One Year

[prosodic]

A year ago today, we signed the offer on our house and put down the earnest money, and it became ours.

Reading back on those entries, I had so much more optimism. That was before we knew that the windows were in horrible shape and needed to be replaced. That was before we knew that the fireplace, as it is right now, is not functional, because it's too dangerous (I want this fixed ASAP so we can actually start using it, but Lance isn't in as big of a hurry). That was before we knew about the poor quality of the water heater. How drafty the house is. How heat builds up in the summer so that it's almost unbearably hot. How the neighbors are loud and how we can hear the train down in the valley, almost like it's getting ready to barrel through our house.

(Hopefully the new windows will fix some of these problems, including reducing the outside noise a bit.)

This was before I knew how much work it would be to strip wallpaper. Before I knew that once you replace something in a room, something else suddenly looks old and dirty and needs to be replaced.

Ah...to look at things through rose colored glasses. It's great for a while, until reality begins to rear its ugly head and you see how flawed things truly are.

The other house that I truly truly loved...the one that was far and away my very favorite house...had we gotten that house instead, would I have loved it still? I would love to think so, but I'm not so sure. Lance and I still talk about that house, wondering what would've happened if we had bought that instead.

But we're in *this* house. It's ours. Flaws and all. And we have to make the best of it. We're making it more livable. We just have to make it lovable.

Comments

[dimwit68.livejournal.com]

Just about all of those are problems of owning rather than renting. The chances are that any other house would have had a similar spread of problems that you'd discover once you moved in. Look on the bright side, at least it doesn't need re-roofing or to have the foundations fixed up! And I seem to remember that you were both fed-up with the different problems associated with renting.

[katzies.livejournal.com]

I'm going to knock on an entire forest for that comment on not needing a new roof or foundation!

It might not be perfect but nothing in life is. I'm sure there would have been flaws and what ifs with any other house. Do you plan on staying there for a long time or just for this tour? Either way, it doesn't have to be forever and if it's really not live/lovable then there is no shame in moving.

[prosodic.livejournal.com]

We're hoping to stay in this area for the rest of Lance's career, although that's not very likely. But we're going to try, anyway.

It's 4 years though, as of now. And we have A LOT of work to do to get this house in a condition to be sold. A LOT. We took a huge leap of faith in getting this house, and we were unaware of a lot of its problems. And these are things that must be fixed...absolutely must be fixed...and that cost a lot of money. But it's the only way we have a chance of selling.

And we'll probably still lose money. But we're stuck. So there's nothing we can do. Moving is absolutely not an option in this current market. Our house isn't earning any equity. In fact, it has decreased in value over the past year. Yet here we are. working our asses off, spending unholy amounts of money, to fix it up.

At least the roof is fairly new. And the foundation is solid, because the house is still standing after a few relatively strong earthquakes.