On our drive home, Rainman turned to me and said, "That house on Airline is for sale".
Airline is a really big, busy-ish road in the area, but I still knew exactly what house he was talking about. We have driven that stretch of the road since we moved to Georgia - every Sunday - to go to church. It caught both of our eyes from the beginning. It is big, and quirky looking. It is back off the road nestled in the woods.
We would drive by thinking, "Man, I wonder what that house looks like from inside."
But, it was never for sale when we were looking for houses.
Anyway, when we got home from our family workout, Rainman went over to the MLS listing and starting looking at pictures. And the exclaiming began.
"Mom, you should see this!"
"Wow! It just keeps getting better."
"If only it had a pool."
"No way! It has a pool!"
Get the idea?
I was in the living room trying to mind my own business but he finally convinced me to call up the listing up on my laptop and take a look.
Hmmm, I thought. That is interesting.
Rainman came and sat down in the living room and said, "I think we need to take a look at that house."
I said, "Uhhhhh...."
Really.
I am pretty sure I did a few of those slow blinking stares while my brain was trying to get caught up with what was happening. (sort of like the dad in the Inside Out movie.)
I started thinking about things like:
The childcare that we do.....that house would still be an easy place for the parents to drop off and pick up kids....maybe even a little better than here. (Yay!)
Having a pool again. (Yay!)
Decluttering/packing. (Boo!)
Having a kitchen that makes me happy. (Yay!)
Leaving our neighbors that we love. (Boo!)
That fact that our current house is set up for potential renters (or grandmas if we can ever convince them to move down here) (Yay!)
Having a wide open, pretty kitchen. (Yay!)
Having a new, slightly higher mortage payment. (Boo!)
Getting to leave our stupid Home Owners Association- HOA (Yay!)
And, lots of other random thoughts running around inside my head.
So, I finally muttered to Rainman, "Well, okay, call the realtor."
He did. She agreed to show us the house. Then I remembered that we did know a realtor. (She was actually one of the realtors that I interviewed 2 years ago when we moved. I didn't go with her, but should have. But, I have bumped into her a few times since then and really liked her) So, I sent her a message sort of explaining our desires to see this house, even though we weren't actually considering moving until we saw that it was for sale.
She was just super duper kind and understanding and said she would love to show us that house.
We set up the showing for yesterday at 2:15, and stayed there until 4:00. (I actually had to call a family meeting while we were there to make everyone calme down a bit. Seriously, eight people were trying to talk at once, actually 9, because we were watching the little guy that stays with us a few days a week. and sometimes 10 people were talking, when the realtor would try to get a word in edgewise. Plus, even though we had repeatedly told everyone to stick together and not run off exploring on their own....they kept zipping place to place, oohing and aahing over things. My head was swimming and I couldn't really think, much less memorize a floor plan!)
We left our realtor with a few questions to ask the homeowners and went home for a family meeting.
We each took turns giving our impression on the house. Our favorite bits. The stuff we didn't like. And, lastly, if we felt that the house was a good enough fit that it would be worth all the work of actually packing up and moving. We have moved three times in the last 6ish years, so, the big people in our family definitely remember all that entails. LOL
For me, I had one absolutely favorite chunk of the house. The kitchen, pantry area. The kitchen was wide open with a sink that looked out a row of windows onto the back yard and pool area. It had a gas stove top. It had lots of counter space. It had two skylights over the eat in area of the kitchen and doors to the backyard. It had a pretty wooden spiral staircase leading upstairs. It had a walk through pantry/laundry room. There was even a countertop in there for when you brought groceries in through the garage. There was a laundry chute from the bedrooms upstairs, plus lots of actual pantry space. They even had a small deep freeze tucked in there. It was seriously a roomy pantry! Just off the kitchen, there was a small built in desk and a small t.v. watching area surrounding by windows and half walls (are those called pony walls?).
In this chunk of the house, I could totally envision myself living/working/relaxing.
But, the rest of the house wasn't so great. It was cool, but, it was really choppy. It had twists and turns and weird hallways. It had uneven floors/flooring, where I could see us, or the babies we watch, tripping and hurting themselves.
None of the bathrooms were great. The bedrooms were, mostly okay. Spread out in weird places throughout the house. There was a weird balcony-like bedroom on the 3rd floor (only accessible through a narrow spiral staircase) that overlooked the big bathroom on the 2nd floor. Like, literally, it had half, more like three-quarters, walls that you look down actually into the bathroom, including the pink tiled shower and the indoor hot tub. Weird, and not in a good way.
This house also had an indoor sauna. Would love that, but it was in a weird spot too, right at the base of the stairs heading up to the 3rd floor balcony room.
This house was super, duper quirky. Rainman and I both love that. We like quirky (people and homes). But, this one was sort of choppy and and there weren't really any large enough gathering spaces for the family.
So, we decided to pass on this house, but I am glad we looked at it, because otherwise we would have always wondered if we could have/should have. You know?
The aftermath of us looking at the house has been interesting. Some of us are appreciating our existing house more and some have totally gotten the bug to move, and are only seeing the flaws in our current house.
Our house makes me happy.
It does.
But, there are definitely things that I don't like.
I still don't like my kitchen much.
It is way better with the island that Mark built for me, but it isn't a room that I get much joy out of standing in and doing things.
Not sure if that makes sense to you, but I have been in, and even owned, kitchens where I was legitimately happy just walking into them every morning. They just had that light, bright, airy feeling that this kitchen lacks. I guess I can't really explain it.
Looking at this house made Rainman realize that he doesn't miss having a pool as much as he thought he would, and doesn't really think of it as a necessity anymore. But it also made him realize that he really finds our house boring and cookie cutter-ish.
So, where does this leave us?
We left things with the realtor that she would keep an eye out for large, unique properties in the area, at that general price and let us know. (She didn't even seem annoyed with us - I totally should have picked her the first time around!)
We aren't looking for a new house, but we aren't NOT looking for a new house.
There is so much in this house that works so well for us. There really is. However, I am once again considering spending money to remodel/change my kitchen. Maybe sort of flip it around towards the windows or something, and get a gas range. I miss my gas stove. I don't know, for sure. But, I am pretty sure I have a few hours of research to do on Pinterest! Poor me.
One interesting, and sad, thing that came out of looking at the house related to D-man.
As we were looking, he kept saying things about how even if we moved, he wasn't really going to live there anyway, so his opinion didn't matter as much. He said things about being okay just having a guest bedroom to sleep in. Stuff about him coming to visit.
Gulp.
It is true.
He will be leaving for college next fall. Living at home in the summers, hopefully, but, he has one foot out the door.
When we had pretty much decided that we were staying here, there was talk of swapping bedrooms when D-man leaves and letting L-girl have his much larger bedroom upstairs. Something that I had squashed months ago when it first came up, because he still needs to have a bedroom. You know? This still needs to be his soft place to fall. He still needs to feel at home here.
But, the idea appealed to all of the kids and Rainman. I was the only one who didn't like the idea.
Again.....gulp.
I don't really want to face that this place is just someplace that he will only come visit from now on.
I suppose my mom felt the same way.
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