house hunting... again

i found a house today that i want to buy. it's a beautiful old house with the original trim & nice wood floors under carpet that was never nailed down. you come into the house & look through the large living room, through the beautiful dining room, through an arch in the wall (with 2 little arch window-like things) into a sun room. the sun room has built-in book shelves. the back yard runs up against a nature preserve that will never be built on. big bedrooms and an unfinished attic complete its charm. as a bonus, the roof is new & there's a high-efficiency furnace and a new water heater. not sure about the insulation factor or the windows, but i'm going back tomorrow to look at it again before i decide whether to make an offer.

so... after 35-40 houses, i finally found one that i really like. we'll see if i still like it tomorrow & what my friends have to say about it. it's been an adventure though. today i saw some super-cool old houses. they had some awesome woodwork and tons of potential. but they were all located in areas that wouldn't resell for as much as i'd be putting into the house to make it better. they were true money pits. but totally awesome old houses.

some houses have absolutely no charm. i went in one where they finished a basement with the ceilings about 5'9"... so short i felt like i had to duck to be down there. i saw one house that was decorated as if it were on a tropical island & whose bedrooms were all linoleumed (not carpet, not wood). but it's been fun. a nice change of pace from the pressure of studying & producing things all the time.