Agreement and Suspense

Yesterday was a long, long day. Almost 12 hours away from home and the boys, from 8:30 a.m. to 8:10 p.m. Hopefully it'll all be worth it, though, because we made an offer on a house.

Surprised? Well, we finally saw a house we both loved and fully agreed on. It was love at first sight, not a long courtship for this one, which is always a bit unnerving (if thrilling), but still, we had already seen enough homes to make a fully informed decision.

It's a really nice, newer (8 year old) town home in a secluded area that feels like it's in the countryside but which is really very close to the center of the small town where we're going to live. In fact, when looking at the Google maps satellite photo last night, we realized we can actually walk to a large grocery store -- isn't that great? (not that I'd be shopping there that often anyway, I want to find a farm and get local produce, maybe beginning now, even before we move, since one has do commit to the whole season, I guess ;).

This home has everything we wanted, except the whirlpool (or at least soaking tub) and separate shower stall in the master bathroom. [I guess we were completely spoiled by many of the houses we saw earlier -- see photo below :)] It has an attached garage, fully finished basement with powder room (so there are 4 bathrooms -- 2 half and 2 full) -- which is just perfect for having lots of guests, a laundry room in the 2nd floor (photo on the right -- too bad I won't have a front-loading machine like I do now, but in the future when we get a single family home, I can buy one), a huge walk-in closet in the master bedroom, and spacious, well lighted, bedrooms. In addition, the floorplan of the living/dining room/ kitchen/ family room is perfect, it has a huge deck in the back, and 9 ft. ceilings throughout. And I almost forgot to mention that the condo association has a nice playground, two tennis courts, a health club, and a club house! (well worth the condo fee, I think). We won't have a backyard to buy a playset for the boys, but they can still have a playground! And many paths to ride their bike/ tricycle and pull trucks around.

We offered 9K less than the asking price and they may want to negotiate, so now we're waiting to hear back from them. It's suspenseful, but not stressful because we know we have many other options -- they're priced higher, but are still very good options for us.

Oh, yeah, and yesterday, after visiting the two homes we had disagreed upon on Sunday, we both liked them much better! They're even 2nd and 3rd options for us at this point! I took tons of photos of all houses, but I feel comfortable sharing only the bathroom ones (the second one more out of curiosity). If anyone is dying to see photos of the home we intend to buy and also the other ones, please email you and I can give you a link to some private online albums.

(click to enlarge)

The bathroom on the left belongs to the house that I loved, isn't it beautiful? The one on the right is in the house that K liked (not because of this bathroom ;) -- I thought the mural was very interesting -- I had never seen a mural in a bathroom like that! I would make me feel like I was inside Longwood Gardens :)

I'll keep you posted about this! Now I'll be more at peace to finish the dissertation, except that my parents are leaving for China tonight! Oh well, at least we didn't have to prepare the offer with the kids in tow and they'll be back in time to help us with the moving and closing (set for late June). Very exciting!