Friday, June 29, 2007

Looking for Mr. Goodbar

I have been out house hunting almost every day (or night) this week. Looking at potential new homes is fun, but it's also exhausting.

Saturday, Todd and I looked at three places listed with one realty agency here in town. Two of the listings were in a good location. I kind of really liked one place, but it was (brace yourself) a fixer upper. But, it was a manufactured home (that looked like a real house) with a garage! And a backyard! And a garden tub! So, I looked past the cosmetic fixes and fell in love.

I must be a fickle girl, because I fell in love again on Wednesday night with two more places. Both are basically turn-key, so good-bye fixer upper (but I'll miss you, Garage!).

One place is small...the smallest place I've been shown so far. It was 1,024 square feet. Well, that's 200 more square feet than my place was in Milpitas, but it seemed smaller. Probably because it had less storage.

My place in Milpitas had two walk-in closets, lots of storage (deep storage) in the bathroom, built-ins (hutch, cabinetry in the bathroom, pantry) and a shed. This place that I fell in love with had a regular closet in both bedrooms, however it had two full baths AND A GARDEN. A real garden. With a fence and everything.

I loved the whole house, but the garden sold me. The current owner really made the backyard cute. She painted "blessed be" on the fence, added a chiminia, made a path to the backyard outlined in big rocks, and sprinkled the yard with statues and whatnots.

The house itself is painted really nicely, and has a luxurious master bath off the bedroom with a deep garden tub. However, since there isn't much storage, and the floor layout is kind of...odd, there isn't much choice in how one places furniture, nor a lot of room to be a clutter bug (which, unfortunately, I am).

My mom's solution sounds simple: put out what you really love, and sell the rest. But how will I ever be able to part with all my stuff?

And that question brings me to the next place I fell in love with. It's a three bedroom home (THREE - a bedroom for me, a bedroom for an office, and a bedroom for...stuff!). The kitchen is lovely, with beautiful cabinetry. The most attractive selling point is the covered deck with built-in benches. I could see myself drinking coffee out there in the morning, looking out over McCarran. Okay, so maybe McCarran isn't the most lovely sight in Reno, but my point is there is a view! I can see the Atlantis from my backyard. Oops. Her backyard. Mine if I buy it.

The drawbacks: one of the park's main sewer lines is in the backyard, there are no trees or greenery on the property (it's all xeriscaped) and there are at least two neighbors with kids.

I saw another place last night which I could have fallen in love with, if it weren't for a couple of odd things about the place. But let's start with the selling points first. It was huge...three bedrooms, and the master bedroom was the biggest I've seen so far, with two walk in closets JUST IN ONE BEDROOM. The bathroom had a garden tub AND a walk-in shower. The laundry room was HUGE, with more than enough space for shelves and a table for folding, and litter pans. The kitchen was open, and there was a gorgeous bay window in the living room.

And now for the oddities. The guy was obviously doing work on the place, and decided to give up and move away. He had replaced the carpet with berber carpeting...simply beautiful. New linoleum in the kitchen. But there was a huge gash on the kitchen counter, doors missing on some cabinetry, door knobs missing on all the doors, the front door needed to either be re-hung or replaced (or maybe the place just needed some basic leveling), and that gorgeous bay window? Ruined because that's where he decided to plop the swamp cooler. Plus, he had torn out the sink in the master bathroom, and replaced it with a smaller one, which left the eye to settle on the blotchy dry wall on either side of it. Oh, and get this: no door to the bathroom. Okay for a single person, I guess, but if you were married and had to take a poop while your partner was in the bedroom, well...that would be very unpleasant.

Tomorrow I am meeting two realtors. One I haven't met before, but he has more properties in Sun Villa, the place I've decided I'd like to live. Then I'm meeting the realtor I like in the afternoon to visit a park I haven't seen yet. And the home with the deck? It's Open House tomorrow on that one, so if I want it, I guess I better make up my mind quickly.

If I had to make an offer tomorrow one of the three houses I really like (the fixer upper, the witch's lair, and the scenic home), I'd probably go against convention and get the witch's lair. Why go small? No idea why, except the energy is good there, and the backyard sold me.

My sensibilities tell me to go with the scenic home...but who knows what I'll fall in love with tomorrow?

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Whoa...it's five minutes later and I'm still laughing at "well...that would be very unpleasant."
Five days from now, someone walking by my office will stick their head in and ask why I'm surfing joke sites online, when I show them the official work on my monitor, they'll know it was an arbitrary, unsolicited memory that popped up and made me guffaw whilst being a good steward of the American taxpayers' money. Thanks, bunches.