The Realtors are coming!

AIEE! We looked at a house this morning that has definite potential. The house itself was interesting – it was built in 1935 and looked like rooms had been added here and there whenever they were needed. There really seemed to be no “plan” involved, but it was interesting! If we end up buying it, I am totally naming it “The Burrow.”

It has 3 bedrooms but only 1 bathroom. That’s not a huge deal, really. We don’t really need more than one bathroom. In a perfect world, I’d have my very own bathroom which I wouldn’t have to share with anyone, but until I win the lottery, that is just a dream. The master bedroom is a nice size, so I’m sure our bed will fit in there (that’s an actual deal-breaker. If our bed doesn’t fit in the house, we aren’t buying it no matter what other amazingness it features). The other two bedrooms are nice-sized and there are closets and stuff relative to the size of the rooms. That’s always good, too.

The yard is the best part, I think. The house sits on almost a half-acre, which is practically a farm in the area of New Jersey where we live. Best of all, it’s a level lot, so the yard is 100% useful. I can already see where I’d like to put my garden, my shuffleboard court (alley?), and possibly a skee-ball machine or two. There’s not enough room for me to have a cow, but maybe I could get a chicken or two.

The basement leaves a bit to be desired but, like the rest of the house, it has some potential. If we wanted to, I’m sure we could finish it out and make it into a living space.

There is a one-car garage, which is nice to have but not really necessary for us. I would finish the garage as a fitness room and that’s where the treadmill and Freddie’s bike could live. There is plenty of room off of the driveway to build a garage if we are so inclined.

Thursday, the Realtors are going to come over to our current house and help us figure out how to sell it in a market that is pretty much the textbook definition of shitty. There are a billion and three townhouses exactly like ours on the market that have been there for months and months. So in order to sell ours in any kind of reasonable time frame, we’re going to have to price it right (that means low), and clean it up (that means storage locker and paint).

That means there are roughly twenty-four trillion things that we will need to do in this house to get it ready for showing. I’m going to have to start at the top and clean out the attic, clean out the closets, dust, remove cobwebs, dust some more, de-hairify the carpet upstairs (and I’ve been molting like a goat for the last six months, so THAT should be fun), get down with a toothbrush in the bathrooms and clean things like grout, dust,de-funkify the washing machine AGAIN, SOME MORE, organize the closets and bookshelves, dust, get the carpets cleaneed AGAIN, SOME MORE (and that pretty much guarantees that Chester will barf on them), dust, think really hard about scrubbing the brick fireplace, dust, scrub out the kitchen, and dust. Some more.

Then I’ll have to call our Homeowner’s Association and get them to pretty up the landscaping out front, which I have been after them to do FOR A YEAR. Fuckers. I want the tree pruned and the dead azalea bush removed and the rose “bush” (it’s just a pitiful stem of a thing that produces exactly two blooms a season) either rehabbed or removed.

And, while all this is happening, I need to keep my husband from talking himself out of it. He’s making noise about me going back to work and I’ll do it if I have to, but there are 235 things I would rather do instead and that includes plucking out all of my leg hairs one by one. But if that’s what needs to be done, I will find a way to make it happen. Ick.