Sunday, February 22, 2009

Home Sweet Retro Home

Goin' on a house-hunt (goin' on a house-hunt)

I'm not afraid (well, maybe a little)

Got a real good friend (it is my husband)

By my side (by my side)

Oh, Oh (Oh, oh)

What do we see? (What do we see?)

Oh look! It's hideous tile! (hideous tile!)

Oh look! It's a ceiling falling down! (ceiling falling down!)

Oh look! It's twenty city violations! (20 violations!)

Do we got to go through it? (Got to go through it?) (Make motions with hand like you are holding your nose to avoid smelling mold)


Ok, that's enough of that.

So we went house-hunting this weekend. The first house I could have said no as soon as we turned down the street. I'm pretty picky about where we live, but even Nathan agreed that the area wasn't good. When we went into the house we realized it didn't have a dinning room. Or even a breakfast nook. There was no place to eat at all. So we joked that I'd have to buy a desk off an elementary school and put it next to the kitchen window and serve dinner one person at a time.
Other than those two things, the house wasn't bad.

The next 2 houses and the very last house we saw were all bank owned. The first wasn't too bad, but I'm pretty sure I smelled something funny. And the kitchen wasn't any bigger than what we've got now. And if you've seen what we've got now, you know it isn't much. The next house was really bad. It was completely deceiving. The outside looked wonderful. They've completely redone the outside. Too bad they forgot to do the house's ROOF. The ceiling was falling down in every room. We went maybe 2 feet in and had to go back out. Nathan thinks the problem might have actually started from the upstairs bath and they just never got it fixed and then the problem got worse and worse until all the ceilings started coming down. To be honest, I don't remember a thing from the last house because I was still so enamored with the one just before it.

The next to last house was awesome. The man that owns it is 90 years old and I don't think he's changed a thing in the house (except new fridge, hot water tank, stuff like that) since it was built in 1950. He is a widower and I'm certain he's left everything how it was when his wife passed. He's also really clean. There was no dust anywhere. Not even on the hot water tank.

Nathan has been really good about this. He likes the house because it has nice carpet and the roof isn't falling in. I like it because it's funky. He hates the funky.

Here's my I Love It!/He Hates It! List:

-The dining room. Not such a big deal, but all we have to do it take down some wallpaper and paint (Nathan is insistent here). I get to pick the colors, so that's ok.

-Extra room off the dining room that I'm making into a sewing/craft/writing room.

-The kitchen (and I can't believe I'm putting it at a positive) has turquoise and black tile counter tops. I've always hated tile counter tops, but these along with the rest of the very retro kitchen, well. . .it's just so dang cute! Pink walls with turquoise and black tile counters? What could be better? I guess Nathan knows what is better because he's going to put in new counter tops.

-The master bedroom has dual closets and the room is HUGE! He has no qualms with this, but he hates the light fixture in the room and I think it's one of the coolest things I've ever seen. The rest of the coolest things I've ever seen are also in this house and things he hates. Other way awesome light fixtures are in the small bedroom (where Megan will be) and in the half-bath).

-The second bedroom is also very large. Unfortunately it has linoleum which Nathan also plans on changing to carpet. I guess I agree with that one.

-The third bedroom is very girly, perfect for Megan. Pink with amazingly cute, perfect, girly wallpaper and built-in book shelves and tons of storage in the closet.

-The bathroom. Oh where to start? Nathan hates it. I love it. Description won't do it justice, so when we get the house (I hope I hope I hope) then I'll be taking lots of pictures of everything.

-Partially finished basement. I can just send the kids down there to play and not have to worry about what a huge mess they are making. And they can make almost as much noise as they want. There's also a wet bar in it, which of course we don't care about since we don't drink, but it's cool if we want to entertain down there ever. Which I don't really see us doing since we are basically giving that part of the house to the kids so I can have some space.

-Two Words: Deep Freeze.

-The house is in a really nice area where some houses are going for over 200,000 but our price isn't anywhere near that (thankfully or we'd never have even seen the house).


So I guess that's it until we get the house and can take pictures of it's loveliness. It's really funny because I almost nixed the house before we even saw it. I'd seen a couple pictures on the Realtor website and couldn't get over the curtains in the living room. I know I shouldn't have based the house off a picture of curtains, but I almost did. SO GLAD I DIDN'T!!

5 comments:

That Girl said...

Just found ya on Mormon Mommy Blogs - I clicked on you cuz we are going house hunting this week. Something I'm extremely very excited about ... and also not so much.

And I just wanted to say that I ALSO have three kids and my eldest is names Nathan, which is, like, WHOA. We must have been destined to be friends. ;o)

Janelle said...

Ben's thing with the house is that I can decorate it how I want it, since I'm the one who is in it all day long while he's at work. "It's your house," he always says. He told me that from the beginning, when we first got married. Now, whenever we have an aesthetic disagreement, I always have a trump card. Is this house within the ward boundaries? I sure hope so!

rachel said...

Hey you can have a retro house like CJane :) The house sounds so great!
I hope you get it and take lots of pictures. I'm really excited for you and the fact that it has a place to eat in and the ceiling is not caving in??? Priceless... And by the way, I really liked your version of goin' on a house-hunt :) (patting my knees)

sara said...

I didn't know you guys were going to buy a house. I'll be interested to hear the details!! Good luck.

Summer said...

So many fun features! I can't wait to see pictures!