house hunting
Is Everyone Selling Their House?
Is everyone selling their house right now? Does it feel that way in your neighborhood? It sure feels that way in mine. I see new for sale signs popping up seemingly all the time. Two houses directly across the road from us have sold in the last year. Hmm… Is it us? Do we smell? Hahahahahaha! Don’t answer that. I’m going to use our time today to provide you a little tour of what’s for sale in my proverbial backyard. These are houses that I find particularly interesting for one reason or another. A few actually made my gasp! These houses are not representative of the market as a whole in my area. At least, I hope they aren’t…
Welcome to Our Colonial Farmhouse
This is not a drill. I repeat! This is not a drill. Our house hunt is over and I can finally talk about our new home without jinxing the deal. Thank goodness! Our new home is actually quite old. Old as in founding fathers old! So without further ado, welcome to our colonial farmhouse! If the story is correct, the original part of this house was supposedly built in the 1780s. The “new” section of the house (shown above) was built around 1849. There is some etching in a stone in the attic with the builder’s name and date to verify the 1849 date. Let me do the math for you. At…
House Hunting in New Jersey: The House That Wasn’t a House
Are you having fun following along with our house hunting in New Jersey adventure? Last week I shared the first house we made an offer on. I nicknamed it the sad house. Now, before the sad house was the house that wasn’t a house. Oh. My. Goodness. We fell HARD for this house that wasn’t a house. Hook, line and sinker. So if it wasn’t a house in the traditional sense, what was it? In a previous life this house was a diner and a gas station. Is there a better combination than a place where you can get dinner and fill your car up with gas? Yes, actually. I…
House Hunting in New Jersey: An Offer That Flopped
Ready to hear more about our house hunting adventure in New Jersey? This is a story about an offer that flopped, but the reason the offer flopped is still hard to understand. The first home we made an offer on was a 5 bedroom, 3 bath home. The property is what really sold us on the home. It was on 3.5 acres and a creek ran through the property. It was priced at $380,000. In order to keep all the homes we were looking at straight in our minds, we gave the houses nicknames. This one was the ‘sad house’ because the home looked sad and neglected in the listing.…
House Hunting in New Jersey is Hard
We started house hunting in New Jersey!!!!!!! Yes. That sentence required an overuse of exclamation points. I want you to know how excited I am. I also need to remind myself how excited I am because house hunting in New Jersey is hard. Oy! I was adamantly opposed to living in New Jersey, but now that we’ve been here for a year the state has grown on me. Prior to moving here my negative impression of New Jersey was generated from bad reality TV, the jokes New Yorkers make about New Jersey, and the Newark Airport. That probably wasn’t fair and now that we’ve had a chance to explore this state…
My Number One Moving Tip
Between Handy Husband and I, we’ve lived in Oregon (a few different times), Washington, Canada, Massachusetts, Minnesota, Georgia and now Ireland. We have enjoyed the luxury of being moved by moving companies, domestically and internationally. We have loaded our stuff in a uHaul. We have loaded our stuff in my dad’s cattle trailer. Don’t worry, he hosed the manure out. Just think about that one for a minute. We have moved our stuff in the back of a car. Yes, a sectional does fit in a Toyota Venza. If you take 3 trips. If anyone wants to question my moving credentials, I think I have the market cornered on all…
Moving to Ireland: The Great Purge
Handy Husband and I have moved A LOT. We are no stranger to packing up our stuff and moving across town, across the state, across country. Moving across an ocean to a foreign country was new for us. Bring. It. On. The biggest warning you will get when moving to a European country from the United States is the homes are a lot different than what you are used to. “A lot different” is code for smaller. Unless you are uber-wealthy, a typical European home is going to be a lot smaller than a typical home in the United States. Americans must not heed The Warning because The Warning was repeated ad nauseam. You…
Moving to Ireland: House Viewing #3
If you’ve been following along on our house hunting adventures in Ireland, then you’ll know that House #1 and House #2 were a big, fat bust. I hate to spoil the surprise, but if we are connected on Instagram or you ran into my dad, then you already know “third times a charm” is now my favorite phrase ever. House #3 is a 4 bedroom, 2 bath semi-detached home located in a small coastal village about 30 minutes south of Dublin. Semi-detached is just a fancy way of saying it’s actually attached on one side and thus a duplex. This home was built in 1966 and thankfully has had some updates since that…
Moving to Ireland: Temporary House, Floor 2
After Monday’s awe-inspiring pictures of where we stayed while we searched for a permanent Irish residence, I didn’t want to leave you hanging over the weekend without showing the 2nd floor of this home. You’re welcome. (You can read all about the first floor here.) Let’s climb the stairs to the second floor. Ask me how many times the kids took that stair turn too fast? Go ahead. Ask. Once each. Alright, my son might have done it twice, but his danger streak runs a mile wide. This townhouse is a 2 bedroom, 1 bath home. At the top of the stairs you can turn right to the bathroom and one of…
Moving to Ireland: Temporary Home, Floor 1
Moving to a foreign country is exciting and full of adventure. It is also full of paperwork and more paperwork. You need paperwork to enter the country. More paperwork to stay in the country. More paperwork to open a bank account. And so on. Needless to say, the powers-that-be want to be certain that you really want to live there. While all of that resolve testing is underway, you need a place to stay until you are legally able to lease a home. Handy Husband’s employer provided temporary accommodations for our family while we searched for a permanent Irish residence. The company assisting us with the relocation, Irish Relo, gave us three choices of homes…
