« update | Main | still waiting. »
Saturday, June 23, 2007
update again
We made a very conditional (and quite low) offer on a fixer-upper on Thursday. I had to wait to post about it until I could do it without screaming (which left Thursday out) or fainting (Friday). I think I may have whimpered a little just now, but that's manageable. My mantra in this process: People Don't Die Of Buying A House.
The house itself is in eh OK shape. It's sound, but there's some water damage from broken pipes, which are repaired but the spot in the ceiling is not, which means that if our offer (or counter-counter-offer, or whatever) is accepted, we'll be very glad to have handy family members, since T's expertise about cars, firearms, and telecommunications, and mine about whatever areas in which I may have expertise -- maybe putting on band-aids and reading novels -- will not help us much in the matter of serious home improvements. Also, it looks like someone started repainting the interior of the house and never finished (which I can handle, but prepare for posts with asterisks, just in case), and one of the bedrooms has a bare plywood floor, courtesy of the previous owner's dogs and their carpet-wrecking excretory habits. But all of this is the saving grace that actually puts a house in which we can live (read: 3 bedrooms) into a price range which we can, by dint of scrimping and basically not doing anything fun ever again, possibly afford. And hard work is good for us. And maybe while we're getting home-improvement stuff lumped into our mortgage, we can get enough for laminate floors in the living room/kitchen/dining room, instead of the two kinds of linoleum and pale gray carpet that're in there now. So. The house is OK; what I've really fallen in love with, even though I keep telling myself sternly not to, is the land it is on. It's far enough out to be quiet, there are four nice gentle acres which will be a riot of wildflowers in the spring, there's a tree in the backyard that's just right for a treehouse, there's an empty rose arbor just waiting for Natalie's rosebush (which is some sort of climbing thing, most unhappy in our yard), there's a vegetable garden with deer-proof (ha! ha ha! funny term) fencing, there's a two-car garage and a shed for bicycles and lawnmowers (and, let's face it, auto parts). But like I said, I'm not allowed to fall in love with it. I'm not even allowed to think about falling in love with it. Too much could happen to make it, well, not happen. The way I look at it, though, is that it's something to which God can say either Yes or No. And it feels so much better to be doing something more constructive than simply trying not to panic in front of the kids.
So. In other news. Um. (Is there any other news? I cannot believe we have only been home for four days; it seems like this has been consuming all our thoughts for at least a month. This Too Will Pass; I have to keep telling myself that.) Hmm. I have a medium-sized transcribing job to keep me busy while I'm not sleeping at night, car work is progressing apace, and there are more vacation pictures at Flickr. T has to go back to work on Monday (*snif*). Thatisall. I think.
Comments
Four acres? I will not discuss this either, just in case, but ... 4 acres?? Wow. This is good news! Any hope that the current owners will fix up some of the fixer-upper-ness? We were able to persuade the previous owners of our house to replace some of the windows so maybe you will be able to do similar with the flooring? If not, my BIL put laminate flooring into his house (got it at Sam's Club, I believe, for really cheap) and put it in himself with handy-family-members. I don't think it was hard, just time-consuming.
Posted by: mary at June 23, 2007 06:51 PM
The four acres is nice. It's not the seventeen acres I grew up on, but we're not millionaires, either. :) (Most land around here, unless you're actually IN town like we are now or in a planned-development kind of thing, can't be divided into smaller parcels than 2 1/2 or 5 acres.)
If they reject our initial offer and counter with something higher (A definite possibility, according to my FIL. This is such an excellent time to have a Realtor(tm) for a father-in-law; he has been super-helpful) then we can start negotiating with stuff that we would want them to fix before we agreed to their price. Honestly, I got seriously spoiled by the hardwood in our current house. I never want to go back to carpet again, although it's certainly not a hill to die on. Isn't it funny -- forty years ago, wall-to-wall carpeting was a major selling point, and now everyone's tearing it out to refinish the wood underneath. Even my grandmother's ranch has hardwood under the carpet, I think.
Posted by: Rachel at June 23, 2007 07:00 PM
Hey Rachel...remember, God has plans for you..and things happen for a reason. Must be something good gonna happen for you .
Posted by: Debbie at June 23, 2007 08:33 PM
Oh I'm so excited for you! I can't wait to come and visit. I mean, er, if you get the place ;-)
Posted by: jenn at June 23, 2007 11:25 PM
That sounds great! Well, maybe not the repairs, but I'm sure you and your construction-savvy family could handle those. And everything else-- how exciting! :o)
I really hope this works out for you!!
Posted by: Michael at June 24, 2007 09:10 AM
Praying for you Rachel!! God has a great plan for you!!
(Susan, cant wait to find out what you are having)!!
Posted by: debi at June 25, 2007 11:40 AM
Oh, good luck! We bought our house in part because we were deeply in love with the lot it was on - but happily, we also love our old wreck of a house, too.
Posted by: Beck at June 28, 2007 09:21 AM
Oh, good luck! We bought our house in part because we were deeply in love with the lot it was on - but happily, we also love our old wreck of a house, too.
Posted by: Beck at June 28, 2007 09:21 AM
