The Woes of House Hunting

Here's my sob story for today: I've officially lost my patience with house hunting.

"The right one will come along, you just have to be patient."

"If it's meant to be, it's meant to be."

"These things take time."

I've heard these, and other variations of these statements, over and over again in last few weeks. I know it's true, but the Everything-Happens-For-A-Reason reasoning is starting to get under my skin. These are the type of comments that are used in sucky situations, which is why I hate them. I hate sucky situations. The last time I was offered these sentiments was when I got kicked to the curb by a boyfriend.

"I'm tired of hearing that! This is what you say to people who get dumped," I said in frustration to Keith. "It didn't help the last time I heard that and it's not helping now!" (I'm a little dramatic in the morning before I've had my coffee.)

"But didn't it work out for you," he said. (In a very, I'm-right-and-you-know-it tone, I might add.) "Didn't you end up with me?"

"Yeeeeeeessssss," I shot back in my I-don't-like-to-admit-I'm-wrong-but-I-know-I-am tone. "But all those sympathetic comments from my friends didn't make my heartbreak just disappear."

Then he pointed to the cat who was spread out on the kitchen floor and said, "But you never would have met this kitten if you hadn't gotten dumped."

Why's he got to bring the cat into this!?

Now that I've established that I'm upset I can fill you in on the rest of the details. They go a little something like this: We found a house we loved! We made an offer! We were excited! We negotiated and negotiated. We worried! We had our offer accepted! We celebrated! (I started stalking OneKingsLane.com.) We had an inspection done. We found out there were a lot of things wrong with the house. We stopped celebrating.

The house is 60-years-old. It's no wonder that it needs some fixes. My dad said, "I'm 60 and I need some repairs." Then he looked at the inspection report and made one of those hmmmmm sounds. The ones you don't ever want to hear from your doctor. The sound that means, "This is worse than I thought." Keith had been making those sounds all day. If my cat knew how to do anything but beg for food I'm sure she'd be making those sounds, too.

I know that we can do more negotiating and have some (or all) of these problems fixed. We can ask for more money at closing to fix them ourselves, or try lowering our initial offer. We have options, but now we both have that sinking feeling that there might be more things wrong with this house that the inspection didn't reveal. (Hello, have you seen that Mike Holmes show? If I'm going to be on HGTV it's going to be Bath Crashers not Mike Holmes Inspection. Just saying.)

That's where we stand now. We've made three offers on three house with not much to show for it. So go ahead, leave your thoughts below, but please hold the sympathies and everything-happens-for-a-reason-type comments. I've got plenty.   

House Hunting Tactic: Stalking Houses

Making sad playlists and moping around the house may work for heart-broken high school girls, but not for me. So we didn't get the house we wanted. It was a bummer. But the only way to get over it is to get back on the horse again.

So that's what we did. Keith and I spent a rainy Saturday morning trolling the web for listings. Then we plugged the address into our GPS and hit the road to check out the properties. Since our realtor usually needs 24 hours to set up a showing (and we are impatient) this helps us see the area and scope out the yard. You'd be surprised how misleading some of the pictures posted online are! (But then again, if you've ever tried online dating, maybe you wouldn't be.) Stalking the properties we think we are interested in has actually helped us find areas we love and neighborhoods we don't care that much for. Plus, we usually stop for ice cream on these drives.

Here's why I advocate stalking properties:
Saturday we stalked a house in a neighborhood that we LOVED. According to Google maps it was situated pretty close to a major highway and Keith wanted to see if you could hear the traffic from the house. When we drove up to the house I confirmed that I did love the area and I was instantly charmed by the outside. Then Keith rolled down the windows and said, "Shhhh, listen." The optimist in me heard pretty birds chirping. Keith—the realist—heard nothing but the swoosh of speeding cars. He took a quick peek behind the house and confirmed more bad news—the highway was visible through the trees. Maybe it wouldn't have bothered us. Perhaps the noise is barely audible from inside the house, but Keith says having a major highway in your backyard is bad for resale value. It's hard for me to imagine selling a house that we haven't even bought yet, but I have to agree. If it makes us think twice, what will others think five or ten years from now?

A brick house was good enough for the Three Little Pigs, but not for us.

On Sunday we hit the road again. The sun was out so we packed a cooler and spent the morning at the beach. By 2 pm we were on our way to an open house in another one of our top favorite neighborhoods. The whole place smelled like cat pee and the layout was just too weird. And worst of all there was nothing on my checklist to be found in this house. No dining room, no fireplace, no beautiful front entry. An eat-in kitchen alone ain't gonna cut it. But we had two more listings that we wanted to stalk and they were near a Dairy Queen so I kept an open mind as we motored to the next town. Thankfully, we loved the locations of both houses! One was across from a beautiful park and the other was on a pretty side street in our favorite town. If their interiors are true to what we've seen online, I think we might find a winner.

Wish us luck!

Our First House Hunting Let Down

Let me just start by saying this: It's not as bad as it sounds. It's Friday, the sun is shining and I got a free doughnut at Dunkins this morning in honor of National Doughnut Day. All is good in the free world. That's why I'm only slightly disappointed that the offer we put on a house we really loved was not accepted.

Dream house, I know you're out there! 

Let me paint a picture for you: It was a charming Cape with lots of space, a pretty fire place and a dining room. Check, check, check. The upstairs bathroom featured a major bonus—a jacuzzi. And there was an additional 500 square feet and a wet bar downstairs thanks to a beautifully finished basement. The neighborhood was perfect and the schools all checked out.

But I guess someone else loved it more—nine thousand dollars more than we did.

I'm a little bummed. I was already picturing family movie nights and backyard cook outs. In my head I had already made close friends with all the neighbors. I'd invite our new couple friends over for a glass of chardonnay and entertain them with hilarious stories and everyone would laugh and think, "Man, are we glad they bought this house!"

I know that this is not a bad thing. I know there is another house and another neighborhood and other cool couples to entertain on our back patio. I know that when people say this happened for a reason they are right.

I just hope that the reason appears sooner rather than later. Design Star just started again and I'm dying to start decorating!

If you have ever had an offer turned down, tell me how you got over it. What kept your spirits up? And how did you stay patient during the hunt?

New Kitchen Unveiled

It's the moment you've all been waiting for.

Ok, it's really the moment I have been waiting for.

Our new kitchen is finally finished! Still pending the installation of a few pieces of hardware and a small paint touch up, but I felt like today was as good as any to announce the completion.

While everyone else spent the day at the beach, Keith and I had a Memorial cleaning fest. We had moved all of our pantry items and dishes to huge plastic bins for the cabinet installation so we restocked and reorganized. I learned I have way too many spices and also that we will likely be packing up them all up again, very soon, to move. Sigh. But really, it is such a relief to finally be able to see my living room floor now that it is no longer stacked high with boxes and tools. Who needs the beach when you can have a clean house?

The details: We selected a quartz countertop (LG Viatera in Silver Lake) and Sussex cabinets in coco from Cardell Cabinetry. We also decided on an undermount sink and Brainerd Satin Nickel hardware from Lowes. And I am currently falling in love with our faucet: Another Lowes special, the Peerless 1-Handle Kitchen Faucet.

Usually our counter is piled high with mail and West Elm catalogs, but I think this shiny new one is motivation enough to keep it clear.

How did you spent your Memorial Day weekend? Did you make it to the beach or to a cookout, or did you spend some time working on home renovations?

Kitchen Renovations Are Afoot

Part of this whole buying a new house project is the shaping up of our current home so we can sell or rent it for big bucks. I may be a novice at this but I do know that kitchens and bathrooms sell houses. The current state of our kitchen was not doing us any favors so it was time to tear out the ugly, broken cabinets and install something a bit more updated. We started this two weeks ago. It's been 14 long days of take out, paper plates and restaurants. I do love to eat out, but it is starting to get old. I'm so ready to cooks a real meal in our beautiful new kitchen! Here's a look its current state: 

 

1. On May 2 Keith took out our kitchen sink. I've been living sans sink for almost two full weeks. Since I refuse to wash dishes in my bathtub (gross) I've resorted to plastic plates, cups and utensils. It's not my greenest moment, but at least every day feels like a picnic!

2. Our new cabinets arrived in large cardboard boxes and are piled high in the dining room. Pepper is the only family member who will miss them. If you look close enough you can see she's doing little kitty-cat jazz hands up there.

3. Before we can tear out the old cabinets, we have to empty them. This is the worst.

4. New cabinets go in! And a new counter gets installed right on top. It's finally getting pretty around here.

5. Another view of the new cabinets and counter. Note that there's still no working kitchen sink. I think I deserve an award for "Best Attempt At Roughing It".

Has anyone braved a kitchen renovation like this? What was your experience like? 

A Year In Review: Turning 29!

Saturday was my 29th birthday. I thought I was going to feel sad to be entering the last year of my twenties, but I feel refreshingly good. In fact, I think back to my early twenties and don't wish for a day to go back there. In my early twenties I was always striving for something—the perfect job, the perfect guy, the perfect pair of jeans. While I'm still searching for a right pair of jeans (ones that won't drag on the ground or bunch up around my knees) I feel good about what I have found in my life right now. So the number "29" didn't scare me this year. I feel like so many great things have happened in just this one year and I feel like I've learned and grown from all of it.

I Settled Into Life as a Newlywed

After the wedding it seems like everyone is asking how married life is. "Exactly the same, but with more paperwork," I joked to everyone, as I stumbled through the process of changing my name, my bank account and tax information. Being a newlywed was not entirely different from being engaged, but once the planning and excitement of the wedding died down we had time to think about the rest of our lives together. We started talking about buying a house and having kids. After living in New York City, and now New Haven, moving to the suburbs is going to be a chance for me and while we drive around looking at neighborhoods I always think about my tiny walk-up apartment on the Upper East Side and how far I'll have come from that lifestyle. But being a newlywed is more than just a change of venue—it's a whole new way of living. No more selfish decisions. Everything from what I eat for dinner to how I spend my weekends affects another person now and I love planning accordingly.  

I Became a God Mom

My nephew Henry was born in June and when I talked to his mom and dad that day in the hospital via Skype they asked me to be his God Mother. I have the BEST Fairy God Mother, so I was really excited to have the honor of being the same for my Nephew. Since little Henry might not be into Cinderella the same way I was, I'll drop the "Fairy" from my title. But that doesn't mean that I won't give him everything he ever needs or wants. Not only do I get to be the aunt who spoils him, but I also get to be a part of his life in the church. I went to a Catholic school for seven years so I believe I'm well qualified for the job!
 

I Changed Careers

This winter I took a huge risk and left my full time job as a magazine editor for a part time position with an event planning company. The day I told my boss I was leaving was one of the scariest days of my life, and Keith literally had to convince me from wimping out. But I did it. And a few weeks later I started my new role in a brand new field. As an editor, I sat behind a desk all day. I e-mailed and talked on the phone and I spent a lot of time with my head buried in manuscripts reworking and rewriting paragraphs over and over and over. Now, I spend some days in the studio working on invoices and timelines. Other days I'm hunting through Home Goods for decor items for the next event. I have a great mix of creative work that challenges me and new office tasks that also challenge me. I love that every day is different and everyday teaches me something new. Some nights I spent long hours on my feet and get home past midnight with an achy back and neck. But I've found my work to be so fulfilling that none of that even matters.

The most rewarding thing is that I had the courage to make a change in my life when I was unhappy. When I was in my early twenties I clung to the idea that journalism was my dream job and leaving the field would make me a quitter. At 29 I'm happy with what I've accomplished as an editor and I'm proud of myself for recognizing that quitting my job didn't make me a quitter, but rather it made me an even more successful person than I was before.

 I Became a Cat Mom

Cat Mom...Crazy Cat Lady...What ever you want to call me, I have a furry little friend who wakes me up every morning wanting to snuggle be fed. Even though she has a raging ear infection that is racking up a significant bill at the Vet's office, Pepper is the best little kitten in town.

I think my 29th year will be just as action-packed and exciting! And to start it off Chris Harrison is sending a belated gift tonight. Emily's season starts and I'm dying to dig into some horrible reality TV. I had a good year, I think I deserve it!

XOXO

Homeownership is a Marathon

“Homeownership is a marathon, not a sprint.”

Those were the words that were boldly printed on a billboard on route 95. I'm not sure what this ad was for, but I am sure that it was meant, 100 percent, for me. While I don't want to put an offer on the very first house we look at, I do want it yesterday. I bought the very first wedding dress that I tried on and I don't shop online because the shipping process annoys me. This period from deciding we are going to buy a house to actually buying a house is killing me.

We've only looked at four houses so far and none of them have been right. There were things I liked in all of them (like the closet within a walk-in closet). But there are also things just not right about each. See below:

No the house isn't slanted, the black and white tile floors are just making you dizzy. 

I know we can paint the walls and put down a new floor. (Sorry to disappoint, I know you totally thought I was going to go for black and white tile in my dining room!!) After that there may even be some money left over for new cabinets and granite counter tops. We could turn this into a pretty rad kitchen—but it's too small. I was really excited to see this property and was able to look past the reckless interior design decisions the previous owner made. (Umm there was even glitter painted onto the dining room ceiling.) But I just could not picture myself living here. I want an eat-in kitchen and I'd like to be able to invite a lot of people over for a party on the occasional New Year's Eve. I didn't see us fitting here.

After each showing that's just not right I feel discouraged. I know I need to slow down. Our perfect home is out there and we'll find it because we are diligent house hunters. But I am feeling really impatient.

Any words of advice?
Please leave your comments below!