Change of plans?

So. Jeff and I now have our income tax returns and were planning on deciding on a house soon...I was feeling a little anxious in general. I really like the houses that we'd narrowed down as our favorites, but I have to admit that I wasn't completely in love with them.

Everyone said "when you see it, you'll know." Frankly, at our price point, I just didn't think that was going to happen. Then yesterday, on a whim, I decided to look through houses on Craigslist (because you can often find properties that aren't listed in MLS for one reason or another.) I figured it was worth a shot. And I stumbled across this:



Can you hear my heart going pitter pat? And me swooooning? Cause I am. I told our realtor that I thought it was unlikely that I'd walk into ANY house and like it enough to make an offer on the spot. I will refrain from jumping into anything, but sheeesh. I think I'm in love.

I haven't felt excited about any other house like I've felt with this one...just from one small sketch.

I called the builder today. It's in a lovely neighborhood that we actually already drove through. It's actually priced UNDER our limit and everything under the sun is included: all landscaping, window coverings, HOA covers your front lawn maintenance...and it's possible that we could get a lot overlooking the park. It's taking every ounce of me not to start squealing right now!

So. Here we are. A completely unexpected turn, but maybe this is where we were meant to go. It's still minutes away from our friends (who Jeff will be carpooling with) and they'll let me alter floorplans if I want (you know that makes this little seamstress happy. I can never just follow the plans!) Also...this is a neighborhood where you can bring your own builder, so it's definitely not cookie-cutter.

Mmmm...we're going to see a model on Sunday and they're supposed to email floorplans to me. I'll definitely keep you all posted! :)

Really???

A house listing I just read:

Quiet location; it almost feels like a dead-end street on a private lane (shhh, it is). Deliver this newly wed seller a wedding gift of your offer and you'll discover you're the one who closes with holy matrimony by truly loving this home.

Seriously?? I think I just threw up a little.

Just had to share...

I thought this was too funny :)

Revisiting: continued...

Here's the 2 story that we like (the Alturas). There are 2 different fronts that you can choose now.

Craftsman front:


Traditional front:


When you walk in the front door, there's a little entry, closet and 1/2 bath. To the left is a small living room:


From the living room, looking to the back of the house, there's a dining area with a sliding door to the patio to the left...stairs to the right and kitchen straight back (the utility room is to the left of the kitchen and the garage is behind the property):


There is a decent sized pantry:


Looking toward the stairs and entry:


Closets in spare bedrooms (same in the 1 story too):


The view from one of the spare bedrooms:


Looking toward the master bedroom from spare bedrooms:


Master bath:

Revisiting: our top choices

I finally remembered to take pictures during the walk-through of the new houses.

Revisiting our favorites:

Here's the one story that we like (the Maple):


Here's looking in from the front door:


From the front door, the utility room and garage are to the right, the kitchen/dining area to the left (but you have to walk through the living room to get to them). At the back of the house is the living room, with a patio and the little back yard:

The sliding door leads to the patio and the arched doorway leads to the 3 bedrooms and 2 baths:


The kitchen is a nice size with a bay window/dining nook to the right of the room:


There's a small pantry:


And here's the sunny little dining nook:


Here's a view from the living room, looking toward the kitchen:


The kitchen has a lazy susan, which I love to itty bitty pieces:


Here's looking from the hall, toward the bedrooms:


One of the bathrooms:


I didn't really take pictures of the bedrooms because...they're bedrooms and not all that exciting to take pictures of. There is a nice little walk-in closet in the master, so that's nice :)

The crazy house (continued)....

They said: Nice upgrades such as tiled countertops (bathrooms & kitchen)


I say: Just because it was an upgrade in '93 does NOT mean it's still considered an upgrade.


Now...I don't see anything in the listing about the fridge and dryer (didn't see a washer) being included. A girl can hope though!
The dryer:


And Jeff modeling the fridge...try to contain yourselves!


There were definitely some interesting decor choices as well...
"And here, we have the master shower..."


Yes...the shower has fishies. Not sure why either. They weren't even the kind to keep you from slipping! I think I'd feel weird stepping on fish every morning.


The guest bathroom had an awesome fuzzy pink toilet seat cover (which I found particularly funny since it seemed like it was a man who lived there):


The master bedroom had a super classy lightswitch:


And there was some lovely "art" in the hallways:


Spiderman comic, Miss Saigon playbill and a Star Trek poster. All framed, of course.


Oh, and don't forget the John Wayne tribute!


Alright. I think I've mocked this house sufficiently now.

House #20

Oh, people....this house. Wow.

You know the saying "can't see the forest for the trees"? Yeah...literally here:


I have never seen so many trees on one tiny lot. There were huge trees lining the driveway and the front lawn and all in front of the bay window. Ironically, this was a corner lot, and where you would expect there to be trees (along the street), there weren't any. Goooo figure.


Something about it looks very Hansel and Gretyl to me.

Let's move on to the description:
Rare opportunity to own a home w/minimal usage. Seller has spent most of time conducting business out of state so total time lived in home was about 4 years total!

Maybe it's just me, but that doesn't sound quite as great as they think it does (especially when you consider that the house was built in '93!). That sounds to me like no one lived in the home for a significant amount of time, so who knows what kinds of things were neglected. I'll give you some hints.

1)the yard:


Our current yard is such a headache to keep up with...this one seemed like it might try to compete for migraine status.

2)the floor (ok...maybe these aren't neglected, but wow! The ugliness! My eyes!!):
Holy moly...would you check these out??? That's right. Teal. Marbled. Shag. Carpet. *swoon!* And yes...it runs throughout the house. Try to contain yourselves.


And the kitchen...ohhh the kitchen. It was some weird green marble tile looking vinyl...with gold "grout". Mmmhmmmm....*raises eyebrow*


3)the property. Everyone KNOWS the house is normally empty. How do I know this? I was trying to take a picture of the wierd spot at the front of the house. We were discussing how odd it was to plant a small forest immediately in front of the bay window (umm...isn't the point of the bay window to have light?). I noticed this strange spot on the window:


(The first one to catch my attention was smack dab in the middle of the window...and filled with hot glue. I kid you not.) I commented how odd and then I hear the words "bullet hole" between Jeff and Butch. Ummmm...what??? "Yeah," they say "at the very least, those are bb holes."

Aaaaaand another house off the list. I was already questioning things since one side of the street was nice and the other was...iffy. BB/bullet holes just seal the deal for me.

But wait! There's another post coming! After I'd ruled out the house for real reasons (the neighborhood/safety level and crazy yard), I decided to focus on the things that were so distracting....I think they should have another post. :P

House hunting: Day 5!

Yesterday was an up and down house day. The first one we stopped at wouldn't let us in (apparently her realtor never told her we were coming?) Whaaatever. Butch said it didn't really look like something we wanted to waste our time on, just from what he saw from the entry.

Next, we stopped in Kim & Jesse's neighborhood. The builders weren't there and the realtor who was there was incredibly rude. They also won't let us tour the model we were interested in...I think I've just had enough. It's still on the list if nothing works out, but I don't care for how we've been treated there.

Third stop was the neighborhood right behind Kim & Jesse (where the 1-story we like is located) and we looked through the 1 story again and they also had 2 versions of the 2-story completed, so we toured those as well. I didn't get those pictures uploaded though...I'll try to have them up tomorrow.

Fourth stop was another new neighborhood, which was really pretty as well. Historical looking houses, but all brand new. I like this trend! :) There wasn't anything to tour there though, so we went to the last place...a pre-existing home...but I think it's going to have to have a separate post!

House #15

This was the last one for our trip last week....it had potential, but something in my gut said that there was more wrong with this house than we could see, plus it was further away than I cared to be.


This definitely would've been a fixer, but at over 1400 sq ft, it's the biggest one we've looked at in our price bracket:

The porch needed to be fixed:


but the living room was nice and sunny!


The kitchen was ok...needed some updating...


There was also a good sized family room (which had some LOVELY huntin' themed wall border!


Basically, when you walked in and to the right, there was the dining/kitchen area and then the family room behind that:


The bathroom was a little weird:


The windows needed to be replaced:


The yard was one giant weed, I swear.


...and the property backed to a big open field, with a church/private school to the right:


Overall...just too much work. Did I also mentioned that it smelled musty? We decided that they probably cleaned the carpet in a hurry and didn't let it dry properly.


Neeeext!

House #14:

I actually liked this house quite a bit.


No question why they were moving...they had 6 people living in a little 1100 sq ft house! It was cute though...they even had music softly playing when we got there. hehehe

Living room:


Kitchen:


Cute bedrooms:




And look at the cute headboard on this bed...I love it! :)


There was a nice little backyard:





So why did we not pick this house, you ask?
Let's look from the street....to the left of the house:


Aaaaand to the right:




Did you hear that sound? *thud* Yeah...that was the property value. Oh well...