Shortly after I started this blog, my husband got a tentative job offer with one of the police departments he'd applied for last fall. This department had offered him a job originally, but he had to turn it down in order to stay home and make his mother's last days as comfortable as possible. If we'd had the gift of foresight, we wouldn't have done it that way--his first day was going to be January 3rd, and his mother passed on December 23rd. We could've avoided a lot of family turmoil if we'd known.
But that's all in the past, and the gist of the story is: HE GOT THE JOB! We found out last Tuesday and since then, as he's been celebrating, I've been panicking.
We'll be moving back to where we lived two years ago, which is a two-and-a-half hour drive from where we live now. Since we're both coming off of two years of unemployment, we have no money to put down for rent. Buying a house? That seems like a very distant dream.
But we looked at a friend's aunt's house today, and my nesting bug was biting. This house needed a LOT of love... starting with a complete kitchen overhaul.
Three words: particle board cabinets.
Our friend's mother-in-law, who was showing us the house, said, "Bless their hearts, I don't know what they were thinking." (Remember, "Bless his/her heart" means they're doing something questionable in the south.)
The house was built in the early 1970's, which is evident in its spacious car port, vertical cedar exterior paneling, the surplus of wood-laminate wall paneling inside, the insanely large stove, and the questionable layout of the house. It's also on a wonky corner lot, which means the lush back yards Lucy's grown accustomed to will be no more.
The picture is deceiving; the kitchen is so narrow that I couldn't back up to get a proper feel for the size of this thing. The four coils on the left make up the size of a normal kitchen stove... so the extra space to the right is just that, EXTRA SPACE. Those are actual dials along the back. I would be in love with this thing if it didn't look so close to exploding in person.
The sink was uniquely huge, too. I didn't get a photo of it, but picture a typical stainless steel double-sink. Now picture that sink with huge stainless steel wings extending out to the sides along the counter, making it twice its size. What is the purpose of that? The world may never know.
The good news is, the house is a fixer-upper enthusiast's dream. It's already wired for gas (something I've never had in my entire life and I'd love to have in my next house) and it has, get this, FIVE bedrooms total. The bathrooms are misused closets, but there are three of them. All of them need some love, one of them will need to be completely re-done.
The floors all need to be re-done (the carpeting has to come up and I think we'll just go with wood floors), the walls need to be painted, one wall needs to be taken down, the closets need to be re-shelved, the exterior needs to be replaced or repaired, the roof needs to be cleaned and patched... are you getting an appreciation for the amount of work and money we'd have to put into this house?
On the one hand, it'd be amazing to transform it, and I know we can. On the other hand... I'd hoped for something less daunting for our first home. Mr. Cheddar and I are quick studies but we've never had the opportunity to be handy with carpentry or repairs. It would be really bad if we got this house and found out we were bad at it. I'm optimistic but I still have my moments of doubt. Moreover, I'll be doing the brunt of the work since Hubs will have a rigorous police schedule.
But this house is still a long shot. The financing needs to work out, and I don't want to force us into something that could be too much financially and creatively.
Meanwhile I'll be between homes. I actually have nowhere to live as of Monday, but I'm trying to figure something out. So if/when the recipe and DIY posts stop, it's not because I quit blogging--it's because I'm living out of my car and thus have nothing to blog about.
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