Inspection Remembered

Today marks the 19th anniversary of our Rosslyn home inspection.

On May 22, 2006 Susan and I drove from Rock Harbor to Essex to meet James R. Gibb from Pro-Spec Residential Services, LLC at Rosslyn… (Source: Home Inspection, May 22, 2006)

The inspection revealed anticipated concerns as well as some startling surprises.

[Our fitness room] was originally a crawl space with literal drifts of mold so horrifying that it nearly killed our purchase! (Source: Rosslyn’s Game Room)

In addition, Rosslyn’s boathouse and icehouse were even more precarious than we’d thought, possibly past the point of rehabilitation.

Home Inspection Haiku

Reality check —
steady sage decrypts riddle:
years of work ahead. 

Inspection Remembered

Despite turning up the volume on our buyer angst and dilating our already appreciable budget estimate and timeline, Susan and I talked ourselves into proceeding. Negotiations entered a more assertive phase. Strain fermented into stress. Until. We had struck a deal.

Ultimately Gibb’s inspection provided a roadmap that would guide our extremely ambitious renovation project in the years to come.

And the photographs in today’s post? All three were taken a year later on May 22, 2007. Lake Champlain waters were high, and the ominous warning that the inspector had issued regarding the boathouse weighed heavily upon Susan and me. 

All of these springs later, I’m grateful to be able to commemorate Gibb’s thorough and informative inspection with boathouse house portraits that originally made me uneasy, but today seem quaint. I even feel a twinge of nostalgia, believe it or not. Catastrophe averted. Historic rehab complete.