Wanted: Little Red House

Well, it’s official. I’m pre-approved for a loan so I can make an offer in hopes of buying my little red house with it’s hardwood floors and nice-sized kitchen, even though it only has one bathroom and it’s on the first floor.

Apparently, I have an excellent credit score. I was very relieved to discover that. Now I’m trying to figure out what’s appropriate to offer, how to make an offer, and what comes next.

Clearly, I’m going to need to hire movers this time. I may see if I can get Sunny involved. I mean, I have a good idea where I want things, but she obviously comes with organizational enthusiasm. Last night when we were having dinner and she was just looking at the pictures and discussing it all, she was getting all excited…and it’s my house!
My mother and I discussed the whole bathroom situation. I’ve decided that in a year or two I can hire someone to put a 3/4 bath in upstairs myself. I can live with it the way it is until then.

In the meantime, I’ll need to buy a TV stand for my television — the entertainment unit I have now isn’t going to withstand another move; every time the cats jump on it now, the whole thing just kind of sways and I hold my breath that it all doesn’t come crashing down. I’d be happy with something small that holds just the digital cable box, the entertainment system box (DVD) and the TV and kind of goes with my mission-style coffee table and end tables. Plus, it’ll need to sit catty-cornered between two those two front windows.

I also need an island for my kitchen, though technically I don’t need it right away. I can use the the two person crappy table I’ve had for 7 years that was salvaged from somewhere in the depths of my grandmother’s basement and has to hide beneath a tablecloth — the chairs haven’t been seen without their homemade head-to-toe chair covers for 7 years either and they don’t quite fit under the table. However, I just have this feeling that the crappy table is never going away and the kitchen island with the breakfast bar is never going to be found if we don’t do something about it during the transition. You know what I mean?

I don’t actually have another table. You know, a dining room table. Or something that seats more than two people. Well, technically you can sit about four to six people around my coffee table if people sit on the sofa and the floor, but apparently my mother doesn’t think that’s very adult. My mother thinks that I can pretty-please my father into talking my grandmother out of one of her three tables that she’s not using since she’s now in assisted living, but I disagree even though I’d love to have her kitchen table — the other two are far too “fancy” for me. I think that my father would rather poke his eyeballs out with hot pokers than ask his mother to consider parting with any of her belongs that have been just sitting in her packrat over-stuffed non-occupied house for over eighteen months and I think he’d add having his teeth pulled without any Novacaine rather than using a single drop of gasoline to transport a table or that lawnmower my mom thinks my grandmother my sell me or any of the other stuff my mom wants to try to get my grandmother to donate.

I figure that it doesn’t all have to happen at once. I don’t need the lawnmower until Spring or Summer. I probably need a snowblower though. Some time this Winter, one weekend when I’m snowed in, I’ll paint one wall of my kitchen red. Some time in the Spring, I want to start a small herb and vegetable garden in the backyard. I want to add some shelves into the closets, maybe an area rug or two.
But for the most part, I have everything I need already, right? I mean, I’ve survived all of this time with the stuff I have. Once the animals and I move in, if we get the house, we can just spend some time settling in with what we have.

And a T.V. Stand, of course.

Tags: house hunting, credit score, mortgage, house loan