. I’m writing this page on 9/8/2019. My, how time flies!
Since purchase, there have been various improvements of note.
1. Major work to the lower level land area. This had been slowly eroding into the stream at the bottom of the property. The previous owners had done a very clever job of persuading the Redmond City Council that fixing this was their responsibility (because there’s a city sewer line running underneath the lawn, and if the erosion continued unchecked, sooner or later it would have threatened the sewer line).
The council agreed, and so in a massively over-engineered project that 30 years ago cost, I’m told, way over a quarter million dollars, they put in a retaining wall then beautified it all up to protect the land. It has worked perfectly. Then about 15 years ago, the council did another project on the stream in general, making it more “salmon friendly” and even less of an erosion threat. I’m not saying you can now go catch salmon at the bottom of the property, but who knows…. 🙂 My daughter and her friends liked to go and play down there and thought it all to be a magical sort of place.
2. I put on a new roof probably 20 years ago. I think I opted for the 30 or maybe longer year roof option at the time, and as far as I can tell, the roof still has plenty of life in it.
3. The deck was starting to rot, and so I replaced that with a much larger deck (almost twice as large, if memory serves) and instead of using wood planking, which only lasts 10-15 years if you’re lucky, I used Trex which lasts very much longer (I don’t know how long, but so far, so good). The underneath was also massively over-engineered in terms of supports and everything and is made of pressure-treated timber to have a very long life as well.
4. I changed the hot water cylinder from electricity to gas and moved its location at the same time. Gas is very much cheaper than electricity for heating, and also heats the water up again more quickly than electricity would.
5. I’ve changed the furnace for a new higher efficiency furnace.
6. I added a high-end a/c system, not just a coil in the furnace (furnace coils don’t work nearly as well as separate systems because you want to direct cold air differently to hot air).
7. About ten years ago I had a small kitchen fire – I left a pot of fat on the stove and forgot about it, it caught fire, burned a bit of the back-splash, and sent smoke into the house. To my astonishment, the insurance company responded extraordinarily positively, and insisted I redo the entire kitchen, even to the point of replacing the appliances, the benches and sinks, and the canned food and food in the fridge! Truly, it was just a small fire, but why look a gift horse in the mouth (they even allowed me to replace bottles of spirits…..).
So there’s a nice set of ten year old high-end appliances in the kitchen, including a “dual-fuel” oven/stovetop. It uses gas for the five burners, but electricity for the oven. The best of both worlds. And – much to my daughter’s dismay – I’ve almost never used the brand new dishwasher.
8. Most of the double-paned windows are losing their seals, or if not, probably will over the next few years. I’ve replaced a bunch already, and there are more that now need replacing.
9. I replaced the main level curtains with high quality thermal efficient blinds in, I think 2015 or 2016.
10. The house was most recently repainted in, I think, summer 2017. You’ll see some pictures with the house in pastel blue – that is the old color. The pastel green is the new color.
11. I had the house cabled with Cat-5e ethernet cabling, good quality and supports the 500 Mbps incoming fiber data line.
12. The land on the left of the driveway as you come in has been improved and enhanced by me, the city council, and the adjoining neighbor. There’s now an attractive walkway connecting the cul-de-sacs on either side of the house, and retaining walls on parts of both sides. It is nice to have occasional people walking along the path; helps keep the house a bit under observation when I’m not present.