I like the house

2-25-13

I really like the house.

We went and looked at the house in Old Torrance yesterday. It is cute! There is a good sized kitchen, which I fell in love with. There is at least 3 different spots for a dining table. This in itself makes me giddy. The Mother In Law quarters are not truly any kind of livable unit, but this is ok since we had not intended on having anyone actually staying in there. The garage is cool since it is apparently 2 and a half cars large with direct access to the alley, which is awesome. Decent backyard size. Of course, it isn’t as big as our current yard, but I don’t see that happening in any places we want to live.

I took a bunch of pictures to show our financers, which will hopefully be Ma and Pa Brenan. The plan at this point now is to actually sell our current house. We had our relator over who told us the only money we should put into the place is just painting all the rooms an off-white and maybe re-do the front wood on the house. All of this is doable. It also means that the primary objective at home is to start boxing stuff up. We are going to need to put some things in storage for now so that we can make the house sparse for showing purposes.

Papa Brenan has been skeptical of the plan for this place up until I uploaded the pics I took yesterday. Apparently between the sympathy coming from my MIL regarding school district changes and the fact that the place reminded them both of the Westchester house, there will be an offer made on the house. Yay! Ken told me that apparently the only reason they moved from Westchester to go to Manhattan Beach was due to LA Unified, which really helps my case.

So for now I am cautiously optimistic. I also did some more searches on other houses and have found at least one other that looks promising. We would need to go inside the place, but we will see what happens with everything. I think the ball is moving and hopefully we will be able to make something happen.

I love the area this house is in. Sure, it is across from the train, but it sounds like there are very few trains these days, and they happen mostly when we are not even there. Plus, they are not particularly loud.

The house was built in 1928, which is kind of fun. I love the charm of an old house. My understanding is that they have updated the wiring, though, so this is good. It has a lot of potential for upgrades, too. You could work with a lot of it. Ken pointed out that the place is really perfect for entertaining, which I love. It seems like a great hangout for my boys when they are teens. I know, that sounds silly, but there is the one room off of the kitchen that I can totally see them sitting and playing video games with their friends in.

The rest of my weekend went well. Bobby’s party was awesome. I was a little bummed about the lack of classmates, but based on every other school party we have gone to, this seems pretty normal with the kids from this school. We had a great turnout, though, with lots of kids and my wonderful friends who all made me very happy.

The boys are not as game on moving. When I originally told the boys that we were going to go look at a house, Dax freaked out because he didn’t want to leave Mr. Williams’ class. I totally understand his concern. I told him that even if we moved to a new house tomorrow, that he would still finish out the school year at Halldale.

When we were in the house yesterday, Bobby told me he didn’t like the place because it had too many rooms and specifically too many bathrooms. Mind you, in the house itself, there is one and ¾ bath. Not exactly mansion amounts. There is also a bathroom in the outside room. He was concerned with getting lost in the house. It isn’t that big! He just seemed to be out of sorts about it.

Dax didn’t like that the backyard wasn’t as big as home. Well, I can understand this, but his other reasons really stem from moving away from the friends they have on our street. I know this will suck, but I also know they will probably have other friends near us. We will just meet some more kids.

Ultimately, they just don’t like the idea of leaving the only place they have known as home. I am bummed at the prospect of leaving the place where my children were first brought home and learned to walk and all of the sweetness that comes with your first home. That being said, I find myself truly getting over that nostalgia with the prospect of being in a cute neighborhood that I would be more than willing to grow old in. I love the idea of the boys going to good schools and being close to a park. I love that we would still be close to many of the things we love about our current house like our grocery store, yet be able to not worry about the issues like being close to the hospital.

I need to get out of my head with the house. LOL! I keep decorating. I am trying to determine if the kids will be in the front room or the middle room. I am considering the option of where to put my desk. I am trying to figure out where we will end up putting our tv since there are two rooms that could be where we spend time. The front room will clearly be for the Christmas tree, what with the fireplace right there for Santa. Seriously, I am excited.