Tiffany PinkDog’s Blog

Pros:

1. The backyard backs up to OLQH parking lot. That means plenty of room to rollerblade, ride bikes, etc. OLQH = Our Lady Queen of Heaven. Some of you know that Tom is a pretty good Catholic. I’m only an okayish one. Both of us disagree with a lot of traditional Catholic schtuff, but we do both agree that we should all go to church now and then, say, once or twice a month. And when all you have to do is walk across your backyard, out a little gate, and across the parking lot to go to church, you’re probably more likely to go.
2. The price tag is under $160,000–barely. We have a very specific area of town in mind. We could spend  less if we went out in the country, but we want to stay very close to McNeese. We don’t have any money, you know. We’ve bought and sold two houses in the past seven years, but we didn’t make any money off of them. This price is at the top of our ability to afford…or WAS, a year ago. We presume we’ll still qualify for that sort of loan, but truthfully, we haven’t checked it out yet.
3. The house needs no work inside. Sure, it could use some updating, but it doesn’t NEED any right away. It doesn’t even need wall paint right away. This is an unparallelled miracle in our house-buying history.
4. It already has an in-ground swimming pool. You know, those bastards cost between $20,000 and $50,000 to install, and they add nothing to the value of the home. If you want a pool, it’s better to find a house that already has one.
5. The yard is big enough for the dogs to have space. It’s not as big as I’d like ideally, but it’s okay.
6. There is an enormous laundry room. It’s big enough to put the treadmill in, or to use as a little crafts room or office.
7. It has a massive, MASSIVE, workshop in the backyard. This is actually a mixed blessing, because I think it’s too enormous and eats up a lot of good yard space. There’s a half-bath in it, but otherwise the thing is just totally unfinished. Exposed studs, etc. But Tom envisions us dropping a wall through it, and making it 1/3 storage shed and 2/3 guest house. It’s just that huge. And it’s a cool idea. I’m sure when Allison is a teenager, she’d rather hang out in there with her friends than in the house with us. 
8. Being next to OLQH means lots of beautiful grounds to walk the dogs in. They love to go for walks, and I hate yanking them out of people’s yards and back onto the sidewalk. This is a little thing, having a place to walk, but it means a lot of convenience for us.

Cons:

1. The house is on a crawlspace, about two feet off the ground. This means that we have to have a wheelchair ramp built for our elderly dogs. No, we don’t have any elderly dogs right now, but we will. You know us, we love ‘em old! Without a wheelchair ramp, I’d have to carry them in and out of the house. Been there, done that–don’t want to do it again.
2. The swimming pool is only 13×26. Our old pool was 18×36, and it was wonderful…but really, I didn’t need a pool that big. It was 8′ deep, so it was a shallow-dive pool. This 13×26 pool is only 6′ deep, so it’s a no-dive pool. And it looks teeny. I mean…it’s almost kind of funny how small it seems.  However, in our old pool (when not diving) most of our deep-end pool time was spent clinging to things–the wall, floaties, etc. And it seems that my favorite spot in the old pool was at about the 5′ mark. So maybe this little pool would be a perfect size after all? I don’t know. All I really do in a swimming pool is float around on noodles and swim down for toys on the bottom. It might be okay.
3. It’s a split-bedroom plan. I don’t like split-bedroom plans. I like all the bedrooms near each other. Prior to Allison being born, I thought I liked split plans…but now I don’t. However,  in this house the secondary bedrooms and the master bedroom are still pretty close. It might be okay.
4. There is too much paved area in the backyard. Someone went crazy with the patio-ing. We’d have to hire someone to come jackhammer a lot of that up and lay sod.
5. The yard needs refencing. Right now it’s chainlink, and although I don’t mind chainlink in general, this case is a little different. Most of the refencing could wait, but right away I’d need a high wooden privacy fency or cinder-block wall for the back wall of the yard–because although I like being close to the parking lot, I do not want to see the parking lot.
6. The pool fence is uuuugly. It would have to be replaced pretty soon. I just can’t handle how ugly it is.
7. The vinyl siding on the house is cheap. I hate vinyl siding anyway. I prefer masonry siding. So, I’d want that done.
8. Road noise. It’s on a residential street, but only the third house down from the corner where it intersects with a pretty busy street. So there’s road noise. But in Georgia we heard the interstate traffic all the time, and we got used to it…so this might not be such a big deal.

But still, it’s pretty exciting. I love house-hunting!

I have a friend who is househunting for the first time, and we’re currently househunting. We’ve bought and sold two houses prior to this, so I have my househunting criteria down to a few mental lists. These lists will probably be pretty boring to read.

House basics:

1. 3+ bedrooms, 1.5+ baths.
2. NOT a split-bedroom plan. All three bedrooms should be near each other.
3. A master bedroom big enough for several giant dog beds in addition to our furniture, and it should ideally have a door to the backyard or a window that could be converted into a door into the backyard.
4. If secondary bedrooms are small, there must be a “bonus” room.
5. No indoor stairs, unless they lead up to a bonus room (that and attic space should be basically the only things up the stairs).
6. We prefer carpet or areas that can be easily carpeted.
7. At least a 1-car carport or garage.
8. Preferably, a den that looks out over the back yard, not the front yard.
9. I HATE bathrooms with “toilet closets”. I have to evaluate these bathrooms on a case-by-case basis.
10. Toilet MUST be near sink–not across the room in some vast, toilet-closeted new-fangled bathroom.
11. Our New Mexico house was heavily tiled. I hate to clean tile. I hate floor tiles. I hate ornate bathroom tiles. Tile countertops. Tiles going up walls. Tiles in showers or tub areas. It looks nice, but I’d rather just spray, and wipe, and be done–not have to use bristles on my textured tile, or rub my finger all up and down through all the grout lines. Not have to seal the stuff every few years. Not have to find a replacement tile if one breaks, not to mention doing the actual replacing. I prefer (gasp) single-sheet bathtub and shower enclosures, and linoleum on the floors. So if there’s tile, it should be old enough that I won’t feel bad about chipping it all up and having it replaced.
12. Kitchen should look into den, or be easily modified to do so.
13. No formal dining room, unless it is of the sort that could be easily and logically used as a different type of room (like a hobby room or library).

Yard:

1. No outdoor stairs (ie, leading to the backyard from a deck). One or two little steps might be okay.
2. Trees.
3. A spot without trees, or with only a few immature trees, for the pool that we’ll eventually install.
4. If there is already a pool there, it cannot be too close to the house. It should preferably be off to the side in the yard, in a location that is easily fenced for safety. —This is a big one; you can’t move a pool. Our first house had a great pool, but the location of it was horrible and unfenceable (because of where it was in relation to the back door of the house) and I was always afraid of my dogs falling in and drowning.—
5. Although we both prefer a bigger, country lot (of several acres), we also want to stay close to the Uni. So we will settle for a third of an acre if we have to, depending on the shape of the lot and the relation to the neighbors.
6. If in the city (not the country) the street should have curbs. In Lake Charles city, curbs seem to go hand-in-hand with drainage. No curbs seems to mean that you’ll have green, standing water in your front-yard ditches year-round. If we buy in the country, we’ll buy a big enough lot that the ditches won’t bother us.

I think that’s it…I might be modifying these lists if I suddenly remember I’ve forgotten something.