So back on the subject of the new house...
(After taking the weekend off from this, I think I can write about it now.)
See we kinda have some weird needs in a house. And the most obvious one, 5 kids=lots of bedrooms, isn't one of them.
Right now we have a boys' room and a girls' room. And it's probably going to stay that way for quite awhile. There's no fair way to split the kids into separate rooms. If Zach has his own room than Kyle gets his own by default, not fair to the 3 girls all in one room. The twins want to stay in the same room but we can't really give Kelly her own room without the boys being upset that they still have to share. So two rooms for them, one for Greg and I, and a guest room (we love guests!). 4 bedrooms, awesome, easy peasy.
Except...
The move to Indiana means Greg will be working from home when he's not traveling. So he needs an office. The kicker is he doesn't want an office in the main part of the house. So that goofy little office/library room (often with french doors, ha) right off the entry isn't going to work for him. He would like an extra bedroom upstairs. 5 bedrooms, okay doke...
Back to the goofy little office/library room on the main floor. Since Blue Kitty Designs is doing so well, I really need my own office/craft room. Yay!
Except...
I'm a bit messy. We'd rather not have people walking into the house and seeing my stuff all over the place like that (it's bad enough with the kids). It's not that I can't be neat (I can!), it's just that craft rooms in general aren't the best first impression. Unlike Greg though, I would like to still be on the main floor, not the basement or 2nd floor. But no worries, some of the houses we've looked at have a little den tucked back behind the kitchen by the garage and laundry room. (Yay, laundry room! We have a laundry closet now, I hate it.)
Also the van has to fit in the garage. We kinda scraped the top of the van on one door trying this. Oops. Remind me to tell you about my revelation about "side load" garages another day.
Plus we're not really formal living room/dining room type people. It's just such a waste of space for us. So we're trying to avoid those and go for a big eat in kitchen with large family room instead.
We would like a finished basement or the price for the basement to be finished worked into the final contact. Preferably one with "daylight windows" instead of looking out at stone/metal/wood/dirt window wells ("egress", I'm learning so much about houses, lol). The terrain in that part of Indiana (i.e. flatter than a pancake) doesn't really lend itself to walk out basements so I gave up on those.
And the little bonuses we'd like are a decent kitchen pantry, Greg wants a nice sized master bedroom closet, good school system, on a cul-de-sac, community pool, and a backyard that doesn't look directly into the neighbor's house.
See I told you we had weird needs.
Anyway the house has all of those except it isn't quite on a cul-de-sac (but in a quiet neighborhood). It even has a sun room and a full bathroom in the guest room (we love guests!). Course the house also has mold. Guess it was one of those "too good to be true" type things.
We haven't completely given up on the house yet, we've asked the seller for more thorough testing (the first was airborne only) and then if it isn't too major (as in "all over the entire house"), for the seller to pay for professional cleaning. To make a long story short, the sump pump had quit working a while back, the basement flooded, the owner replaced the sump pump, cut out the damaged walls, and "cleaned up" the mold. We were house hunting during the rainiest week ever and the basement was bone dry (and I didn't even see any visible mold or smell it) so it's not an issue of a damp basement that is going to be a constant mold problem in the future. I think the owner just didn't do a good job cleaning after the flood.
Pley asked when we have to move. Luckily our lease isn't up until the end of June here in Maryland. But with the mortgage companies currently going insanely crazy about giving out loans, some regulations that could affect us go into effect May 1st. So it would be really nice to close by April 30th on something. And if the house doesn't work out, it's extremely doubtful that I'll be able to go to Indiana again. Greg will have to go by himself between work trips and hope to find something. He did alright with the Maryland house (course we had like 3 reasonable choices in the first place) but it just bugs me that there's a chance I won't know what our new house (that we are buying, dealing with a so-so rental for awhile is a different story) looks like until the day we move in.
And feel free to slap me because I'm whining about a 5 bedroom, 4 bath, 3500+ square foot house in one of the nicest areas of Indiana. But dude, Greg and I started out in a trailer (granted it was a brand new double wide and no offense to trailer owners) so I think we've earned getting at least most of what we want in our price range. We just don't want mold. We're picky like that.
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