House Hunters International Edition

My mom was just mentioning this show a while back.  Where people with generally ginormous budgets look for palaces in Italian fairy tale landscapes.  Or even the Amerian edition where some young couple with no kids is ready to put 300 thousand bucks on a "little" cottage starter home.  

Such is not our budget.  And if you're a follower of the Lazy Girl's life you'll know that what it's really been about for, well, years, is location, location, location!  A few years back and even just a few months back, my hubby and I just couldn't come to an agreement on where to live.  I was more of a city mouse, and he a decidedly entrenched country mouse.  If I had a dime for every argument or suppressed argument on that subject, I'd have enough money to buy two Italian palaces.

Flash forward to January 2013 when hubby and I compromised. A place south of our current city that would cut out traffic for him and only add about ten minutes for me.  Still close to my work and work opportunities in the future.  I was stunned he was now considering this area.  Literally five minutes from two of my friends and fifteen minutes from another.  I was holding my breath waiting for him to change his mind.

And we started a furious few weeks of home-touring looking for one that struck our fancy and that we could both agree on.  It's actually pretty tiring to spend evenings and Saturdays visiting homes, trekking from one part of the city to another.  Most of our visits also took place during the two-week period when we had snow on the ground and bitter temperatures.  A few uninhabited houses we visited were absolutely freezing inside.

It was kind of fun seeing how other people live and decorate.  We learned a few things along the way.  Take a look at the hall of fame/shame...

Classy closets make a difference.

That 70s show bathroom... wow, that hurts my eyes.

Groovy wallpaper is NOT where it's at.

Some people out their DO have taste.  But their houses are generally pricier.

But none of these houses made it on our short-list (aside from the closet place, briefly).  We came to realize the perfect house didn't exist.  But that the pretty good one we'd visited kept coming back in our minds.  And so last Monday we made an offer on one we BOTH (gasp) agreed on.  I won't show you it yet because we haven't signed for it and must get the official green light from the bank. 

I will tell you it's white brick with a blue door, something we had both actually put on our cute house wishlist.  Keep your fingers crossed, guys, and maybe a picture will be coming soon...