House hunting, part 2

So, in early June Garrett bought a last-minute ticket to our city to do some house hunting -- both to look at a few rentals that popped up, and to look at houses to buy.  Our options were pretty much:

1. rent a little (2 bedroom) apartment for a few months while we find something long-term (either a cheaper/small house to last a few years, or just go for the long-term house after a few months).  This option sounded absolutely miserable but we could have made it work.

2. Buy a cheaper/small house now and move again in a few years to something we love.  This option sounded okay to me.... but wasn't too appealing just because I feel like we would have wanted to stay in the house at least 3-4 years to make buying worth it, and I didn't know we would want to stay that long. (can you tell I was WAY overthinking everything?)

3. Just go for it and buy a big house that fits us well, and not have to move again (I really didn't want to do this either, because I have heard so many stories of jobs not working out, or not liking the area, or what if the school just doesn't work out... or private practices being bought out by hospitals and the new people getting the boot first).  What if he hates the job and we want to leave?  Realtor fees alone would be crazy to sell a house so soon after buying it!  And the stress and hassle!  Ugh.  I was over-thinking for sure.

4. Rent a house.  This was our first choice, by far.  But... since there were never any houses for rent, it wasn't a true option. Ha.

So... as you can see, I didn't like any of the options.  It was tough.  We went back and forth so many times.  We prayed about it, we went to the Chicago temple one Saturday.  We consulted our parents.  We talked, and searched online, and talked some more.  Garrett left on a Monday afternoon with a list of rental places to check out (miraculously, 2 houses were listed on Craigslist that weekend so I was feeling hopeful).

By Tuesday morning, one of the rental houses had been taken, so there was one left for him to see.  I had really high hopes for this one, because it was in a school district I really liked (there were 2 I liked equally, and I would have been okay with 2 others too).  Garrett called me after he toured it and said it was okay.  It was a really strange layout -- it used to be a really small house but rooms had been added, a garage was converted into a family room, etc.  There were 3 levels and no closets, really.  Tiny one-car garage.  Just awkward layout.  No grass in the yard, but there were trees and there was privacy.  A giant deck in the backyard, covering an old underground pool that they used to have.  There was also a cockroach in the kitchen cabinet, so... bonus.  It would have been fine, probably, but he just wasn't feeling it.

Another house popped up that day, so he also toured that.  It was in a "meh" school district.  Not my ideal but it would have been okay.  But, the old tenants had left a ton of junk so it was messy.  They had also turned off the electricity so it was kind of hard to see anything.  The kitchen probably hadn't been updated in 25 years.  He didn't like that one, either.

Then, he went around with our realtor for a few hours and saw some homes for sale.  And of course, he loved them... especially since these were brand new homes, and compared to the rentals he had looked at, they were amazing (I mean, they were already pretty nice.... but they seemed like palaces compared to earlier in the day).  There was one that he especially liked that we started to consider pretty heavily.  The inside was beautiful. The lot was tiny, though, which I hated.  Plus, there was no bonus room/extra living space/basement.  So basically we'd be buying a house like we had in Florida, but with 5 bedrooms (so, just a living room for living space, which is tough with 3 -almost 4- kids.  The kids are getting to the age where we just need more space.  The bedrooms were pretty small so while one could have been a "playroom", it would have been tight.

He had a ticket to come home on Wednesday afternoon, so time was really limited.  Tuesday night we were just as confused as ever.  Garrett was leaning towards buying, but I really wanted to just suck it up and rent that house for a year.  Meanwhile, I was refreshing Craigslist like crazy, praying for something to turn up.

And what do you know, something did.

For a long time, Garrett balked at the idea of renting a condo/apartment.  It stresses him out to keep the kids quiet all the time, to not bother the neighbors, etc.  But, a condo came up for rent that seemed great.  4 bedrooms, 5 bathrooms, bigger square footage than any house we've lived in so far.  And, it was an end unit, which was great.  In a school district we loved.  Garrett called the manager right away but she said the unit couldn't be viewed until Friday.  Garrett explained that he was leaving town early the next afternoon and asked if he could possibly see it in the morning.  She said that he couldn't, but told him that she lived in an identical unit on the other end of the row and that he could come see hers if he wanted to.

Long story short, he toured the condo, signed on the dotted line, then drove straight to the airport to catch his flight home (which ended up being an ordeal in and of itself... he got stuck in Charlotte overnight and missed my official gender ultrasound the next morning.  I'll have to blog about that soon).  Good thing too, because she had two other people coming to look at it after him (I'm telling you, nice rentals here must go FAST because they are so rare).

So... we found a place!  And it's fine!  I wish we were in a house, in a real neighborhood.  With other kids and moms that I could be friends with.  I wish we could settle down somewhere and just BE.  But, that's the consequence we get for not buying.  And it was (and still is) worth it to me to take our time buying.  So it's working out okay.  The condo itself is very nice.  There are two master bedrooms, one on the main level and one upstairs with the other 2 bedrooms.  We decided to use the downstairs master bedroom as a playroom, which is working out pretty well.  The bedrooms are pretty good sized.  Our master upstairs seems huge, since we don't have much furniture, but I like being minimalistic especially since it's temporary (we signed a one-year contract, and it goes month to month after that).  We let Abbie have her own room, which she's thrilled about.  Ellie and Olivia share the other bedroom upstairs, and they are connected by a jack & jill bathroom (each bedroom has its own toilet/sink, and then they share a shower in the middle).  To be honest, I'm not loving having my master bedroom on the second floor (not just because I'm pregnant, although that probably has a lot to do with it), but I do LOVE having a master bedroom again (we essentially all shared one bathroom in Madison, so this has been quite a luxury to have so many bathrooms here!).  The laundry room is also on the second level which is perfect since it's near the bedrooms (basically it's just a laundry closet in the hallway, but I don't mind.  Laundry isn't really something I love to do so it's not like I needed/wanted a huge room to do it in.  I just want it done).  There is also a lot of storage space - two big walk-in closets upstairs, a big pantry in the kitchen ("big" to me means room for two big metal shelves, which we bought at Walmart a few days after moving in.  It's been perfect).  The dining area has windows on 3 sides so there is lots of natural light.  There is no carpet anywhere -- wood floors throughout -- and they are in great shape.  Neutral paint on the walls.  I will have to share some pictures soon.

There's more to share about settling in but that will also have to wait for another day.  It's getting late and this blog post is way too long (again).  Way more information than anyone will ever need or care about, but I'm sure it will be fun for us to look back on someday.  I don't really want to forget about how stressful this time in our lives was, because I think it will be something I can appreciate someday.  I always imagined that when Garrett was done with training, things would be less stressful, but that certainly hasn't been the case.  Oh well, that's life I guess.  I certainly do appreciate our condo a lot, considering what our other options were.