On the House Hunt - House Number One

It seems that I've been too busy on the house hunt lately to even talk about the house hunt! We've seen some real doozies - both good and bad. Some were pretty close to what we want but just weren't perfect. Thanks to all who have sent words of wisdom about this whole thing, by the way. It has really helped. If we end up staying at the ranch, we'll be happy as larks. It's just the possibility of possibly finding another cheaper home that we love and being able to have more money every month that keeps us in the search.

 I thought I'd walk you through one of the houses that peaked our interest enough to have us out there on the very first day.  I've hemmed and hawed about how much information to give on any houses that we look at and have decided that since I truly want these homes to find owners that will love them, I won't put their addresses out there. I don't want my dislike of certain things in otherwise possibly great houses to be found in google searches for the homes' addresses when potential buyers look them up. However, if you are interested in one of the houses that I talk about at any point and want to know where they are, by all means, drop me a line or give me your email address in the comments and I'll zap the information right over to you. I believe that every home has a perfect owner out there and even though I might not be it, I don't want to murk up the waters for anyone who might be.

Okay, disclaimers are out of the way now! This home is in a cute area called Donelson. There are tons and tons of original ranches over there so we do a lot of driving around in that area.  And there is a little Greek deli where the owner always remembers that I'm the "extra olive lady". It has a kind of small town feel but is close to downtown Nashville and also has two pretty good thrift stores. When this house came on the market, the interior pictures alone had us in the driveway within the hour. Plus, it's in a really great neighborhood. Let's take a tour!

This is the front of the house. It sits way up on a hill and has a large front porch. 

Here is the view from the porch. Love it! 

It was so quiet and peaceful up there. No noise from the street and birds singing everywhere. We could picture ourselves sitting up there day and night. Unfortunately, the realtor didn't put the lockbox on the front door so that this would be the first impression. Instead:

See the little door way to the back there past the piles of overflowing garbage? The door that you have to fight biting flies just to get into? That is where the lockbox was. It was a horrible first impression. From there, the basement just drove that first impression on home. I won't bother you with photos of the basement but I'll just say that it just didn't appeal to us at all. I love a good basement but we'll let the condition of the old fireplace speak for the entire bottom level.

A basement is truly a home's foundation and there were too many red flags down there for us to deal with.  Holes in the ceiling and walls, mold, water damage and other clues that let us know that this house hadn't been loved the way that we want a house to be. The top level of the home was so pretty but we just couldn't forgive the basement. Let's take a look at the top level though!

We really liked the kitchen. It had the original cabinets with copper hardware and Nutone exhaust fan. Original stovetop too. The original countertops would need to be replaced because they had burn marks in them and we would have replaced the floor with something more period. I still think about this kitchen actually. It felt like a very happy little kitchen. Here is a shot from the dining nook:

I really love those cabinets that open from both sides and the little pass-thru. This kitchen was really large and had a wall oven inset into a brick wall. I've had a thing for those ever since I was a kid watching "The Brady Bunch".

Off of the kitchen was this really cool den:

The bedrooms all had really great closet space and built-ins:

The living room was really spacious:

And here is a shot of the mural in the dining room:

And the pretty foyer:

The bathrooms were cute too:

I really loved this one with the green trim and inset pink sinks. And this wallpaper:

Here is the other bath: 

It had fleur-de-lis patterns here and there in the tile:



I realize while looking at these photos that this house is pretty fantastic. It's about 98% all-original and that's not something that you find in Nashville very often. It's hard to explain why we didn't go for it without having you all there in person.  It was in huge part because of the basement. It was fourteen hundred square feet of "what have we gotten ourselves into?" We could just tell that having to deal with the basement issues would suck our souls out. There comes a time when you're too old and too tired (and too close on the heels of finishing a four year restoration of your current house) that you and your bank account just say a consensual "no thanks".  And the only way that leaving our current little  ranch makes sense is if we gain financially from it. 
It actually broke our hearts because we loved the upstairs part so much. If that baby had been on a crawl space, we would be under contract right this minute. I also have no doubt that if we'd found this house years ago, we would have been gung-ho to tackle it. Just not now. 
It's interesting that basements are often the stuff of intensely terrifying scenes in horror movies because they're that way in real life too sometimes. Oh, and in case you doubt me, here is where I'd be doing laundry:

Not even that cute little fabric softener bear Snuggles would be willing to join me down there in the pit of laundry doom. That door to the left there is a combo elevator and panic room.

What say you? Would you forego the basement woes and just live upstairs and pretend like the downstairs doesn't exist? Or would just keep moving on until the right thing comes along? If someone happens to buy this house, please drop me a line. I'd love to know that it's in good hands because I think of it often.

Until next time,
x's and o's,
Eartha