Homeward bound

Yesterday we may have found a house. It led me to a quandary the likes of which I have not faced before.

On Friday night we got the place looking like a home in which people live, instead of a shack where wild dogs had recently ravaged the place. We went to Moe's for dinner, where Alison tried to show me some of the places we'd see with a sketchy Internet connection courtesy of Starbucks. We dropped off more junk in the storage closet. All storage places make you think of Silence of the Lambs. You really don't get much of a positive vibe there. Our final stop was Target.

After dropping about four car loads of junk, 90% of which we would not miss if the place burned down, the house was much cleaner, less cluttered. I begged off around midnight and Alison joined me. We were in the midst of a cold spell so all four of us were necessary to stay warm. Someone who lives in Chicago would laugh at us for our wussiness.

We got up around eight. Annette, our real estate agent, was coming over to see our place and show us some homes. At the same time, Alison's mom and grandmother were arriving, to tag along. I would be highly outnumbered.

She arrived with her husband. Brad was a nice guy who's a project engineer for the city. He also is wicked smart about home design and repair. He'd be a useful guy on our quest. Annette reviewed our place. She called the floors the "wow factor" and thought that we should keep our updates to the bare minimum. Alison's mom and grandmother were raring to go.

We got a large packet of information. On the front we had a list of 14 homes, from most expensive to cheapest. Most of them were in the region of Laurel Hill Road, where we had seen a place last weekend. We wanted to be in DeKalb County but not the City of Decatur. There are tax considerations. There are dozens of considerations, and I may be aware of three.

We didn't know what place we'd visit first visit, until I turned the page. The houses were listed in order of our journey. The first house was near Tucker, a bit outside the zone that we have been focusing on. It was in the middle of our price range, and recently reduced. We joked that the listing mentioned an antique set of doors that were from New York and "had a view of the Hudson".

I brought a notepad and was determined to take good notes of each place. You see, I want to feel like part of the process. I have a wife who, once she's invested in a project, is really invested and there's not much room for anyone else. What do my notes say?

"No lawn backyard". The backyard is a bit of an oasis. It's an oasis in winter so the growth is less than it would be. There are trees, bushes, and paths as far as we can see. From the giant bay window in the living room we can see it all. It's going to be a favorite of the kitties. Wait, am I talking like we've already decided to buy the place? Sorry, getting ahead of myself.

"Small kitchen". We have a very small galley-style kitchen in our place right now. We want a big kitchen. This place does not have a big kitchen. It's a 47-year-old home and the stove looks it. We'd have to do some work.

There is a man cave. Let me quickly discuss the man cave concept. We currently live in a 1,000 square foot condominium. It's small. There's no room for my man activities, mainly watching sports and farting. The downstairs has a bathroom (small but people were smaller in 1962), one bedroom that will probably turn into an office and a carpeted room that has cave potential. It leads out to a porch. The porch is an add-on. To the left of the porch is where my grill will reside. We found a couple of frolicking kitties under this porch. Alison thinks they were doing something else that starts with "f" but we'll leave it at that.

Upstairs we have three bedrooms and two bathrooms. The master bath is tiny. We'd have to do some work.

Oh yes, the doors that faced the Hudson now face the car port. There's room for two cars but it would be tight. There's also a small storage area for outdoor equipment. The only lawn is in the front yard, and it's smaller than a putting green. I could get one of those 50s mowers that doesn't have an engine and just relies on man power. I am a man, after all.

My description doesn't cover how I felt about the place. I liked it. I've been blah so far in our house hunting, mainly because I don't know what to look for. I felt like, at this place at least, that I might have found a home.

I like to post odd stats regarding sports, mainly football, on my twitter feed. Here's the stat about this place. It's two doors down from the first house I rented in Atlanta. I only lived there three months, but the journey is interesting.
The rest of the search was long and difficult. The best part about the second house was that there was a tray of mini Butterfingers. We didn't stop for lunch until after three, so this kept me going as we drove by and visited a total of 12 homes.

I wrote my notes on a different page for each house. Most houses didn't need a page. We walked through houses that were foreclosed and lacked heat, on a day when the high was around 40, that was really cold. We kicked a guy out of his house so we could look at it. It was a short sale, which meant that he was about to foreclose. We saw a CNN hat in the laundry room and remembered that they had recent layoffs. We also pushed out a family of four, including two young kids. It was obvious that they had outgrown their place.

The house we looked at last week was Alison's grandmother's favorite. It was the cheapest of all the places. It also would need the most work. There was one small bathroom among the three bedrooms on the top floor. The living room was a converted garage. The kitchen would have to be blown up. While we were talking about updates to be made, I said that the best thing to do would be to just tear the place down and start over.

We stopped at 3, tired, hungry, and oversaturated with knowledge. After eating and going home, we agreed that the first place was the one.

Which brings up the quandary. We can look at the house at 5 today. The Titans game starts at 4:15. There's a time in a man's life in which he has to make his priorities.