The Story of Our New House (posted by Lani)

Sit back and relax, I'm writing a novel here.

As of my last post we were done househunting for now; we had resigned ourselves to renting something and looking for a house once we got to Colorado, and that was just how it had to be. But then a miracle happened ...

Remember Nancy, the Wonder Realtor? My phone rang, and it was Nancy. She said Lani, I was talking to a realtor who's a friend of mine, and he's got this house listed. I want you to take a look at the website; I know it's out of your price range, but he says take a look and if you like what you see come out and see it in person and make an offer. He says he'll make it work.

We looked. We liked. We liked a lot. We were very, very skeptical that this could possibly work, because the price wasn't just out of our comfort zone, it was ridiculously so. Still, he said he could make it work ... so why not give it a shot, right? And we needed to find a place to rent anyway. So since I had two whole whopping days off, on Friday morning I stuck some clothes in a bag, Pricelined myself a hotel and a car, called Nancy and said "Let's do it! Tomorrow morning, 8:30, be there or be square!" and Friday afternoon I was winging my way to the snowy west (I am a freaking lunatic, obviously).

Saturday morning I was at Nancy's office early, and so was she (there's a reason we get along so well, obviously). By our scheduled 8:30 meeting time we were actually pulling into the driveway at the house; by a quarter to 10 we were back in her office writing up an offer. I was still highly skeptical, but I was also in love with this house. IN LOVE. If Steve didn't like it he can lump it. (Just kidding; he'd seen the video tour and gobs of pictures, plus he'd heard my verbal description of it, and he was as gung-ho as I was. And I was pretty gung-ho. You see, the house has this kitchen ... this biiig kitchen. With commercial-grade appliances. And more drawers, cupboards, and cabinets than your average Home Depot. MY KITCHEN. MINE.)



Well, to make a long story short, the sellers scoffed at us. They said no way in hell. We said ... BUT! They said well, maybe. We said WHAT IF?? They said damnit, FINE then. And last Wednesday afternoon, at 5 pm, we had a signed contract on our house. Which, as the song goes, is a very very very fine house.

All those solar panels on the roof aren't just for show; the house gets about 70% of its power from solar energy. It has hydronic floor heating (warm floors! I could kiss whoever invented that idea) and hardwood floors through most of the house, slate where it isn't hardwood. A steam shower in the master bath! And heated sidewalks with a snow-melt system, we're all high-tech and stuff (Steve loves the idea of No Shoveling Snow). The entire back of the house is windows, and the view out (as you can see in the picture above, taken from inside the living room) is down over a large, beautiful lake. There's a great deck that runs the length of the upper story along the back, and a patio on the ground floor. And best of all from our perspective, all of the land behind the house is US Forest Service land, so nobody's ever going to build back there.

We're scheduled to close on the 28th, which is just in time since Steve starts his new job January 7th. He's heading out to Colorado the first week of January; I may or may not go then. Our Virginia realtor feels that our house here shows very well furnished and won't show so well empty, so if it hasn't sold by the first of January (unlikely, this is a bad bad time of year for home sales) I'll stick around here for an extra month before heading to Colorado myself. Er, myself and Pip and the kitties and Jesse. It should be a fun drive. Wanna come? You can look at this when you get there ...


PS - I'm so sorry about Kitty Bad Girl. She was indeed a huge presence for such a dainty little kitty, and she may have been a bad-tempered diva but she loved you and I know you loved her. It hurts to lose someone you love.