Mine would have a beautiful plantation front. Tall columns. White and pristine. Open porch where you can sit on a rocking chair and drink lemonade and watch the sun set.
And it would help if it looked just like Oak Alley..
Naturally it would have acres and acres of land. Endless with possibilities.
One of those possibilities, no, absolutes, would include a pond. For Ryan of course. Big enough to fish any time.
Plenty of space for an amazing garden. Lots of fruits and veggies.
Classy sculptures. (No cherubim for me.) Koi in the water. Frogs on the lily pads. Dozens of amazing plants which I can't properly pronounce.
Manicured hedges - just like in European gardens.
And though I would like to be able to claim the green thumb abilities, it would be dandy if it came with a full time landscape crew. ;)
And a house cleaning team. Comprised primarily of perfectly obedient children. Hehehe.
Before I moved out here, Ryan had done quite a bit of casual house looking. He saw a handful of houses with the one agent, but he didn't officially choose one to work with. I know this is kind of annoying to real estate agents, but we learned a lot from the various agents we worked with. The number one thing Ryan learned before I arrived is that houses go REALLY fast out here. He told me that when we started looking together, that if we found one we liked, we had to be ready to act - and to act fast. As a matter of fact, there were a number of houses we drove by on our weekend visit in May that had gone on the market the previous week that already had "sold" or "contract pending" signs.
We weren't necessarily in any big hurry to find a home. Ideally, sure, we wanted to find one before our contract was up in Oct/Nov but we weren't really pushing to find one right away. However, for whatever reason, we ended up starting off the search that first week I was out there. I think we saw close to 10 houses in just the first two weeks. We also made a list from various websites of ones that we thought we might be interested in, but we wanted to do a drive-by first. We probably drove by 1/2 a dozen to a dozen more houses in addition to the ones we actually toured.
I have to say, it was a lot of fun! At times it was actually pretty tiring, but the hunt was fun. The reality of being in Casper meant that we knew we probably wouldn't get our acres of land and fishing pond, but we were sure we could still find something to fit our needs. And wants.
The first house we saw was AMAZING as far as curb appeal goes. Well, it needed a lot of work to get it back in shape, but it was beautiful. It had a nice open front porch with the white railing and everything. Never mind the porch was kind of falling apart... It had an arch gateway to the backyard, big garage shop area, amazing parking, and a HUGE backyard. Granted, all of this stuff needed a LOT of work. The shop really probably needed to be bulldozed down and started over again. But the charm! The upstairs was totally redone and it looked nice, but the two bedrooms upstairs were pretty tiny. And the downstairs was almost, what's the word, something about the layout just made it feel nonfunctional. We left feeling a bit overwhelmed. It was built in the 1920's and though it had been updated, there were a lot of structural issues. From that house if we could have taken the charm and backyard size and put it on a different house, we would have been in business.
After seeing a different house, the agent was probing us for what sort of home we were looking for. We told him we actually did not want a new house with all the bells and whistles, because then what can you do to really add value to it? The value of the house then depends primarily on the market. We actually wanted a few projects. A few things to add value. But not a complete overhaul. No less than 3 bedrooms. And an unfinished basement would be spectacular.
Later that day, the agent called us with a house that he said was in an area that if we were just to move into the house, we would add $50,000 in value just like that. Sure enough, the house was in a gorgeous area. Super nice homes - most of them worth several hundred thousand. (Not our price range at all.) This home was listed at $125, but was a foreclosure (and thus would end up in a bidding war) and was in awful shape. I guess when the parents lost the house, the kids squatted in the house for quite a long time. Lots of bad things happened in there. Drug use, parties, and a lot of abuse to the home. Granted, it could have been an amazing home. There was a ton of potential. And honestly, like he said, if we were just to make it liveable again it would have almost doubled in worth. But it was way too much. Projects are one thing. Overhaul is another. And it wasn't inhabitable. I don't feel like we could have lived there while we worked on it and there is no way we could afford to pay a mortgage and rent on a different place, and pay out the nose for things to be fixed. No thanks.
We saw one other foreclosure. It was in horrible shape. We saw a short sale that was built in 2007 that was in great shape, but since it was bank owned, they were taking their sweet time on things. In fact, there was already an offer on the house that had been in the works for quite a while, but the potential owners were still waiting to hear from the bank. So in the mean time, they just kept showing the house in case.
We did see one split entry that had good potential, but all of the bedrooms were the exact same size. Not necessarily a bad thing, but there was no real master bedroom and for some reason that bothered me. And the kitchen was awful. We really don't love split entries anyway. But we were trying to keep an open mind.
We also set up a showing for house that was in the same neighborhood(ish) as the split level that looked really promising online. Good space. Good yard. Good area. But as we approached the house, you could smell the cigarette smoke long before even going inside. Ironically, just in the corner of the front living room sat an oxygen machine. I bet they could breathe better if they didn't smoke. Just saying. In my mind there was no chance of us even considering the house, but I felt bad saying so since we made the agent come out there. But Ryan was braver than I was and felt like it was better not to waste his him and let me him that we didn't even want to look at the rest of house. The agent was very understanding and said he didn't blame us at all. I feel bad for the agent trying to sell it. The smoke smell is so incredibly overpowering. I know there are things that exist to help get the smell out, but there is no way to ever fully get rid of it, so why would we want to even go there?
In the middle of all these showings we went to see a house that we felt a little blind going into. The picture on the website was really pixilated. All you could really make out was some big bushes and a sprinkler. As we pulled up, Ryan muttered, "Uh... should we just keep going?" But I forced him to stop. We might have considered continuing on, but it would have been really rude to ditch the agent showing the house... especially since he was standing out in the front yard and watched us pull up. There definitely wasn't much for curb appeal. So with our guard up and minds prematurely settled, we went in. The house was so... different. It's hard to even put a word to it. The layout was certainly unique. The agent told us that the person that built it was a contractor and actually owned some of the rental properties across the street so he decided to build his own home where he could keep an eye on the renters. The layout is enough to show that it was a custom build, but there is also a lot of other obvious factors like the amount of storage and very little wasted space. It's listed as a 1 1/2 story. 4 beds. 2 1/2 baths. Nearly 3000 square feet. You would never, ever know that from the front. It looks pretty small actually. But it goes back and up quite a bit. I think that was the biggest shock. So much space!
You walk in from the front door to a nice sitting room/living room area. Then you go up a 1/2 flight of stairs to a second living room similar in size. This one has a wood burning stove (a HUGE plus for us.) From there, you can go up a full flight of stairs, but I will come back to that. To the left of the living room is the kitchen. It is a nice open area with tons of counter and cupboard space (a MUST for us). The appliances are not updated, but I don't care. That can come later (a good project to add value.) Off the kitchen, there is actually a deck that is on the front of the house. Unique, I know. The current owners have some patio furniture and the grill out there, as well as a big stack of wood for the stove. Although it's "different" to have the deck out there, we later learned from the wife that she likes to sit out there and read or enjoy the sunshine while she watches her kids play out front or ride their bikes.
Back inside, once you go through the kitchen, you will find the laundry room and a 1/2 bath, a bedroom/nursery/office, and the master bedroom. The master has it's own bath and walk-in closet. Next to the backdoor is the stairs to the basement. The basement has a nice, large, open living room. Next to that is a gigantic unfinished storage room. It is amazing! Potential? Um... yes!!! There are plumbing hookups there if we wanted to put in a bathroom. The area could easily be made into two bedrooms and a bath. Or one bedroom and a storage room. Or a craft room and a man cave. Or leave it as is for storage. The current owners use it as storage/a winter playroom for their kids. No matter how you cut it - pretty awesome.
The backyard is small. Super small. This was a major let down for both of us. The pictures online showed a beautiful new lawn, but their dogs trampled it shortly after it was put in, so the lawn is no more.
Back to the front living room with the stairs going up...
At the top of the stairs is another full bath with two very large bedrooms on each side. They are almost the same size as the master, minus the bathroom and walk-in closet. However, they have some pretty major closets of their own! Each room has a closet with two entries. It is not a deep closet like most walk-ins. They are more like a typical closet, but a tad bit deeper. There is enough room to walk from end to end in front of the clothes. On the backside of each of these closets is another unfinished door. Beyond the doors? More storage! I didn't actually see into either of them, but apparently the space is pretty decent. One storage area is partially finished while the other is not, but you can see how the builder really made use of the areas. Tons of storage. Tons of options. It was pretty great.
I turned to Ryan near the end of the tour with a questioning look on my face. I gave him a thumbs up, thumbs down, and a sideways thumb to gauge his response. He is really good at putting on his poker face for the agents, but behind his back he gave me a thumbs up and an enthusiastic nod. Once we were alone, he said, "I was definitely judging the book by its cover." Truth was, we both were.
Throughout the showing, the thought that kept coming coming to mind was one word. "Home." I couldn't explain it. I just had this feeling of... home. That's not to say I didn't have my concerns about the house. I really wanted a bigger yard. The neighborhood is okay, but not fantastic. And the layout - though we loved it - might be a difficult selling point on the flip side. And oddly, the house had been on the market for quite a while. For Casper, that is really weird. So yes, that raised some questions. But I still couldn't put it out of my mind.
Home.
I could see us raising a family there. We don't know how long we will live here. It might be 2 years. It might be 20. But the point was, I could see us there. There were plenty of other houses that were fine. But none of them felt like home. And of course, a home is what you make it, but still. There is something more to it too.
As I mentioned, this house was in the middle of several that we saw. I think it was more towards the beginning, but as much as we liked it, we still wanted to see others. Then we started wondering why we were pushing so hard right off the bat. I mean, Pierscen and I had only been out there for a week or two. But once that door was open...
It was funny how much we didn't talk about it. I think we both expected to have a lot of deep discussions about buying a house. Pros and cons. Is this the one? Should we keep looking? But I think the real reason we didn't talk much about it was because we were both a little surprised, and even scared, that we had found it. I had mentioned to Ryan how that house felt like home and he agreed completely. So without much discussion, we both knew. But talking about it made it real... and that's scary. Buying a house?!
We compiled a list of questions and the agent met with us at the house again a week or so later. This time, however, we met with the owners too. We asked about the neighborhood and they said they had never had any issues and that they really liked it. We asked why they were moving. They were just ready for something new. The problem for them is that they felt they had been spoiled by the space of this house and they couldn't find anything they liked to compete with it, so they decided to build. We asked why they thought it hadn't sold. They said it was never the same thing. For some it was the backyard size. For some, the neighborhood. For some, the layout. All things that were concerns for us too, but all things we could deal with. The yard is a disappointment, however, there is room for a greenhouse. And in Wyoming that's probably better than an open garden anyway. The growing season here is about a month shorter than Utah, so a greenhouse, in our opinion, is the way to go. The layout is unique, but we love it. When we eventually decide to sell, it will take out some of our buyers market that are looking for traditional homes, but so be it. As for the neighborhood, even though it isn't the ritzyist, it also isn't bad at all. One of the biggest parks in the city is only a block away. This house is also pretty much dead center in the middle of the city. Easy access to everything. The owners said there have been a few offers made, but they weren't even reasonable. They were asking $162,900. They said one offer was made somewhere around $110,000. Not even negotiable. Another made an offer when they didn't have any funds.
We spent, if I remember right, close to 2 hours at the house touring it again, asking questions, and honestly just having a good time. When we left I think we both knew what the outcome would be, but we still told the realtor that we would think about it and get back to him after our trip to San Diego.
It was hard to believe that within two weeks of moving to Casper we had potentially found our house, but it was pretty exciting too. Neither of us expected for it to happen that quickly. We really didn't think we would find anything until much closer to our contract expiring. But the idea was pretty thrilling too.
We were both really looking forward to Ryan's business trip to San Diego so we could think, relax, and process things. And naturally, it helped that his trip was 100% paid for. All we had to pay for was me. The biggest concern was flying with a six month old...
Speaking of which...
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