All right, this was really unexpected.
The common tale is that we walked to the shoppe to buy a bottle of wine and returned with a house. That's not really far off! We pointed out to our in-laws a house that we really liked for sale as we went to fetch some good wine for dinner, followed by some wandering around the place, followed with "look, the back door's open", followed with an introduction to the neighbor who was working in it.... well, the rest of the story ends with a two-day whirlwind process that ended with an accepted offer. I'm sorry the housing market crashed for the economy's sake, but really, for us, it was pretty awesome given the price we got it off of foreclosure.
The neighbor was in some wonderment when he found out that a semi-young family of three was moving into a behemoth of a six bedroom home with an extra flat attached. When we put away his fears that we would split it up into rentals for college students, he asked what we would do with the space...to which he received a response of a couple of shrugging shoulders and goofy smiles!
We signed today, merely two days before getting on the plane out of here, which somehow seems amusing to everybody involved. The conversation goes approximately like this...
When you are moving?
Um, sometime in January I suspect.
I figured you'd be really excited about this and get in right away.
Oh, we are! However, we're heading for an Italian Christmas until the New Year. We'll sort the house out when we get back.
You have a rough life.
We nod our heads seriously.
And, indeed, we will sort the house out later. But we are VERY excited with a house big enough to entertain in a part of the world that we have fallen in love with so hard. Some very acceptable features (OK, really AWESOME features!) include....
- Speakeasy style built-in bar with plenty of room to turn into theatre
- Absurdly large boiler in a pit that is the perfect setting for steampunk conversion (the boiler inspector recommended pouring concrete over it - such a travesty to destroy potential like that!)
- The perfect room to convert into a wine cellar (always wanted one of those)
- My open kitchen! It's currently full of blocky furniture that was noted positively to us as new and such good quality....hrm...yeah, that's all going away!
- My library! All my life I've wanted my personal library study with a big fireplace .... got it now.
- And finally, but certainly not least, a nice large extension on the side of the living room to fit my instruments (baby grands are no tiny things) perfectly.
Others are excited about the place for other reasons with some of these being shared, but these features are certainly my top favourite! Never have my recent attempts to really focus on the immediate moment to appreciate and be 100% present been more challenged, but never has the effort in doing so been more important as my life is filling up with such wonderful experiences and joys!
