House Happenings: We’re Moving! Part 1

I think it’s about time I update this blog on what’s happening on the Home Front. We’re moving, in less than a month. When did we find out, about three weeks ago and we’ve been frantically packing and painting to put our house on the market.

The whole thing is such a God thing and I’m really not complaining on the timing of it all, it’s just a lot of stress and work. Here’s the story.

We’ve been thinking about moving for years, but couldn’t stand to think of leaving our 80 year old neighbors who are like family. But we seemed to be busting at the seams. So we decided to go to a couple of Parade of Homes, then we got a Realtor and the homes he was showing us, just didn’t cut it. Some were very beautiful, but didn’t have the right amount of rooms, some had the right rooms, but wrong sizes and so on. You see, several years ago I saw my dream home. It had a walkout basement in a town where basements aren’t the norm. Upstairs it had four bedrooms and a game room, the main floor had a master suite, dining, kitchen, guest room, living room. You get the picture. Beautiful and big and out of our price range. But I kept holding on to the dream. Maybe some day!

I almost let go of the dream this summer. In fact, after looking at all the homes we could afford and realizing they were nothing like our dream home, I resigned that it wasn’t going to happen for us, even though I knew God could make it happen. In fact, friends of ours got a steal on a 5,000 square foot home for under $400,000. It was a fixer upper, probably a foreclosure and I kept telling my hubby, that’s the kind of deal I wanted. So even though I believed it could happen, I didn’t expect it to happen.

That’s when hubby spilled the beans. He was looking at this big home, with a walk out basement and a pool, but it was a real fixer upper. I was shocked! When my hubby looks at something, he’s seriously considering it. You see, he’s the guy that will mull something over for months, but when he makes a decision it’s full speed ahead.

So he reluctantly showed it to me. He wanted my reaction. His initial thoughts on the home was if it’s something I really wanted, he’d make it work…for a while. You see, his vision was to fix it up, live in it for a few years and sell it. Not exactly what I wanted to hear, but the price was so far below value (when fixed up) I thought I’d at least give it a chance. I had seen photos of it and it looked almost perfect.

Then I saw it! Let’s just say the smell didn’t bring a smile to my face. It smelled musty, and old, even though it was built in 1985. But it had been locked up for two years, so an airing out was an easy fix. Then I saw the carpet in the main room. Big stain that left me thinking, “who died here?” Later found out the story on the house was a couple from India paid cash for this big home, and his work deal fell through and they couldn’t keep it. Okay, at least it wasn’t a crime scene.

As I went through the house I realized alot of the stuff I saw was cosmetic. I didn’t love the house, but it had possibilities and the profit we could potentially make was appealing! So we started the process, put in a bid and lost the bid. The bank (who owned the home) didn’t like our stipulation of putting a roof on it, so we went off to Florida worry free! We’d been worrying and praying all along that this was too big an undertaking and maybe we were running the numbers wrong. If we didn’t get the house, we knew it wasn’t meant to be.

But when we returned home from vacation we found out the people who won the bid declined the house. We were next in line, but why did they refuse the home? We’d have to see the inspections to know! But I’ll save that for tomorrow!