Finding our place

I am stop and go, start and end, confused all around, regarding a house. I want one, but I don't know what I want. AB wants one and doesn't know what he wants. We can't agree, then we can agree, then we aren't sure.

After spending a good part of today wandering open houses we walked away settled.

We walked through a model house (littered with Parade Home awards) and loved the style. We got to talking to the agent, told him what we were looking for and he sent us to a seemingly obscure address.

"What? I housing development there? I didn't know there was one there, that's only like a half mile from our house. Are you sure that's the cross street?!"

He assured us he had a house we would love and if it wasn't perfect (based on his 15 minute discussion with us) he would make it perfect. We would love it.

We raced across town - he phoned his partner to have her wait there for us.

We stood in the driveway admitting that there was really no reason for us to walk in. We loved it already. And loved the location with a park just down the block. We could tell it was exactly what we wanted and in a fantastic location. One of my qualms about moving to this point has been that I do love being blocks to the grocery store, a half mile to Costco, etc. If it weren't for the apartments, we might have considered adding on.

Something beckoned us and we walked through the double doors. Leif carried his new plastic, highly obnoxious sounding nail gun in. I apologized to the agent, explaining what a long afternoon it had been for him. She shrugged and smiled - thinking I am sure, about her potential commission.

Yep, we loved it still.

Four bedrooms, wonderful hardwood floors, a huge Master Suite, a huge gourmet kitchen with a pantry as big as our second full bathroom now. An oversize three car garage you could play basketball in, a shop, a bonus room with a full bathroom and closet, a covered patio with outside ceiling fan on a half acre lot. Everything. It had everything.

AB commented if we were house hunting in earnest he would have wanted to make an offer right there. But we aren't house hunting in earnest.

The development is in phase one of four - and not filling overly fast.

We have time.

We now have two house designs (this one and the other where we met the agent at) we like from the same builder and two neighborhoods we could build either house in. (I like the new neighborhood - AB favors the other.)

And for the first time I am not feeling rushed or freaked out. I feel as though we have made our decision and we just need time to save the money to build our dream house.

We have agreed that we are done driving around. Our lazy afternoons from here on out are going to be spent getting the house ready to sell. Painting the exterior trim... fixing the baseboard and plaster in the bathroom... getting the ducts blown out... getting pictures of the house with our backyard looking lush... putting in blinds... painting... epoxying the concrete patio...

The list goes on and on...