The House Hunt

So one of the main reasons I started this second blog was to have a place where I could write about our experience looking for our first home. I wanted this place for a couple reasons. One was so that we could have a place to quickly look over all the places we've looked at to remind ourselves of what we've seen, why we marked a place off the list, or why we kept one on. Two I wanted to have one place where I could put everything and then send people to/copy and paste from. I've already learned that it can be pretty tiring to have to type up the same stories for all the people who want to know how the hunt is going. And three because some of these stories are just too funny not to tell. I mean, when the floor of one room in the very.first.house you look at could almost double as a trampoline (at least in my mind), you know you just have to share. So expect lots of posts about house hunting, bad houses, and (hopefully) great houses while we go on this lovely journey they call house hunting.

We actually don't have any viewings lined up this week so, in the meantime, let me catch you up on what we've seen so far.

House #1. This is the house with the bouncy floor. It had an addition that the owner had started on himself. The addition was actually a great idea, it was supposed to be a "mother-in-law room" and was a huge bedroom that was going to have a bathroom and a huge closet. Only problem was that he didn't finish it. After you stepped through the glass sliding door off the family room you felt the floor give a bit under your feet. This happened all throughout the room. The "bathroom" was never finished either. It was basically a big closet with a bathtub sitting in it, no plumbing ran to the tub (or room) though. The actual closet didn't have finished walls yet or anything to hang clothes on. This room had a sliding door to the back yard. It had a giant step down to the ground and no stairs, oh and the railing was so low you had to bend over to try to use it. This place also had small bedrooms, a slightly outdated bathroom (which could have been usable), and the laundry hookups on the outside wall of the garage (kinda strange for this area, since it gets so cold in the winter). The kitchen had great cabinets and didn't seem too small at the time, but once we started thinking about putting the fridge, some sort of shelf or pantry, and other things in it quickly became apparent that the room would be pretty tight. So this one's off the list. We could make do with pretty much everything, except the problems in the addition. We were worried about what problems were hiding just under the surface (electrical, insulation levels, how the floor was being supported, etc). So it's off.

We saw these next 4 on the same day:

House #2:Was ok. We kinda liked it. Kitchen and LR were kinda small but not too bad. Although it's an eat-in kitchen so with a table it would be very small. Backyard was small and had a small hill down and opened right up to house behind and wasn't fenced. But overall it was the nicest one we've looked at. But they had an offer made on it the night before. And the biggest downside is that the street opens right up to the elementary school so trying to get out in the am and pm would suck, and Doug usually has to be at work at 8, which is prime kid-dropping-off time. But this one is still on the maybe list, pending another look.

House #3. Um, this one kinda smelled.... no, actually it really smelled. It's a rental right now and they didn't know we were coming so we had to stand outside for a minute before we could go in (where we noticed the crappy condition of the siding). Our realtor hadn't seen it but had been warned it was bad... well bad is an understatement! The second you walked in you got hit by this wall of hot air that stunk of pets, trash, dirt, and Doug thought a little something else too maybe. The kitchen needed a new floor, the walls were horrible (what you could see of them behind the stuff everywhere), the bathroom was tiny. We walked in the door, down the hall, looked in one bedroom and decided we were done. We got outside and all took huge breaths (fresh air!!) and our realtor goes "you are not buying this one!" So it's off the list for sure.

House #4. Was tiny. It was just a 2 bedroom. The LR was huge, bathroom was nice, bedrooms were small, backyard was awesome. But the deal killer was the kitchen. It was also an "eat in" kitchen but our table would not have fit, at.all. Plus the kitchen was the spot for the table, the fridge, and a row of cabinets with the sink. You had to step down and around a step into the utility closet to get to where the oven was. Yep, your oven was in a different room, across from the washer and dryer and on the wall with your garage. The baker in me totally freaked out at this. So that one was done. Plus one of the closets had some water damage that looked new. Off the list.

House #5. Was TINY! The kitchen was older but would have worked (eat-in too), the living room was tiny, the bathroom was smaller than what we have now, the 2nd bedroom was ok, but our bed would have barely fit into the room and there would have been no room otherwise. The only pluses to this one were it came with a washer & dryer and was really cute on the outside. It turns out it's across the street from one of Doug's assistant managers, not sure if that would be a plus or minus though, lol.

And then the next day we saw this one:

House #6. I had high hopes for this one. It was listed as a three bedroom but you had to walk through one bedroom (that literally was only big enough to hold their bed) to get to the other one. And 2 of them didn't have closets. The living room was small, like tiny. The bathroom looked ok, a tad small but not bad. I actually kinda liked the kitchen. It was another eat-in but bigger than the others and had a decent amount of counter space (although it's not hard to beat what I have now!). But the house had a really old heating system, the unfenced backyard faced the local offices of the power company and their yard of power polls, and the entire yard had the scent of the stuff they put on the polls (ick!). But it did have a nice deck. Overall it was decided that this one was a little too small for the price and it got knocked off the list.

So, that's where we're at now. I'll be sure to update you when we look at more!

I Love Harry Potter

So, anyone who knows me should know that I love Harry Potter. Like LOVE Harry Potter. I've read the books, seen the movies, have a Lego set kind of love. So when a friend from my book club announced that she was doing a Harry Potter Revisited challenge on her blog I got very excited.
She is planning to post discussions about the books and movies on her blog and then post trivia questions. Participants will email their answers to her and then get various points for each question answered correctly. There are awesome prizes for first, second, and third (x2) place.
It's not too late to sign up and it should be a lot of fun!

Welcome to my blog

Welcome to my very random blog. I decided to start this so that there was an easy way to keep my friends and family up-to-date on what is going on in my (well our) life. Typically life here is fairly boring but it seems to be picking up here lately. So this blog will be the place where it all gets written down for easy reference.

Right now we're house hunting, so expect to see lots of posts about that. Then when we finally find a house expect lots of posts about all the steps of buying, packing, moving (including lots of me complaining about how much I hate packing and moving), unpacking and decorating (and lots of me complaining about how much I suck at unpacking and decorating).

There will be other stuff too, like about books I'm reading or trips we're taking for instance. So those types of posts will show up too. So I promise to label everything very well, that way you can skip to what interests you.

So, again welcome and please feel free to comment. You know how much I love hearing from you all!