So it begins..

After moving to Idaho Springs, CO for Natalie's job with the Forest Service, we started looking for rentals in Golden where I found a job. It turns out that you can't get much for under $1500 a month...at least if your standards involve dog friendly, storage space and not smelling like a Animal house. We decided to look at the houses for sale Clear Creek county....and found one that We fell in love with. I can sum it up in a few choice words... Victorian, Wine Cellar, Keg cooler.

Wine cellar with the Keg cooler that is piped through the wall to the taps in the dining room wall..how convienent. This is the only room in the house that is air conditioned.

Kitchen; stainless appliances, cherry stained hickory cabinets, tile counters...not too much that needs to be done there.

Sitting room; small wood stove, window seat. The entire first floor is floored with solid oak.

Downstairs half-bath; This bathroom is part of an addition that was done in the late '90s which almost doubled the size of the house. The sink is a gold pan.

Stairs up to second floor; This will be one of the first big projects.

Master bathroom; the small white tile is kind of dated but everything is in good shape, a fresh coat of paint to break up the white on white on white scheme and we should be good to go in there for awhile.

Master bedroom half of upstairs. The entire 2nd floor is one large room. We plan to add a wall to sperate the bedroom from what will be the living room. The carpet upstairs is going away and will be replaced with 3 1/4in oak flooring to match the downstairs.

Back deck; This deck is off of the second floor, the door in the picture accesses the master bedroom. Behind me is the hot tub.

This is the view from the second floor looking out over Idaho Springs. The house is at the widest part of town and the highway is below town, so there isn't a clear view of the highway and very little noise, defiantly a nice thing in Idaho Springs.

The view from the stairs out into the sideyard. about half the yard is landscaped..we plan to build a dog run and a garden in the rest of it. This property actually consists of two building lots which is why the side yard is so large. All told there is 0.6 acres with the house, although a good part of that is the steep hillside behind the house.

Here is the dining room, you can see the door into the wine cellar and the beer taps..did I mention that there is a keg system?

The retaining wall structure in the side yard is impressive. There are terraced garden beds with built in steps to access them.

The protrusion on the end of the house if the stairs. The room above the patio off the dining room is the sun room. That will be tiled and become the office/plant room.

Going from the patio to the upper deck is a set of narrow steep stairs that keep going up the hillside..presumably to some part of the old mining claim which this property was carved out of.

And finally we have the view from the street. Wall street is a crazy little side street with 6-8 houses on it. We are one of only two house with decent parking.

Stay tuned, there will be more to come...much much more.