Color Me Dissapointed

Vince and I are in the process of looking at some properties, finally settling down on which parts of the DFW area we might want to purchase a house. Unfortunately this is easier said than done. Currently, Vince works a good 1 to 1 1/2 hours away from where we live. And while he says he doesn't mind an hour long commute for the right house/property, I'd like to be closer just in case I may need him home in a hurry in case of an emergency. So we've been focusing our attention on the Fort Worth and outlying areas since that is where he is currently working. But, he hates his supervisor. Like would like to take him out in a fist fight kind of hates. And while his supervisor, we'll call him "Dang" since apparently that is actually his name, doesn't treat Vince poorly, he treats Vince's female co-workers so bad that Vince is just ready to take him out. Needless to say, Vince doesn't plan on staying there any longer than he has to. So the big question is, where will he end up, and therefore where should we end up? But putting all that aside, because as I said before, he doesn't mind a long commute for the right house/property we've been looking. And the good news is that I found a house that I thought may be a great compromise between me wanting a nice house, and him wanting some land. I found this house in Fort Worth, right off the lake (the next door neighbor has lake access from their backyard), on .90 acres. O-kay, not the ten acres he wanted, but not the 5 bedroom I wanted either. But life is all about compromise, right?

So here is the house. Pretty, no? 3,300 to 3,400 square feet. Not big by Texas standards, but definitely bigger than anything we've ever lived in. Nice size lot, in a quiet upscale area.

Cool porte-coche (drive through) entrance. Play sized swimming pool in the back yard which is separately gated from the rest of the back yard, for the kids safety. And the bonus was that is it a foreclosure so it can be had for a steal. Tax roll valued at $460K, but current asking price is $285K. Perfect, right? Yea, unfortunately, no. First off, the house looks great from the outside, but not so great from the inside. It just wasn't designed well. For a house of this size you would think it would have a formal dining room. Or at least an eat-in area of the kitchen that we could fit our table in. Second, the master bedroom was so narrow, we couldn't fit our queen size bed in comfortably. We'd have to switch to bunk-beds and push them up against the wall. I don't think Vince would ever agree to bunk-beds. For the kids maybe, but not for us. The other bedrooms just seemed small, and then the game-room was just weird. It's located above the garage, so you walk through this hallway, which is actually walking over the porte-coche. Which is fine because it's removed from the rest of the house, which equals noise reduction, which is always good. But is has a balcony, which is always nice, but instead of installing french doors or the like, it had this set of windows that is more like a garage door that is actually rigged to a set of tracks on either side and on the ceiling so the windows raise up and roll, like an actual garage door. It was just bizarre. And then there was the half bath in the game room. Just big enough for a toilet and a pedestal sink. But the sink was mounted into a barrel. A barrel like for aging chardonnay. Or the kind of barrel one of those rodeo clowns hide in to get away from a charging bull. So in order to get to the toilet, you have to suck it in, and ooch past this barrel just to get to the toilet, then stand beside the toilet, because you can't shut the door standing in front of the sink, just to go pee. And I don't know about you, but suck it in when I have to go pee? No, I don't think so. Oh, and there are windows in the Texas basement. That's the space under the stairs, which is the room you're supposed to go to when the storm sirens go off. Windows in my storm shelter? That's just stupid. I mean really, what's the point? So overall, it just wasn't the house for us. And I was so excited by what I saw on paper. So now I'm feeling a bit jaded, and the houses I look at on-line I find myself looking for their weakness. In the meantime I think we need to contact our landlord, because our lease is up the beginning of December, and I don't see us finding a house anytime soon.