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Monday, December 10, 2007

The Good, The Bad, & The Ugly!

We got home last night after 8pm and I went straight to bed. All of these houses intermixing in my head until I'm not sure what is what!

First of all, there weren't that many in the categories that we are looking for. We don't want to be in a subdivision anymore where houses are so close to each other that you can see what your neighbor is cooking for dinner by looking out your window and in through hers. Our kids are grown now, so a neighborhood with lots of kids is just not what we need.

We don't want huge acreage, but an acre or so of woods would be nice, I like the seclusion.

A "new" construction house isn't as important to me as the quilting space the house has, but with older homes there is often stuff that needs to be updated, painted, un-wallpapered, appliances replaced, etc. So you have to factor that in to the equation because it also adds to the expense and stress of moving.

The first choice house that we saw via the internet did NOT work. The lovely farm house? It was way better in the pics than in reality! Way too much work to make it liveable, and really didn't have quilting space. Darn it! Besides that, what the pics don't show you is that the house is on a busy road with trailer houses across the street. So much for my seclusion! With my animals too, I don't want a busy street. However, I did like the tiled bathroom counter enough to take a pic!


The next house we went to looked good on paper, but MAN, what a disaster!

There was mess everywhere, the people were still there madly trying to clean up the house when we got there, and we were greeted rather loudly by this Great Dane in the back yard!



Another UGLY house had...get this...a huge jet tub in the MIDDLE of the master bedroom! It was a very contemporary 1970's house..blehhh..of course, DH WOULD like it..it was like a hotel bedroom! It also had a bidet in the bathroom...no thanks! One toilet is enough for me to want to clean, I don't want a bidet!! Really, this house was much better on the outside than in the inside, so again, looks can be deceiving!

As for the huge tub? I thought about it...I have a garden tub in my bathroom here. We've been here 5 years..I've probably used it 3 or 4 times. It's a waste of space as far as I'm concerned....

The BEST house of all turned out to be too far away to be feasible. I was so sad about this because it was perfect in every way! If I could move that house and put it closer to DHs work...I would in a minute and be completely happy with it.

While on our jaunts, and since I had my camera...I had to take this special picture for DAWN..*LOL* When we went to Paducah in April, their caravan had a contest going on who could find the ugliest yard art. I found the holiday version!! What do you think Dawn??

I think it's a Christmas tree, but It could be a spaceship?? Made out of popcorn tins and cookie tins and fruitcake tins and whatever else....weird. Completely weird. For me it gets the ugly award! And there I was on a busy street jumping out of the car to take pictures..*hehehee* It did help lighten up the mood of this whole brain numbing house hunting weekend!

So on to the house we "THINK" may be the one....that is unless something else comes on the market within the next few weeks...

I'm posting some of the pics from the online listing, because they were taken when trees had leaves and things were green. Another hard thing about house hunting in the winter is how DEAD everything looks and it is hard to imagine what things will look like in the summer.



This house is a bit smaller than what I have now, it is minus one bedroom, it doesn't have an eat in kitchen, and it doesn't have a separate dining room, just an extension of the living area as a dining area, but I think I could live with that. How often do you use a dining room anyway? And we are whittling down to the point where there will only be 2 of us living in the house within the next few years.


I don't know if you can tell from the photos, but the dining area is right behind the sofa in a little alcove. Not bad....and through the french doors there is another room that is like a sun-room....then off of the sun-room, the weirdest part of the house (which I didn't get pics of) was a huge bathroom with a sunken HOT TUB..I'm not talking jetted bathtub, I'm talking a full sized hot tub that they sunk into the floor! It's kind of dated and the tile is not great, there is also a shower/bathtub, toilet and sink in there...it's HUGE for a bathroom, but isn't attached to a bedroom. What I am thinking is that we remove the hot tub..put down new sub floor and flooring, and I turn that into a massage room? It's the weirdest thing in the house really. The bedrooms upstairs are large. The bathrooms need updating because the house was built in the late 70's..



However..it has a HUGE basement! And there is a fireplace with a wood stove insert in what would be my quilting room. Someone has painted the panelling down there cream, and it needs updating too...some TLC...but the space is there, and space is more what I am concerned with than anything, right?

The house is wood sided and very much has a "log cabin" feeling to it outside. It's hard to tell in the photos. The shutters are brown, on top of brown siding...but what if I painted the shutters a different color?

The front porch has a porch swing! I loved this. The garage is huge and has lots of storage above and behind the garage (DH loved this..he also loved the fact that there is a "yard" garage as part of the basement, complete with it's own little garage door for the riding lawn mower ;c)

There is a lot of updating to do...starting with removing very dated 1980's to 1990's wall paper...in the kitchen, the living room and the hall. But that is cosmetic mostly (but still it's ugly...)

So now we are playing the waiting game. The appraisers come this week to tell us what our house is worth here. Then we can proceed with what we can afford there. Once we get things rolling, I think this move will happen fast. I'm a bit in a daze with it all!

14 comments:

  1. Hi Bonnie, I think the house you like is very nice. I have to chuckle, it looks so much ( the outside) like our sons house. Of course the inside is different and theirs is not for sale.
    Would you believe that on Dec. 17th, 41 years ago we moved in this house. We had 2 small children, very little furniture no Christmas bought, no decorations to put up.
    Buttttt, somehow you get through it all. I will say I have never looked back and laughed about it all, that was a very trying time for me. Maybe that is why we haven't moved again!!!!! Keep good thoughts, the right place is out there, if not the one you saw this weekend, then there will be another. Looking forward to you being in our neck of the woods and hopeing to meet you someday. J

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  2. Your frustration is palpable. I can sympathize with the way you're feeling, things WILL get better!

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  3. Unlurking here! As one who moved from TX to the mountains of VA, everything you said brought back memories. Househunting was disappointing, but purchasing was even more so. Looking at so many gives you overload...so we named them! The first house we put a contract on had a high radon level and they couldn't mitigate it, so we canceled the contract and had to move to an apt. It took 5 months to find a house. The move was a nightmare, but once we did buy a house and settle in, I loved living there. We use to drive over to Winston-Salem for shopping at Best Buy and the mall a couple times a year. I enjoyed going there as it is a nice area.

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  4. Ahhhh - yes - I believe you win the tacky holiday yard art contest! Too Funny! The possible house at least looks like you have some things to work with and a nice yard! Oh I don't envy you the moving!

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  5. Can you imagine us already: sitting on the swing at the porch just like two little giggling girls ;-)

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  6. Makes my head swim just reading about your house hunting. Looks like that house will work just fine and be kinda fun to fix up. Remember -- FUN .. not a chore! :)

    Good luck!

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  7. Boy do I sympathize with you. I shudder to think of some of the "dogs" we looked at from the internet. The last one looks like it could be perfect given a bit of TLC. Good luck, Bon.

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  8. I'm glad we're only moving a few feet instead of miles!
    The house looks good, hope it works out.

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  9. I'm with you on the bathrooms. I don't have a need to share my bathroom time with others--I'd rather use the space for a closet and the time for quilting.

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  10. Good to hear you found 'something' ... Good luck with your decisions. As far as size of home? You are probably like most of the rest of us -- you spent the first half of our life accumulating, and the second half un-accumulating. Smaller is a LOT better! Of course, you have your quilting stuff ....

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  11. When you said the house is a bit smaller than your current one I did wonder what was going to happen to that stash! Then I heaved a sigh of relief when I read about the basement. It does look so peaceful and quiet and you can easily overcome the internal decorating problems with a wallpaper stripper and tons of paint (and a plumber!).

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  12. What a fun post. And I like that house.

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  13. The house certainly looks like it has potential.

    You can turn the "uglies" part into something that is more you>

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  14. One of the houses we looked at when we were moving to Columbia had a hot tub room between the Living Room and Kitchen. You could feel the humidity when you walked into the house! Not a good thing for Columbia - it's humid enough. If I remember correctly it was in the Murrywood subdivision.

    Good luck on finding *the* house.

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