The Great House Hunt Part I

It's no secret that I've never loved my house. It has some flow and functionality problems that just cannot be fixed with a remodel. I have thought and rethought and mentally configured and reconfigured my floorplan. I just can't solve my major complaints with it without creating others.

So when the housing market crashed and interest rates dropped, Brent and I started looking. We don't need to move, certainly not now anyway, with only two children. Our current house has all the square footage we would ever need. But I dreamt of a pantry (ooo, a pantry, she said with a sign) and a mudroom (oh, a MUDROOM, she wistfully thought). The call of upstairs laundry (UPSTAIRS LAUNDRY she swooned) was in my heart. We desired a backyard for our children to roam in that was bigger than a handkerchief.

We made a list of what features our dream house would include. You know, like when you were a young teen and your youth leader had you write a letter to yourself to describe your ideal husband. If you write your ideals down they will serve as a guidepost during your search for the perfect companion, and help you weed out anyone unworthy, however alluring.

That list has guided us during our hunt. There have been houses that were so full of charm and coziness that I was ready to sacrifice a lot of function just to call that charm my own. The list and Brent's ever present practicality vetoed that house.

The list has also included things that I do not want. There have been houses that Brent has liked but that were a little too hoity-toity and vacuous for me. The list of nots and I vetoed.

There have been houses that look great on paper. They have everything we need, nearly everything we want, close to perfection, but lacking that zing, that vibe, that feeling of home. Just like in my single days when I'd date a guy who had it all, but we just didn't click for whatever reason. I held out for the zing in a spouse, and after much patience and many unpleasant blind dates, I got it. I was confident I could find it in a house as well.

I thought that finding the house would be the hard part.

Turns out I was wrong.