Thursday, September 26, 2013

#laterpost 4. Daily Double

Written July 10, 2013.


We are seeing three more houses tonight. On paper, one of them could be our home. I hope we'll like it as much in person, and hope that we can see ourselves there in the same way we could see ourselves in the one we offered on. It has a lot of the same charm, and a lot of the same qualities/wish list items as the first one we fell in love with, though this one is a one-story rancher and the other was a 2-story Cape.

And so here we are again. On the threshold of extreme anxiety, probably some arguing, and a tense few days ahead. I'm hoping, though, that a few things will be more easily in our favor this time than last time. For one, this house is priced better, and allows much more wiggle room, so hopefully we can go in all gangbusters and be like, "We are the best! Give us your house!" And they'll be all, "Okay! Enjoy your new life!"

But we'll see. Thankfully, the listing has a lot of photos, so there shouldn't be too much mystery left for us to discover. And from what we can see, much of the work we don't want to deal with has already been done, and the things left that need to be "fixed" are more things to just add our own personality--change out ugly bathrooms/carpets/etc., but all of that is down the line. None of those aesthetic things will crimp our lifestyle aside from perhaps a groan of, "Ugh, good morning again, ugly bathroom tile." And that's totally something I can live with until...well, until I just can't anymore. haha

So stay tuned, as I hope to pop back on here later tonight after seeing said house to jot down our initial thoughts and if we like it enough to move forward. That update will get written right below this paragraph.

Part 2.

Okay, the house we really wanted to see wasn't ready--the sellers' kid was sick, so they had to cancel our appointment. What we did get to see was the messiest house to date, and a house with what can only be described as...carpet tub.

As you'll notice I've been mum about the actual details of most of the houses we've seen, and that's mainly because while they all had reasons we didn't want them, none were really noteworthy. Just the usual mixed bag of no AC/no dining room/needs way too much work. Last night's houses, however, deserve a little pause.

House 1 was still very much lived in. So much lived in, in fact, that the owners didn't leave when we showed up. They just hung out in the yard. Uhm...AWKWARD! I was like, "heehee, what a lovely home." ::shifty eyes:: It wasn't a horrible house once you looked beyond all of their personal items--dirty laundry and dishes included--that were strewn about as if no one, especially not a potential buyer, was coming to visit. In the end, the repairs that needed to be done were more than we were willing to take on, and we felt the house was priced rather above where it should have been. An exciting point, however, was that there were chickens in the backyard! The couple kept three chickens to have fresh eggs. I won't lie. It was quite charming. I kinda wanted to run over and snuggle them. Are chickens snuggly? I don't know. But I wanted to anyway.

House 2. What can I say? It started off with promise. Great curb appeal, nice backyard. There was an inground pool, which was fun to think about until you factored in the cost of keeping it clean and safe. Ka-ching! Inside was okay, too. It was plagued by ugly carpet, but had a workable layout, good space, and a nice closed-in porch off the back of the house. It didn't get weird until we went upstairs. I was first in line, with John behind me and our realtor at the back. I dead-stopped at the top of the stairs because the first thing you see is the bathroom. With a jacuzzi tub. And that jacuzzi tub had carpet all over it. I'm talking carpet on the front wall of the tub, and then all around the perimeter of the tub. You know, where you place wet things and over which you have to step to exit the tub. All I could think of was for how many years that had been going on. Oh, and the toilet was recessed into what was the original dormer, so it was legit a little throne room. This bathroom will forever be all I think of when I recall that house, and out house-hunting in general. Bonus of the house was it had the nicest basement we've seen to date--they had Pergo wood floors, a nice, sturdy, attractive set of stairs leading down there, and irony of ironies, the NICEST and most modern bathroom in the whole house! It was clearly added in this decade because the tile was neutral and tasteful, the fixtures were modern, and, oh yeh, there was no inexplicable carpet.

Sunday is an open house at the one we were most eager to see today, so fingers crossed that kiddo feels better.

With that, my friends, happy Friday. Tomorrow is a beach day, where we will unplug from the entire stressful world. It'll just be us, sand, and waves.

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