Other Houses We Looked At Before Buying The New One

Back when we were house hunting in 2010 we shared a series of posts that each profiled a distinct house that we looked at (you can see them here, here, here, here, and here). And even though our hunt is over this time around, we hoped to revisit 9 other houses that we casually toured (many of them simply on Open House days) before we met The One. So we had lively driving around snapping pictures for you and reminiscing (“That was the one with the phone in the bathroom!” “That was the one with the family of deer in the backyard!”).

The Lake House: The first house was quite modest in size and located simply a few blocks away from our current house. So although it was not in our dream neighborhood… dude, it was on a lake! But we learned that even with heavy renovations, it would be extremely pricey to add a bathroom on the lower level where half of the square footage was, and the extra-low ceilings down there were also a non-changeable feature (there was no way to make them any higher). So although it was under budget and on the water, it was a no go for us.

Note: Simply like last time we shared house hunting pics back in 2010, we hoped to respect the privacy of each home’s owner, so that is why the photos have been doctored (colors and orientations might be altered, we brought in a filter to obscure them, etc) thanks to our friend Photoshop.

The Big Ranch: You know we enjoy a ranch, and this baby was in fact fairly cool. There was a giant kitchen (crazy dated! needed so much enjoy!) that was attached to a giant living room with a big fireplace, so we could simply picture how doing some work could fully transform that area into a strong open living space in the heart of the home. The cons were that the rest of the layout was a little choppy for us, and the price was significantly more than we hoped to spend.

The Gray Shaker: This house was initially promising because it was in our dream neighborhood and was listed for a fairly low price… but once we poked around we realized why. There was some unusual siding going on when it came to the exterior (the gray part sort of looked like plastic shaker shingles) and the inside was fairly broken up (steps down into some rooms, doorways and hallways between rooms that felt choppy, etc). So although the price was strong, it simply did not give us butterflies.

The Quirky House: This was certainly the most unusual of all of them. We called the basement “the HGTV room” because it was fully redone and looked kinda like the cabin of a yacht, complete with a built-in banquet that turned into bunk beds for kid sleepovers. However, the unusual roof line, the large stained glass window in the front, and the price (it was nearly 100K higher than our new house) were not right for us. Too bad because the street name even had “Young” in it…

The Updated House: This contemporary house was also so much lively to tour, because although it was not in our go-to neighborhood and was substantially more pricey than our new house, it was truly inspiring since nearly all of it was fully renovated, so it was lively to see what they did – especially the giant fireplace in the kitchen. Oh, and this one was the one with a phone in the bathroom.

The Barn: This house was in our dream neighborhood but was more than we hoped to spend. It was truly cute inside (a balance between already-a-blank-slate and we’d-do-a-little-gutting-in-some-areas) and it had a truly pleasant circle driveway and a private yard with a deck along and some cute rooms upstairs with peaked ceilings. But along with being more than we hoped to spend, it had some layout quirks that we thought might be harder to work with than some other homes we had seen.

The Garage Theater House: This house was in fact yellow when we looked at it, which nearly tricked us into driving right by when we went back to shoot these photos for you folks. The new paint job looks excellent, and this house had THE BEST backyard. Complete with a deck and a pergola. The quirky and memorable detail was that the garage had been turned into a theater room (complete with dark walls, a giant projector screen, and amazingly loud surround sound) but there was a note from the sellers that said converting it back into a garage was easily done. It was priced out of our budget, but we are not surprised at all that it sold (and has even been painted!) since we looked at it.

The Pool House: This house was in our go-to neighborhood, but was priced out of our range and had a bunch of higher-maintenance-than-we’d-like features… like a giant pool and an even bigger deck surrounding it. So we daydreamed about how much lively that would be, but reminded ourselves that a too-pricey house + high maintenance features (the siding covering the whole house is the kind that will eventually need to be replaced) was not the way to go, even if it had one heckova pool out back.

The Double Staircase: This house was in our dream neighborhood, needed upgrading, but was still priced well above our range and felt a little too grand for us (there were two staircases!). But it was truly lively to check out and imagine what we’d do. The funny thing is that when we walked through we had one of those “oh man, I wish the smaller, less grand, lower priced version of this house existed…”

Then literally less than two weeks later we saw another for sale sign, followed it back to a quiet cul-de-sac, and this was staring back at us.

When we learned it was the same size as our current house, well within our price range (nearly 100K cheaper than many other things we casually perused), and in need of tons of enjoy… well, it was the easiest offer we ever wrote.

And that is how casually walking through open houses can lead to buying a house. You have been warned…