And like a lovesick fool, I have to show you the object of my desire. Here are a couple pics of Bad Boyfriend from the street. Forgive me for not showing too much. This is a public blog, ya know. ;)
Great things about this house:
1. It is exactly in the part of town where we want to live. Believe it or not, this house is well inside the city limits & within a quarter mile of tons of shops and one mile away from a major shopping area (mall, movie theater, etc).
2. Trees! Tons of them! Mostly enormous pines, but I think there are a few oaks in there. The only other house we saw with a lot of trees like this is waaaaaaay out in the boonies. The trees look nice, create privacy & keep the AC bill lower.
3. All those trees means no mowing. Seriously! That's how many trees it has!
4. The neighborhood is small and very quiet. Very quiet. When I've been there, I've heard nothing but the chirping of birds. George would hate that, but we love it. Also, it's clear that the neighbors really care for their properties, which is super good.
5. No Homeowners' Association fees! And no covenants! Did you know that my brother- and sister-in-law have a convenant on their house that says they aren't allowed to make soap? Seriously!
6. There is a covered, screened porch on the back. So we could sit outside and enjoy the trees and NOT get eaten alive by mosquitoes.
7. Kitchen is situated so that I could actually watch TV while working at the stove or the sink. So I'm not totally cut off from the action in the living room while gettin' my bake on.
8. Nice long drive with plenty of parking for us and friends.
9. There is a very nice, paved biking trail very near-by. So we could start riding our bikes regularly again.
Bad things about this house:
1. The roof is 21 years old. The owners' inspector says it's okay (and I did some research & it seems this type of roof can last 25 years), but I'm worried.
2. No garage. Where do we put the bikes? Would we need to get a shed?
3. Here's the big one. The bathrooms in this house are SOOOOO tiny! The smallest bathrooms I've ever seen! Imagine if you tightly crammed a tub, toilet, & sink in the smallest space possible. That's the situation in both of the bathrooms. I honestly think your average handicapped toilet stall is bigger than these bathrooms. There's a linen closet in the hall for the public bathroom, but the bathroom attached to the master bedroom is just as tiny and has zero storage space. Where am I supposed to put towels and extra rolls of toilet paper and my make-up and hair drier and Sheff's electric shaver? Where am I supposed to put my freakin' tampons, fercrissake?!?
And yet ...
And yet we like the place. It feels like home. All the other places have just felt like houses, but this could be home.
So like a desperate, idiotic girlfriend, we defend the house. "We can change it!" we proclaim, knowing full well that the stress and strain and finacial expense of a bathroom renovation terrifies us. And the only way that we could renovate that master bathroom and stay on the house's original footprint would be to bust through the large kitchen. So it would be a bathroom and kitchen remodel rolled up in one. How could we ever do this? How could we possibly think that Sheff and I are really cut out to do this kind of crap? Why on earth would we sign up for this?
So we're considering getting a very young house in a very young, very large neighborhood just so we can avoid the renovation nightmares. But we agree that if we do that, we'll always look back on this place as The One That Got Away.
Sigh.
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