Today, I leave the green grass and big trees of Louisiana – oaks, cypress, birch, maple, pine . . and head back to crunchy brown grass and scrubby trees. Much of the past week or so has been spent searching the real estate listings and talking with realtors and looking at places, mostly in east Texas. There was one house that I was determined to see. I have been looking at it online since mid-December and had never gotten a chance to see it when I was in Louisiana and seeing it was the first thing on my agenda. I was 100% sure in my head that this was the house. I was so sure that I had found our dream home on our dream spot on the lake that I had almost stopped looking at other places but .. it was not to be. I was so disappointed in the house. It was nice but just not what we were expecting. The layout didn’t do anything for us. We’ve moved around enough, and looked at houses online, only to be disappointed in what they look like in real life that this one really caught me by surprise. I would not even pay half the asking price and there’s nothing wrong with the house . . it just isn’t for us. Someone will come along and love it.
Vince and I have talked til we’ve about come full circle on what we want.
- We can keep the place we currently have and do nothing else.
- We can keep our place and buy something small on a lake.
- We can buy another “home” in east Texas with some small amount of land not on a lake, and then buy a second place on a lake.
- We can buy one place that’s big enough to be our only place . . on a lake.
Every single day we talk and talk and decide something different. We’re every realtor’s nightmare client!
At this point, we are no closer to knowing what we want and certainly no closer to finding it.
One day Vince says “Let’s just stay where we are and in a couple of years, re-think our ideas.” I say ok. The next morning, he’s emailing real estate listings to me.
The thing that keeps coming up is that we both love the water, we both love the foods in Louisiana and we both love green grass and big, green trees. But, we will not live in Louisiana because of the tax issues. The Texas side of Toledo Bend or Sam Rayburn are perfect for living but if we live there and are Texas residents, the tax problem is resolved and we can have a lakehouse in Louisiana.
We had planned to go home Tuesday but decided to look at two houses we’d already ruled out. They don’t have painted cabinets in the kitchen and they both have 3 baths. Neither has an attached garage, though both have garages. One has a shop for Vince, the other has a sewing/craft room for me. Neither are on the water though one does have a stocked pond.
The first one — terrible! The inside was nice and clean but outside, the garage doors were bent, and looked like they didn’t even fit correctly; water drained from the street toward the house; the trim was horribly dirty and needed repainting, some of the windows had lost their seals and needed to be replaced.
The second one – not bad but way too close to a fairly busy highway and there’s a 60 foot right-of-way so if the state ever decides to widen that highway, and Texas does that often, then the busy highway will be 60′ closer to the house. It also had only one return air duct and the age of the house was such that the roof and air conditioner were both near the end of their life, which could all be negotiated in the price but being 300 feet from the highway, with the possibility of being 240 feet from the highway .. that doesn’t work for us. At first Vince said it wasn’t too bad but after a few log trucks went by while we were outside, he was saying it wasn’t right for us.
Even though I’ve been on vacation for over a week, my brain is tired. I’m ready to be back home where I don’t have to think so much. I’m ready to walk away from thinking about places to live and houses. I never thought I’d say that because I love house shopping. It’s funny because Vince will send me a link to a house. Our conversation will go something like this.
Me: It has painted cabinets.
Vince: Yes, but look at the view.
Me: It doesn’t have an attached garage.
Vince. It has a great view!
Me: It doesn’t have a third bathroom!
Vince: I’ve always wanted a view like that.
We’re at the point now where he has agreed that if we find everything we like and it has painted cabinets, we will gut the kitchen and put in new cabinets. Vince says “some day” and I say “before we move in” so we may not have actually come to an agreement on that issue.
This really is the hardest decision we’ve ever faced about moving because (1) we always went where a job told us to go and (2) we can go anywhere we want to go . . how the heck do we figure out where we want to go and (3) this may be our last move so we really need to get it right! Darn .. being an adult is hard work!
On thing that was quite positive . . Vince did say “After seeing the prices on houses here, the houses in Missouri look like a steal!” Oh, yes .. that’s music to my ears! We’re a long way from convincing him to move to MO but we are no closer to moving anywhere else.
Right now, I just want to hurry up and get home and see my cats and hug my neighbor who took care of everything and sleep in my own bed!
Diann says
I hope you live near Addie/family. Would save a lot of driving..ha. We relocated near or daughter/family 8 years ago because we got tired of the 12 hr. Round trip dives 5 times a year. Have never regretted it and have enjoyed being here to see our three grandchildren grow up. That’s going by too fast as it is. Downsized house/yard as getting hard to deal with. WIN/WIN. Goo luck on finding what you want.k
Donna says
Have you ever thought of buying a piece of land and building your dream home?
Linda in NE says
You certainly don’t want something that might wind up even closer to a noisy highway. That happened to my son. They bought an acreage five miles out of a small town on a quiet paved county road. They completely gutted the house, inside & out & redid everything. Then a big grain handling facility went in a ways to the south of them and the county road became very busy with loud trucks. The house sat fairly close to the road and that increased traffic & noise was the final straw. They sold the place and moved back to the town they’d lived in before. We live across the street from a fairly good sized empty field and I hope nobody ever decides to build houses over there.
Judy Laquidara says
You’re right. We’ll never knowingly end up on a busy road but like in your son’s case, sometimes you just never know what the future holds.
Jackie says
We are facing the same situation. We don’t have to decide this minute but I’m becoming obsessed thinking about this and don’t want to make the wrong decision.
Judy Laquidara says
I think that’s what makes it so hard . . knowing I have one shot at getting it right. We’ve always known that where ever we moved would not be our final destination and now that it probably is, it’s just too hard to make that decision.
Nancy Boyd says
We lived in East Texas = Lake Fork.One thing to remember (from experience) as you get older you do not want anymore to keep up than you have to. One nice house would be fine. Othewise you will run yourselves in circles. Just come to Missouri and be our neighbors!! lol
cassews says
When its right you will both look at each other and know it .. When the time is right, the place is right and its all the items you want is right … Then it will be right…
Martha says
So often over the last few years you and I have been in the same place in our lives. I wanted to be in New Mexico or near my grand daughter who lives in Dallas. My husband doesn’t want to retire and a job is taking us back to DFW where house prices are crazy. I can’t find anything because of price or location or the house is not right. I just want it to appear for me. Don’t want to make a mistake. I know it will work out in the end but very stressful. Hang in there.
Susan Torrens says
You have somewhat the same issues that we had. Being a military family, we moved often. Many have difficulty deciding where to retire, as nowhere feels like “home”. Some move to be near kids, but often the kids move away. We had friends in our choice, and are 2 1/2 and 4 1/2 hours away from our kids. Sometimes I would like to be closer, but don’t want to go through the search for doctors, dentists, etc. We love our choice of “home”, but learned that compromise is the name of the game.
Good luck!