House Shopping!

Eight days 'til closing! The anticipation is starting to get painful but I've
got a lot of work here to keep me busy.

Of course why do work when you can write! Besides, I have to wait until it
warms up. I'm cleaning the deck today and would rather not work in 2C weather.

I was in love with the first house we look at, way back in July. It was an older
home-built in the 30s-on a tree lined street-in Calder- with a cute fenced yard, a red door
and dormer windows-front and back. Right up my alley! Alas it was not to be
for when we stepped onto the sidewalk in front of the house, my husband noticed
something that declared the house a no-go. The house was built right on the property
line and the neighbour had placed his BBQ in his yard, up against the side of our house.
Not a big deal to some but a huge one to us for a lot of different reasons.
We went into the house to look anyway and OH my heart, even though it had some
strange quirks- bathroom in 2 rooms, killer basement stairs-it was a house that called out
to me. Cry Cry Cry

The next house would have been pretty awesome, had it not been built for short people!
It was in the same neighbourhood as house #1 and was huge! It needed lots of work but
as a first time owner in our price range we were expecting that. I wasn't keen on it at first
but when I walked in and saw the gorgeous, glossy wood staircase, I was ready to say
"sold!" We climbed those pretty stairs and things got squishy pretty quick. None of us
could stand fully upright!We're not giants either, all of us are under 6 feet tall. Things got
a lot weirder when my husband went into the basement. He's convinced people have died
down there. Died in a horror movie kind of way.... *shudder. It was that creepy. And wet.
Never a good combination!

House #3 and #4 were in an entirely different neighbourhood-and on the same street.
Athlone to be exact. They were both pretty much the same. Nothing really to look at,
1960s ranchers. In their original state.

The first one was occupied by a busy messy family. I wouldn't say it was trashed exactly
but it needed a new roof and the yard was not mowed and they had tidied up, rather than
cleaned. Let's just say I would have been hiring cleaners to scour it from top to bottom had
we bought it. But the garage looked like it could have blown over in a good wind and ..just...
yeah no. We didn't like how it was set up and it was obvious that while they'd tried,
maintaining the property was not their forte.

House #4 was a breath of fresh air after viewing house #3! It had been painted and an
effort had been made to clean it up. It had a nice yard and a big kitchen, I  liked how the
utility room was in the back of the house. This was the house my daughter loved. I had
zero emotional attachment to the place but could see it wasn't awful. There were some
issues with the floors and the foundation, the gutters went into the ground rather than
out away from the house but it was alright. My Hubs thought it was priced too high
and the neighbours we met outside thought so too!

I don't know about you, but I'm not interested in living next door to rude, opinionated
people who complain about the state of their neighbour's houses! Besides, the electrical
had not been updated and we didn't have the cash to do it ourselves, especially if we were
to pay such a high price. So yep, another no-go.

But, we really liked the area, it  just seemed so much...I don't know..calmer than the streets
in Calder. We hadn't seen anything bad in Calder...Athlone just felt ..settled. It was the
strangest thing. So we decided.to wait and see what else popped up. We didn't have to wait
long either. But that's a story for another day!