Vince went outside earlier this afternoon and he came in and said “It is so hot!” Then he said “I’ll be it’s not this hot in Arkansas. I said . . I bet it is because their weather had just popped up on my phone.
The temp is cooler there but the real feel is not!
The realtor sent me two new listings this morning and I really liked both of them.
The first one has 20 acres, not too far out of town, quartz countertop, the bathrooms we want. I called the realtor back and asked her if she could go out and look at it and facetime with us so we could see it. Yes . . then I looked at the satellite map . . commercial chicken houses all around. 20 acres isn’t nearly enough land when there are commercial chicken houses around! Ruled that one out.
The other one I really liked too. It has a gorgeous kitchen with a gas stove and a nice basement with a second family room and a second fireplace.
The second one has a beautiful view of the lake, it has three levels. On the top is a loft with a bedroom; main level has living room, kitchen, dining room, master bedroom.
But, it has two bathrooms. One on the main level and one in the basement. No master bath! So, we ruled that one out too.
We’ve actually gone back to one we had ruled out . . not the same one I was talking about yesterday. This one has a pretty amazing shop, is on the lake, has a garage on the main level, two bedrooms, two baths on the main level (I had wanted 2.5 baths on the main level but this one doesn’t have that).
The main reason we had ruled this one out is that the master bedroom, second bedroom and extra bathroom are right off the family room. The family room is about 15′ x 32′ . . kind across most of the front of the house. There are just doors off that room going to the two bedrooms and a bathroom. No! But, today I was thinking . . who needs a 15 x 32 family room? There’s an even bigger family room in the basement. So, what if we take 10 feet or so off the family room and make it 15 x 22, make a hallway and make a “room” off the family room. It would be just a door but behind that door would be a “closet” where I could put canned goods, vacuum cleaner, make part of it a hall closet for coats, winter shoes, etc. There’s just an open hole looking thing with ironwork around it that’s the stairs to the basement. We could close that off so from that 15′ width, 3′ for the stairs and 4′ for the hallway going to the bathroom and bedrooms, would leave us with a 7′ x 10′ closet. I think that’s a great idea. Also, it would put some space between the bedrooms and the family room so if someone (not me) were in the living room watching TV, there wouldn’t be so much noise in the bedrooms. Vince always gets up before I do and he makes coffee, takes the dog out, watches TV. I would like a bit of a barrier between his noise making and my sleeping.
Another problem with this house was there’s one air conditioner and it isn’t zoned – for the basement and the main floor. I think if we put a mini split in the basement, closed off the a/c vents down there, we could be happy with it.
The plan is for the realtor to do the facetime with us next week, then we may have to make a quick trip to Arkansas . . we’ll see what happens.
Vince loves the shop. The kitchen is small but it has a nice bar and if I had that room off the family room for storage, I think I’d be fine with the kitchen.
Something to look forward to next week!
vivoaks says
Happy for you that things are looking up in the new home department, but I’m glad it’s you and not me. Not sure I’d have it in me to go through the stress of house-hunting. Could be it’s because we don’t have extra money for anything, and spending that kind of money would totally stress me out. Enjoy!
Judy Laquidara says
Every time I look around at the “stuff” we have, I’m less inclined to want to move.
Teri says
Fingers crossed 😉
cassews says
Do either of you have knee problems ? Or plan to have knee surgery in the future ?
A 2 or 3 level may not be the solution if you do .. We settled on a ranch as we both have knee problems . Our next house will also be a ranch for that reason.
Judy Laquidara says
I did have a knee issue but losing weight and getting off sugar totally fixed it. We’ll be living in tornado alley so we’ll have a basement if we have to go up/down the stairs on our hands and knees. 🙂 Most walkout basements can be accessed through a ground floor door but you may have to walk down just a bit of a hill to get to it. Our house in MO, if you went behind the house, it was totally level ground, with a sidewalk around the house. Very easy to get to it plus, the people who built it had a handicapped child so it had a ramp inside the garage that went to the basement. Even my 87 year old uncle lives in a three story house and still uses stairs but many of us are not so lucky and healthy.
If we were to get a three level, only a guess room or two and a bathroom would be on the upper level.
Nelle Coursey says
Sounds great!!
dezertsuz says
That’s making something good out of a problem! Super idea!