So we looked at the…

So we looked at the Beautiful Gunderson again today. Kevin's leaning towards making an offer on this one; I'm leaning towards the Mad Hatter. They'd cost us about the same initially, we think. The Gunderson is notably smaller, but still notably bigger than our current place (three more rooms). The Mad Hatter is going to require more maintenance costs on an annual basis, and holds a bit more potential for disaster, Kevin thinks.

The second and third floors of the Gunderson are mostly generic, except for a small bay window in one room and a nice little tandem office, which I forgot to photograph, but there's a bit of it here. The basement has been redone in a well thought-out but again, mostly generic sort of way. The first floor is the one that's been gorgeously redone in Craftsman style, built-ins, stained glass, etc. If we bought this one, I'd ideally like to slowly redo (i.e., over thirty years or so, with probably nothing much happening the first three years or so) the other floors to reflect more of the Craftsman style throughout. Rather random set of photos I took here:

9 thoughts on “So we looked at the…”

  1. Have you seen a few years of utility bills for each house? I shudder to think what it costs to heat 5000sqft of 110-year-old house in a Chicago winter.

  2. Mary Anne Mohanraj

    Playsets come with both houses. 🙂 I suspect they’ll want their actual furniture — I took photos of it just to give me ideas of possibilities. Although the Gunderson did say they’ll throw in the piano (in decent tune, but with broken keys and such that need work) if we buy the house.

  3. Hi there – I don’t know you at all, but just thought I’d throw in my unsolicited opinion. : )

    I live in Oak Park with 2 small children, and if it were me, I’d go with the Gunderson house. The Mad Hatter house is on a busier street than you would think, lots of foot traffic around the Jr. High and on Washington Street, there are more families with older children (or no children because of the higher number of condos/rentals in that area). The Gunderson is in a quieter area with many small children and families, plus its on a much less traveled street. The Gunderson is also within walking distance of a new park, elementary school, and swimming pool. In all fairness the Gunderson is also closer to the Eisenhower and you will get some freeway/train noise.

    Another thing to think about, the Gunderson is a close walk to the Blue Line, whereas the Mad Hatter is closer to the Green Line. Not sure if that matters or not….

    That being said, you’ll be in this house for a long time so go with what you love.

  4. Mary Anne Mohanraj

    Hi, Oak Parker! Unsolicited opinions are welcome. 🙂 Although I’m curious how you found my site if you don’t know me — through Googling one of the house addresses?

    At this point, we’re firmly in waffle mode, and I think it may come down in the end to which house gives us a better deal (factoring in cost of repairs to Mad Hatter). Of course, we still have to choose one of them to make an offer on *first* — and which one that is seems to be changing every hour or so. 🙂 Stay tuned…

  5. I like reading ChicagoMomsBlog, and I saw your posting there a few weeks ago about shopping for a house in Oak Park. Since I live here it just caught my interest, and I wanted to follow your search, that’s how I found your personal blog…. Good luck!

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