For more on this transition see: relocation, and adventures in house-hunting round 1

So after our long and somewhat disappointing first day of house-hunting we came home and processed what went right and  wrong. We had two that we liked from our first day of looking: one in town and one 10 minutes outside of town but we were not settled on either one just yet. So started looking at homes in a different price bracket and got to work really analyzing not only the photos but also the information/descriptions provided by each realty page. Before long we had a whole new list set up of more than 10 new homes to look at.

We were anxious to look at some other possibilities so Tuesday July 1rst we were once again headed up to Dansville to look at homes. Of the ten on our list some were no longer on the market. This is something that happened with our first list as well; when our realtor tried to set up an appointment he would discover that the house was under-contract or taken off the market total.  So Tuesday night we ended up seeing seven homes; five new ones, two re-visits, and one that got canceled because we were late into town due to a traffic problem.

Most of these homes had better layouts, less confusing bathrooms, and bedrooms of normal/average size. So we took it to the next level and looked over the disclosure information provided to us and asked more specific questions about the foundation, carpeting vs hardwood floors, insurance costs, the functionality of the fireplace, the heating system, the roof, the pipes etc.

If the realtor didn’t know the information, we asked for it to be provided after we looked. Three homes of the five new ones were discounted pretty quickly based on similar issues to what we saw in our first round.  One of these homes was out of town and beautiful on paper: 6 acres, a brick and shingle exterior, and an open layout. But when we got there we discovered there was only one formal bedroom, the acreage was all down a very steep decline off the back porch (which was sinking) and heavily wooded. Another home was a split-level which reeked of cigarette smoke and had a kitchen that was condensed into such a small space I would get closer phobic working in it.

That left two new ones to consider. One option was huge  it had a full vaulted attic with more storage space then we could consider what to do with, a formal living room, dining room, open updated floor plan for a kitchen, hardwood floors, and a study with fireplace. The house was built with a craftsman style and had beautiful interior woodwork. Still the backyard was a little small and narrow even though it was well maintained and gardened. The house had so much character but it was more space than we need which means it would cost more to heat then it’d be worth for us right now and the roof was old enough it would have to be redone while we lived there. In-spite of all this and other issues it is the most difficult home we’ve let go of so far.

The other option had a beautiful large backyard with a natural border, new hardwood flooring in the whole house, and good sized bedrooms. But it was hard to overlook that the half bath was only a toilet in a broom closet off of the kitchen. It was the only bathroom downstairs so any guests would use that toilet then wash their hands in the kitchen sink? Um . . . .no. Plus the kitchen was a 70’s kitchen with a indoor grill and bright red-orange cabinets; talk about a need to re-do.

That night we went to applebees and had a very late dinner. We talked about the homes we had seen and especially about the ones we revisited; what new issues or positive attributes we saw during our second round with a more critical eye. After which we decided we were still pretty confident in two options we had kept from our day of house-hunting; which I promise I will talk about next.