ferrousland.com - diary archives
Thursday, May 22, 2003
a house of our very own - 09:38 PM
how exciting! we made an offer on a house this afternoon. 
since i became pregnant, we've been looking around for a house of our own. we've been renting here for almost two years, i think, & have wanted to have our own place for when rudegere comes. i mean, we could set up a baby's room here, but it's so much nicer when we can do it in our own house, where we can change the colours of walls & such if we want to.
so, we'd been looking fairly casually for a month or two, until this tuesday just gone by, when the real estate agent that looks after the rental of this place, arrived to hand deliver the official form which tells us that the owners want to sell, which of course, means us moving out.
we thought about buying this place & were going to make an offer on it. it's not a bad house, really. one of the main reasons we disliked living here is because we couldn't fix up the little (& some big) things which weren't quite right & which bugged us. if we owned this house, however, then we would spend the money on fixing those things.
the basic structure of the house is okay, but it's a real 'rental' if you know what i mean. the owners have done things on the cheap because it doesn't affect them. rather then spending decent money on the place, they've gone the cheaper option with things like the fence (which is falling apart), the fittings (the bathroom vanity is cheap particle board which is slowly disintegrating), & small things like the curtain rail hangers (the cheapest, crappiest things i've ever come across, which break if you don't pull the curtains closed with the utmost gentleness). there are other things, too, such as the curtains themselves, which don't fit the windows very well. all things which, if we owned the place, we would spend a little more money on.
when the real estate agent came around, i happened to be about to get into the car to drive past a couple of houses which i'd seen advertised in the paper on the weekend. i headed off after he'd gone & drove to the houses. one of the places looked quite lovely from the outside. when i got home again, i called the appropriate people to arrange an inspection of both places.
the second one that i looked at i really liked. it wasn't that the house itself, or the inside of the house, was particularly impressive or anything, but rather the whole package put together. it had that feeling to it .. you know when you walk into a place & you feel really comfortable straight away? as soon as i walked in i thought, "this place is really nice." i'd looked at other places which were nice enough & presented beautifully, but none of them gave me that feeling.
i took lots of pictures with the digital camera to show shroom when he got home & told him what i thought of it, so we arranged another inspection for this afternoon, when he could leave work a bit early & we could look at it together.
the house itself has only three bedrooms, but it's laid out really well, making good use of the available space. it's on two acres, so there's plenty of room to expand if we want to. there's a double lock up garage, not attached to the house, but as a separate shed to the side. the front yard is completely fenced, with a fence between it & the driveway, so less worries about accidentally backing over children or dogs with the car. there's a really nice covered patio out the side of the house, leading from the kitchen/breakfast area, also totally fenced in. perfect for children.
at the back of the property there is a dam on which i saw a family of ducks! i love ducks. not like the line of ducks that hang on a wall, or pictures or statuettes of ducks (yuck), but real ducks. they're just so cool. since it's a bit further out from the city, it has a water tank, rather than town water, but the garden can be watered with grey water (water recycled from the sink or the washing machine) or from the dam, so we can save the clean water for washing & drinking. it really only requires a small amount of extra vigilance to not waste water & since i've been using the enjo products there'll be far less detergents & chemicals contaminating our grey water.
so after a good look around, we went on our way home, shroom fairly quiet as he mulled over what he'd seen. when we got home we made up a list of pros & cons. the biggest pro which we both felt was quite important, is that living there will provide a great quality of life. it's not so far out to be isolated (for instance, there's a child care centre about five minutes' drive away & the nearest large shopping centre is only about ten minutes away) but far enough away from heavily trafficked roads to stay away from a lot of pollution & on enough land to have a bit of space between us & the neighbours. an excellent environment in which to bring up children, not to mention the fact that we'd also enjoy it. shroom can build a beautiful garden, which he loves doing. he has a real green thumb. plants like him.
after going through our list & discussing each good & bad point, i called the guy who is selling it. it's a private sale, which means we don't have to deal with any horrible real estate agents. i made an offer, he hesitated & said, "you're close," i made another offer & he said, "yes." woo hoo!
so we now arrange the contract & then sort out the finance & conveyancing & all those sorts of things which make sure that we're getting good value for our money. it's a really good deal compared to what we've seen in the past few weeks. it's a little further out of town then we originally wanted to live, but only about ten minutes further. it's also still only half an hour drive to work for shroom, which is exactly the same as it is from here.
i'm really excited. i have some plans already for the inside of the house (just a bit of repainting) & i think shroom probably already has plans developing in his head for a garden outside & a fish tank or two (or three) inside.
all going well, in about thirty days or so, we'll have our very own house.
yay!!! 
Sounds great! Think about your water requirments though, remember there has been, and will be, a drought...
Oh Coralie I think it is so wonderful. I love living out from the city. You have even a larger lot than we do as we have 1 1/2 acres. We have a well for water and of course, we live in a desert, so water is always an issue, but it doesn't worry us as we have many farms about.
I know you will love fixing up ror baby. Congrats to you!
Keep us posted, we want to know.
Wow - that is great news & the house sounds fantastic. It's so great to live an acreage & have a place of your own - Congrats :o)
Congrats!!! I have been visiting your site for a while but then stopped for some reason and then I come back and find out that your PREGNANT!!! Wonderful news
And the house sounds like an absolutely wonderful place to raise children. I'm sooooo happy for you both!!!It sounds absolutely, incredibly wonderful.
Congratulations!
For us non-English, a damn is a reservoir, right?
Congratulations on the house, hope the legal bits go easy.
2 acres wow, room for a flock of sheep, saves cutting the grass
That house sounds like a dream! It seems perfect!!! Lucky you!!! Your family is going to be so happy living there!.In regards to the draught, in my area a lot of people have really huge tanks so they can stockpile when it does rain, and when they're empty, they BUY water by the gallon, it's not that expensive and if your efficient then it is possible to get by using a minimum amount of water.
ti is great to read about your new house the very better of luck with it. lovely to be able look around and think this is all ours
Really happy for you both. Its really nice to hear that its all coming together for you, Coralie.
All my best for the futureI'm excited for you guys! Home ownership is lots of work, but so very worth it all. This place sounds ideal for you, hope everything goes OK. You'll be painting walls with a huge belly sticking out to brush the wet paint in no time. LOL
That's great Coralie!
I can just picture you in some dungarees, singlet and huge belly with paint in your hair and on your belly that kept touching the walls!
2 acres!!???? Cripes, all that bloody mowing!!
Welcome to the ranks of the miserly mortgaged
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so exciting!!! i am soooo jealous.