This Time We Mean It

Also on Arizona Avenue--across the street and three houses down.

Tessa texted me today: "You need to see this house!" she said. And she was right. In fact, I'd seen that particular home on her e-mail drip the day before. 

The home had more bells and whistles than we could hope for: 

Four bedrooms, all with walk-in closets.

A laundry room. (YES!!!!)

Two (TWO) full-sized garages--that's four garage bays. 

A workshop in one of the garages. 

A pantry. 

No carpet. 

An extra half-bath, which we called the "cat box room."

A covered porch.

A new roof. 

And in the interest of full disclosure, it also had yucky cabinetry throughout, a dinky and poorly functioning kitchen and someone painted the fireplace brick navy blue. Plus, it seemed to suffer from the same lack of daylight all the houses in Texas seem to be plagued with. 

Buckaroo liked the house. He picked his bedroom. He picked Polly's bedroom (she couldn't come). He picked my office/craft room. Marty liked that the house was higher up than ours, so drainage wouldn't be an issue. I liked the fact it did not back the woods, so maybe we'd have less critters. However, the three of us absolutely hated the kitchen. And truly there was no way to fix the kitchen without opening up an exterior wall. 

Tessa walked around pointing out obvious features such as "the master is here" and "you will see in the kitchen there is a stove" and other futile comments. (Buckaroo tells me Tessa wouldn't last 10 minutes selling real estate in Phoenix. She's too "sales-y" and not enough "business-y")  

And then, Marty went back to work. Tessa went to her next appointment. I went for my three-mile walk. We agreed we'd talk later and decide if we were going to make an offer. 

When Marty arrived home that evening, I blurted, "I can't buy that house. I like not having a mortgage. And maybe the kids will eventually move out so this place won't feel so crowded." 

Marty agreed, though he said he would have gone along with that home if I wanted it. I told him I couldn't see past the awful kitchen and crummy cabinetry. Even with that fourth bedroom and a place for the cat box that wasn't in my bathroom, it still wasn't enough to move. 

I told Tessa we are not looking any more. I've been talking to an architect. He's made some preliminary plans for me. Later this week I will call him and ask him to finish drawing up the plans for our extra room. I have no illusions I can find a general contractor who can complete the work for me before the fall, but that's okay. At least we've made a decision to stay.