House #3,4,5

So last week we continued on with our house hunting journey, seeing 3 houses in town...the more I think about it, the more I'm liking the idea of living in town.  Of course I still want to have a decent sized yard but I'm not so gung-ho on living out in the middle of nowhere (we drove out to see a few places that were far out, and honestly I'm not sure it would suit me). I still want to have a garden, and plenty of space, but we don't necessarily have to be in the 'country' for me to get that feeling.  Luckily, one of the houses we went to see is on the edge of town, so the country is right up the road!

Anyway, the house above is the first one we stopped to see...not much to say about it.  It was an old house, which I liked, decent amount of space, but in some ways it was just as much, if not more, of a money pit than the place out in Penobsquis was (and without the gorgeous plot of land). It was neglected and needed A LOT of cosmetic work.  The neighbours were also a bit too close for our liking, so we dismissed it before we even left.

I was pleasantly surprised with the second house we went to see (above). I almost didn't even make an appointment to go see it, it was Dan who told me to add it to the list (he's a big believer in looking at basically anything, while I'm a bit choosier...)  When we got there, the first thing we were impressed by was the size of the yard.  Half an acre and fairly private/wooded, pretty moss, semi-landscaped, lots of room for a garden.  Also, the neighbours aren't very close at all (one of them own a double lot so they are on the other side of the field, and the other house might be unoccupied), so that was good.  And the house was in pretty good shape too. Not to say it didn't need some help (mainly in the form of about a million gallons of white paint to cover up the colour atrocities in there), but it really had a lot of potential. Mostly cosmetic work, which I'm not afraid of. Lots of character, original floors, windows, etc. Dan said that the heating and everything else looked alright, even though the size implied that it would be a bitch to heat in the winter (as I'm discovering all big houses are).  The only concern was the outside wood siding, it would have to be checked out for mould and asbestos before purchasing.  The more I thought about it, the more I liked this house. It's in a great location (Church Ave, which I've mentioned before as being my childhood 'dream street' to live on), has decent resale value, is close to everything but on the edge of town, so easy access to the country and fields, and not too far from my parents/Dan's work (in fact it's the next street over from where we're renting now, just up the hill).  It's currently at the top of my list.

This house was another case of my head knowing it was nice, but my heart not feeling it.  Luckily it didn't matter much because Dan wasn't a fan of the location, busy street, close neighbours, small yard, and back view of this house (it looks upon a series of brand new apartment buildings...umm, I didn't move to Sussex to have apartment buildings in my backyard, thank you). It was in good shape, an ok size, but just wasn't for us.

So that's it so far. Tonight we're going to see this house, which is out in the country a little bit but it's in a really nice area of the country, so I'm definitely willing to give it a shot.  There are no indoor photos so we have no idea what to expect, but at this point we're giving everything reasonable a fair shot.

Dan asked me how long I wanted to look before making a decision on a house...and I really had no idea.  Is there a recommended amount of time to look? How many houses does one go see, on average, when house hunting? I know I don't want to look forever, we kind of have a ticking timeline in my uterus at the moment telling us that we should be settled before the Fall for sure, but how far we want to push it is another matter.  Our price range limits us quite a bit in what we can get, so that is a blessing/curse, but I'm hoping that within the next 6 weeks or so we'll have our house picked out.

Sorry of this is boring to anyone other than family, but it's our first (and maybe last) time house hunting and I'd like to remember the process.

If you have a house hunting story to share, I'd love to hear! How did you know your house was 'the' house for you?

Until next time,

G.

PS-I signed up for Pinterest, and now I'm hooked, so expect a 'Pin' type post soon.