Our house

We went out to look at houses last weekend and before we went, we firmly decided that we were not going to do anything but look. After all, we didn't want to close on anything until sometime between June and November. I said that we absolutely wouldn't want to make an offer on anything—even if we really liked it—for a few weeks. This is a buyer's market so why should we do anything but sit around and wait for the perfect house?

Right.

So, we found a house at a great price in the perfect location. What constitutes the perfect location you might ask? The house is in the "north shore" area of town, which is apparently one of the most desirable places to live. It's in the Normal Park area, named for the Normal Park Museum Magnet School, which was recognized as the best magnet school in the country a couple years ago. It seems to be a really good school and it's where we wanted to send our kids (Jackson and any yet-to-be-conceived children). It's less than 10 minutes from where we work downtown. And it's supposed to be a very walkable community. Plus, we like the house. We made an offer, they countered, and we accepted.

We had the home inspection last weekend and we're currently waiting to hear what the seller might be willing to fix. There's nothing major, just a few little things. We're set to close on May 14, and while that's a little earlier than we had planned, it will give us time to clean up the house and fix up a few things before our lease is up at the end of June.

The house also came with another price. We promised Jackson he could get a puppy when we had a backyard. We'll probably try and make good on that promise after the wedding. He would like a white, black, blue, and red dog whom he plans to call "French Fries." Yeah, ok.



Here's a link to some information about the house. On this page, there's a video tour of the house.

This is the outside of the house—it was built in 2000, and the lot is super sloping, which we didn't want, but it is very typical for the area.






Our (I think I'm speaking for Danny too) favorite part of the house is the downstairs living space. The kitchen leaves a bit to be desired, but we're hoping that can be remodeled in time. But there's a great living room, dining room, courtyard, and deck. The courtyard extends in kind of a half-moon shape around the side of the house. Chattanooga's weather is nice enough that eating dinner outside is really a decent possibility probably most nights in the summer and fall. Thus far, spring is not proving to be super nice. It also seems like a nice place for kids to ride tricycles and kick around a soccer ball. Sure, most people would use a real yard for that, but that's most people!





Another cool part of the house is this treehouse. Jackson was VERY excited about this. It's actually incomplete and looks to be part of a patio or something they started to build. But we think it looks like a great fort for a four-year old and a nice place to camp out. The backyard is very, very sloped and is only partially terraced. We think it's mostly rock, so we have some grand plans of finishing out the patio and then adding more steps and raised garden beds.

We don't close until May 14, so it's not exactly a done deal, but we've at least got a mutually agreeable contract in place and we're going through all the bajillion steps.

We'll try to post something cuter and more fun about Jackson soon. Danny has little opportunity to post now that he's working and I don't have access to pictures at work. After Jackson goes to sleep, the computer is seldom used as anything but a TV/movie watching tool.