Housin'

The Living Room

What's up, Cyberspace.

As you may recall, a couple weeks ago we went out looking at houses with our real estate agent, Steve.  Of all the houses we've seen since that first outing, one stood out from the rest - if you'll recall, from an earlier post, it was House #2.

This house, while lacking the fourth bedroom we wanted, is just about perfect.  It has a large, fenced-in yard with an automated sprinkler system already in place and a hurricane-proof shed FULL of tools and lawn supplies being left behind.  There's ten fruit trees in the back yard as well, with a side yard large enough to accommodate our swimming pool, and a spacious back patio with adjustable vinyl windows and retractable blinds.

Check it:

The Backyard

I guess I'm going to have to learn how to take care of all these damn fruit trees. . .

Patio (terrible picture, I know - I'll replace it as soon as possible)

In fact, this house had been so well-taken care of, and had so many upgrades done to it recently, that there were nearly a dozen cash offers on it from investors, banks, and other rich folk looking to turn it into a cash-cow rental unit.  The asking price for the house was $128,000, and most of the cash offers on it were in excess of $130,000.  Unfortunately, despite our excellent credit and spotless records (believe it or not, mine is actually better than Kris', and we're both around the 800 mark), we poor Houghs could only muster a loan offer for $126,500 once the comp appraisals came back.

Chances of us getting the house were indeed slim.

. . . but that's when our kids came in.

Thanks, Cannonball.

While seeing the house for the first time, the sellers - a lovely elderly couple who were all-around, genuine nice people - took a shine to our offspring (don't ask me why, they were behaving like total basket-cases that day), and later expressed interest in selling their home to the "nice couple with the cute kids."

That's right.  The Houghs.  Screw you, rich people:  behold the almighty power of the fruit of my loins.

Despite the big banks and investors trying to out-bid on the property, we prevailed and secured the seller's interest.  All this regardless of the fact that,

Living Room (Formal Dining Room in the back)

In your face, banks - we're closing on May 31st!

We hadn't expected the sellers to sell us the house, seeing how we were offering them much less than the other interested buyers, so when we received the good news we were floored.  Steve scheduled a time when the inspectors could come by and check the place out, which only gave us more good news - everything was in great - if not eerily perfect - shape, and the sellers were very happy to be handing it over to us.

As we took a second look at the place, we were even more excited about getting the house.  Like I said in an earlier post, the roof has just been done, a new hurricane-proof garage door (which runs silent as the grave, might I add) has been recently installed, and there are gothic-looking bars over all the windows (the sellers used to vacation in New York for months on end, and secured the house like Fort Knox whenever they left - a huge plus for me, personally).

The Kitchen

The nook itself might be a bit on the squished side, though (the patio is in the back beyond the sliding doors)

This room shall become the Study

I wasn't about to start complaining about the wall-to-wall closet space in my Study - I'm a hoarder, so it'll definitely help.

This will be the girls' bedroom. . .

Same size as the room they have now, but we're thinking about getting them bunk beds to conserve space. . .

The Master Bedroom - large enough to fit all of our bedroom furniture, plus Kris' Mega Desk (that window in the back opens up to the screened-in patio out back)

Living Room and Dining Room (Kitchen in the back through the doorway)

As the Houghs have no use for such a thing as a Formal Dining Room, we're going to convert it into a Playroom for the girls. . . 'cause we're classy.

More of the Living Room (Master Bedroom there to the right, the lit-up room is the girls' bathroom, with the Hallway also leading to the girls' bedroom, the Study, a few closets, and the Garage)

So, as we start the mountain of paperwork that is involved with transferring over the title, scheduling hordes of inspections, filing insurance and comp claims/estimaets/what-have-you, etc. etc., we'll also be packing like crazy.

The Germ Factory

Rest assured, this will probably be the craziest month we've had in years.  My students are bouncing off the walls, seeing how the dreaded FCAT has come and gone, and they're all gunning for June 8th (when we get out for the summer).  This means that while lesson planning has gotten a lot easier (seeing how kids are requiring more hands-on work to keep them focused), I'm more burnt-out at the end of the day.  To make matters worse, Kris has had to take the last week and half off of work in order to stay home with two sick kids (who, of course, are sick on alternating days).


Good times.

Let the epic countdown towards the end of the school year and the new house begin.  We're up to the hilt in peril and stress, but couldn't be more excited about all our good fortune.

Stay tuned, folks!

- Brian