Yesterday Rob and I viewed some houses. Interestingly enough, our favorite from our drive-bys was our favorite after actually viewing it! If the house had a basement, we would have stopped there and been like "this is it. We're done. This house. Perfect."

So here's how the viewings went:

House 1 (Westland): Good sized house, nice large eat-in kitchen with a sky-light, and plenty of square footage. According to the description, the house has "newer paint, carpet," etc. HAHAHAHAHAHAHA. Whatever. The paint was peeling. There were no switch-plate covers. They were just exposed. The house had a funky smell (though the owners did have a cat and a dog and god knows how many kids), and my favorite, at every place where a door opened into a wall, the doorknob had punched through the wall. These are all small things, mind you. But they're a lot of small things. You can buy cheap plastic switch plate covers at K-mart! How hard is it to slap on a coat of white to make everything look nice? I can only imagine that if the superficial hasn't been taken care of, what else is wrong? Rob and I liked the size, but not for what they wanted. What they wanted for the house is a joke. If they'd knock $30,000 off, then we might seriously consider it and put some sweat equity into it. But at what they're asking, there's no way.

House 2 (Westland): The house we like. It's small. 920 sq. ft. But all of the space is used efficently! It's a Cape Cod. The upstairs where the ceiling slants down and there's usually dead space, the owners put in closets! Ok, so they're short closets. But it's such clever use of space. And, well, Rob and I are short people. LOL. The house opens up into a large sunny living room with hardwood floors. One of the first things I noticed was the crown molding. The house had such character. And it came with all the appliances (that's $2-4K in savings). This is the house we're considering at this point. Yeah, we're going to look at other houses, but so far, in our price range and everything we get, it's a great deal. Oh, and the garage is huge! We could set up another room in there! ;)

House 3 (Westland): Tight little ranch. "Vivid" paint inside. Loved the basement. Otherwise, not so much.

House 4 (Wayne): Adorable little bungalow. Has even received a Wayne Beautification Award. But man is it tight! Hardly any closet space (what was wrong with the people in the 30's-50's who built these houses? A closet as wide as I am is just not adequate! The house felt claustraphobic. Yet it technicall had more sq. ft. than house #2.

House 5 (Wayne): Ummmmm.... no way to get in. The doorknob was taken off the front door and in it's place was a padlock. No realtor's box to get in. Nada. So, we saw the outside and moved on. Don't think I'll bother actually trying to see it. Noisy area. Train and Plane.

House 6 (Ypsi): Ok, everyone who saw the pics of this one originally, said, oh cool! This house looks great! And from pictures, it did. Nice large porch. Roomy house with basement and garage! But in need of lots of work. And the only bathroom was upstairs! (how bizarre!) It would just take more than Rob and I care to put into it. And it would probably continue needing work done constantly. Someone who is wants to buy it for a rental property will probably end up buying it, is my guess.


So, here's pics of House #2. Taking pictures of the houses has made me really appreciate wide-angle photography. I was using my Canon Pro 1, which has a wide-angle lens of 28 (which is wide for a digital camera), and let me tell you, I could have used even wider. Still, I think the pictures will serve our purpose and help us acurately remember what we looked at.














This is a picture of the outside of the house we like. So sue me, I was so busy taking pictures of the inside, I didn't take on the outside. It looks better in summer anyway. :P
















Backyard, as looking at it from the garage. We think that's an A/C unit in the lower right hand corner. No idea if it's in working condition, though.
















Backyard. That's the garage to the left.

















View of the kitchen. That's a double oven that's cut-off on the right-side of the picture (and why a little wider angle lens would have been sooooo nice).
















Living room as seen from the stairs. Look at that crown molding! Lovely! The entry you see to the right is the kitchen.
















Living room as seen from the far wall. Front door to the right. The entry to the left leads to a bathroom and another room (previous owners used a master bedroom).
















Downstairs bathroom.


















Downstairs "master bedroom."
















Upstairs bedroom.



















Upstairs bedroom.


















Laundry! Cleverly hidden as a closet upstairs! There are two actual closets to the right.





















Upstairs bathroom.


Well, that's it.

I have to go off and go to work. Tomorrow is inventory. I have a headache already. :P

Let the searching commence!

Well, Rob and I are approved for a mortgage. And we just got back from meeting with the realator. Saturday Rob and I are going to drive by a couple of the houses that we saw online and liked. So, the searching begins! Wheeeee! A place of our own. We're pretty geeked.

Your Element Is Air

You dislike conflict, and you've been able to rise above the angst of the world. And when things don't go your way, you know they'll blow over quickly. Easygoing, you tend to find joy from the simple things in life. You roll with the punches, and as a result, your life is light and cheerful. You find it easy to adapt to most situations, and you're an open person. With you, what you see is what you get... and people love that!

What's Your Element?

So, yeah, update and stuff

So, it's been over a month since I've posted (closer to two, since my last few posts weren't really posts).

Things have been insane. Here's the summary:

Oct. 2006: I get promoted to the Laurel Park Ritz Camera.

Nov and Dec 2006: Work. Work. Work. And everything that is the hell of working retail during the holidays. But the paychecks are niiiiiice.

January: Work finally slows down. Too much. My paychecks go back to sucking. Our volume has gone to hell, the store looks like a tornado, half the staff doesn't know diddley-sqwat about the lab, and orders aren't being done on time. Now that the frenzy of holiday sales are over, I start cracking down. My old store in Ann Arbor gets closed for good. I inherit Joel and Steve. One employee decides he doesn't have any interest in the lab and therefore gets his hours cut. He quits. Oh. Boo. Hoo. I'm so distraught. (can you feel the words oozing with sarcasm?)

February: Lazy employee quits. I'm not complaining. But now I'm short-staffed and need to hire someone new. I hate hiring new people. The only apps I'm getting are 16 year old high school students who we can't hire b/c we work with chemicals (OSHA restrictions). This bites.

So, now we're up to speed. Yay.

Our lease is up in the end of April. We're hoping to start moving at the end of March, which is quickly approaching. We were looking at different apartment complexes, but were coming up empty with ones that would allow ferrets. So, we were considering a trailer. We could get one on the cheap, and it'd be our own, so we could have our ferrets. But, as Rob says, trailers are an albatross. There's no equity. You loose money on them. Not like it's too much different than renting an apartment, where you get nothing back when you move. So, after some consideration and talking to several people, we have decided to try and get a home. We're in the process now to see how much we'll qualify for. We're excited. And nervous. We know we can't afford anything big. We were thinking a nice small ranch or bungalow, probably in Wayne county: Canton, Van Buren Twp, Belleville, maybe in Ypsi (yes, I know, that's in Washtenaw.) So, we're not going to get our hopes up yet. We're keeping our options open.

That's it.