It’s not a perfect art. Or, so I’ve learned. Jonathan and I have embarked on the never-ending, stress-building, time-taking, exciting and exhaustive process of buying our first house. And what with it being an incredible buyers market right now, and Obama’s new home owners tax credit, we would like to make the purchase sooner rather than later.
I know I’m a picky person. I’ve always known this. So, when it came time to spending our entire Saturday driving around looking at houses with our realtor, I tried to prepare myself to be less than impressed. I think it’s just the delusional dream house concept that gets us all into trouble. It’s the one that makes you think that your first house is going to be the castle to your fairytale marriage. Not quite. We looked at some unbelievable houses, and some of which I would be completely happy with. However, it is all of the trade-offs that have come to stress me out:
...the bigger house is more expensive
...but it has X, Y and Z more
...and the smaller house really has everything we need
...but with no yard
...yet, it does have a fabulous walk-in kitchen pantry
...for which the bigger one has none
...and the bathrooms would have to be re-done in this
...yet it’s less expensive to re-do that
...but I like the location of this better
...if it only offered the better school district
And the list goes on and on and on. We narrowed the 10 houses we looked at down to 2 yesterday. Then when I called to see if our realtor could show us both of them one more time, she informed us that one of them already sold. (Sad face)
Everything happens for a reason. Maybe we weren’t supposed to live there.
The fun part for me is walking through each room and imagining where I would position furniture, what paint palettes to apply where, and prioritizing which reno projects to do first. Ummm- new chandelier here…refinish cabinets there…add crown molding everywhere…
Last night Jonathan and I both had a hard time falling asleep. About an hour after lights out, and not a word said:
Jonathan: I can’t sleep. I keep thinking about the house.
Me: Me too! I thought you were asleep. I keep thinking of how to decorate and paint each room.
Jonathan: Well, I’m thinking about how to pay for it.
We both couldn’t help but laugh. What stereotypical man and woman responses. We do make a great team!
To be continued...
1 comment:
House hunting is so fun but definitely stressful too! Good luck - and check out the details on the tax credit because I saw Suzy Orman this week talking about it and it only applies if you're at a certain income level and the house is at a certain price level. Of course I cannot remember the actual details! Can't wait to see what you pick - and no matter what you will transform it completely into your very own.
Post a Comment