House Wars: A New Hope

As I reported earlier, the husbird and I are on the lookout for our very first home. All the unhappy stuff like financing is all done and out of the way and we're at the part where we wander aimlessly in a sea of potential homes trying to find one we like. Last time I mentioned that there were two homes we were looking at: the one my hubby really liked with the nice backyard and the one with the nice bathroom that I really liked.

Let me tell you, we learned so many lessons doing our first walkthroughs. First, never ever ever trust a photo. The beautiful back yard the husbird was so excited about? Yeah, it's at the bottom of a floodplain. When we got there, it was still saturated. Not a good sign for gardening when there's a huge run-off ditch running down the yard and the ground is still wet from a rain we had two days ago.

I wish I'd grabbed photos of how the place was laid out too but alas I was a little too busy being taken aback by the odd little nooks and poor use of space inside the home. Suffice it to say, we marked that off the list.

Then we went and looked at this one:

Cute enough, right? You'd think that. WE thought that. 

We were wrong.

This is but part of the horror. The bad wood paneling was everywhere. The bathrooms were tiny. Heck, the ROOMS were tiny. The basement had me convinced that we had stumbled into a horror movie and any minute I was going to fall victim to a man wielding an axe. 

Also, there was the smell. 

I'll just leave that part to your imagination.

Finally, we headed to the house that I was so excited about. My lovely large bathroom with the jaccuzzi tub. 

Remember this guy? 

Yeah, it was just as gorgeous as the photos. :) WOOO! It was such a relief to get to this one and find that it was even better than we first thought too! 

The master bedroom has this lovely trey ceiling, though that fan may have to get changed out, and there's good closet space. The bathroom is recently renovated, the carpets are all new, the kitchen is all refitted. 

Yeah, it needs some crafty love but that's part of the joy! I would have my own home to craft up, remake, and turn into the lovely and fabulous space I've always dreamed. 

Even the livingroom is lovely and it sits right in the front of the home with plenty of direct sunlight.

Oh, and that back yard we were so worried about? Yeah, it's MUCH bigger than the seller said it was and there's a huge magnolia tree right in the middle. <3 I'm already picturing us putting a hand painted picnic set out there. 

So, after only three homes, we're already liking this one enough to make a potential offer. I refuse to jump too fast, don't worry, so we're doing 6 more walk-throughs this Sunday and I'm going to hold off on being excited until AFTER the inspector comes to check the place out. No point in setting my heart on a house that later turns out to have the largest colony of termites outside of Africa. 

Still....EEEE!! So excited!!!

I'll bring my camera with me on the next set of tours this weekend and I'll update to let you all know what happens. Who knows? Maybe I'll find some place even better...or perhaps I'll find another home that smells suspiciously like a skunk had a bad love affair with a bag of mothballs. *cough*