Good news, considering the undisclosed defects: we put in a much lower offer on the weekend and got it!
Purchased the Black and Decker Home Repair manual which has lots of good pictures on how to do lots of the things you mentioned.
Will no doubt be spending the X-mas holiday season playing with all my new tools Santa (aka Master Card) is bound to bring. Thanks again for all your help and no doubt I’ll be in touch as I go through the report and attend to all the things you found.
Cheers,
Ron