Great White South

Time for another update.

It seems my internet connection won't be very available untill things are a little more stable. I am currently sitting in my living room at the house in Bella Vista. It's Kristi's and my last week in this house. We have a load of packing to do, but at the moment it's quiet and I have an internet connection.

So, last time I blogged, I was in Minneapollis. There were some questions as to why I was up there and not in KC. The company I am working for is currently based in Minneapollis, but the office I'm going to be working out of is in KC. They wanted me to train up there for a couple of weeks and then get going in KC. Those two weeks went well and I flew back to Bella Vista to find my house pretty much sold and decided to take Kristi with me to KC for my first week at the office so she could start the house search.

I had to work all week, but the house search went pretty well without me. Kristi is amazing. She looked at something like 30-40 houses before narrowing that list down to 6. Thursday night, after I finished at the office, we went to look at all these options and narrowed the playing field a bit from there. After one last dig the following night through all sorts of house listings we added three more homes to our search and Saturday we made some final decisions.

Looking for a home can be frustrating. You have all sorts of different styles, neighborhoods, circumstances, prices, etc. Add to this mix the fact that we wanted to live on the Kansas side for tuition purposes, but my job is way on the Missouri side and depending on where we looked, my commute could be really bad. After a while, the houses all start looking the same. Here is a quick rundown of some of the final options we had.

1) The Semi modern home - This was the first house that Kristi took me to in the narrowed down list. It was in decent shape, in an ok neighborhood, with a fair commute. The primary problem with this house was that it had no pizzaz. It was just a standard old house that was like hundreds of others in KC and the floorplan didn't really wow us. It didn't speak to us. Pass.

2) The Old folks home - OK, I'm not trying to be a jerk about this. But I remember things by association, and the older couple that was still living in this home was there everytime that Kristi looked at it. It was decorated like an older couple's home, and it was an "old folks home". When I initially walked into it, I was repulsed by the decorating scheme. Doilys and nick nacks aren't my thing. But after closer examination, the house itself was an interesting choice. It had a lot of windows, tons of storage and pleanty of space in the basement. The neighborhood was fine and close enough to th freeway. Then there were the problems. poor foundation, needed a fence and a deck, needed a new driveway, the ceiling in the basement was falling down, the wole place needed new paint and the carpt pulled up and window treatments. It was enough stuff that we wouldn't have the money to do it all after paying the asking price. It didn't get eliminated quiclkly, but it did get eliminated.

3) The sorta dream house - We saw a house that made me absolutely gush to walk around in it. The style and decoration of it was exactly what I would have done to it. It was a two story with impecible taste. It was almost perfect. But there were problems. The basement was a big one. The teeny tiny narrow walkway to the basement was so treacherous that I couldn't do it without hanging onto the walls. I barely fit in fact. in the basement, where you usually have tons of storage was the laundry that I wouldn't really be able to get to and tons of mildew. The basement leaked. The other issue was the neighborhood. It was in a slightly sketchy area, and while there was a driveway, there was no garage. It killed me to leave this gorgeous house behind, but we did.

4) The deadbolt house - Not sure how this one got on the list, but it was scary from a decorating standpoint and it really made you feel like the neighborhood was out to get you. Ironically it was only two blocks down from the previous one, but there were deadbolts everywhere, even inside the house. Pass!

5) The Famhouse - If we had a totally different budget this one would have been a real gem. As it was the prices of the things that we needed to do to it on top of the asking price were just simply too much. We started calling this one the money pit. The turn of the century two story had almost every room needing major work. Nice but out of our price range. Actually if you want to know the truth, one thing and one thing alone sealed the deal here. The staircase. It was super steep and going the wrong way. Since there was only on bath in the whole place, downstairs, the treacherousness of that staricase was just too much. Pass

6) Westport - There were parts of this house that reminded me of the shining. The wallpaper was absolutely everywhere. The potential of this house was great, and we were up to the challenge of making the necessary changes. I call this one the westport because it is in one of my favorite neighborhoods in KC. Problems? The price was the biggest one. Almost 30,000 over our original search price. Also it was in Missouri. It was hard, and we had to look at it together twice, but we passed.

7) The Cape Cod - Cape cod is a style of house if you didn't know. This one wasn't much to look at on the inside if you ask me. It had an AC unit hanging in the front window, a lousy kitchen, bad carpet, ugly wall paint, and cheap window trimmings. But the price was low, and there was this other thing that really sweetened the deal. There was HUGE flipping potential in this house. Currently, this two story yawner had 3 beds and 1 bath. But, there was all this space in the second story that was just beging to be used. With a whole lot of love, we could finish the house and increase the square footage significantly, making it a 4 bedroom, 2 bath house. This one stayed on the list.

The rest of the houses we saw were the few we added to the list on Saturday. There were two more westport area houses to check out, one was great, but still on the MO side, and didn't have any parking. On Friday nights in Westport, we wouldn't even be able to park. The other was much smaller, and not bad, but the second story was almost unusable. The floor had no structure and the AC didn't get up there.

Finally there was a second Cape Cod. It was similar to the first, but was near completely finished. It had no flipability, but needed no real work to move in.

It was a tough decision, but we made an offer last night on the first cape cod. The one that needed all the work. We decided we were up to the challenge and the pay off would be worth it. If however, that offer isn't accepted, we will be making an offer on the finished cape cod. We should know the whole story in a day or so.

In the mean while, we are now in Bella vista and about to start packing. The closing is on Friday, and the last date we can be in here is on the 31st. We have two huge "pods" sitting in our driveway waiting to be filled.

So, I guess I should sign off of this. more later.

Great White North

I've been up here in Minnesota now for a week and a half. Miss me yet?

There is news. We have one last hurdle, which hopefully we'll leap this morning and our house will be sold! Just two short weeks on the market. We are only waiting for the inspection. We don't have great reason to worry, but we don't want to get too excited until it's over. You never know what they'll say.

The new job is going quite well. It's so nice to work in a place where your opinion is not only valued but responded to. The new group here has been very welcoming. For some reason, they actually have been afraid I was going to ditch them in the first week. They really didn't have to worry about that. I'm pleased to be here. The design jobs I'm working on aren't the most exciting I've run into, but the potential to improve upon where they have been is incredible. Let's just say I have my work cut out for me, but in a good way.

Minnesotta has been, well, cold. Really really cold. The locals probably think I'm a whimp. I go through periods where my toes are chilly for hours on end. I have seen a couple of movies since I got here and also took a couple of obligitory trips to the Mall of America. Fortunately, I got out of there without blowing very much money. That place sure does get crowded on the weekends in the holiday season.

I saw "Atonement" and "Lars and the Real Girl" this week. Both films were quite nicely done. "Atonement" was a beautifully told story but was a little difficult to follow in the middle. "Lars and the Real Girl" was a sweet little story which rode the fine line of not being to silly, and not being too sweet.

What I really want to talk about is that "Tin Man" show that Sci Fi Channel did last week. If you didn't get a chance to see it, you missed something quite unique. The whole story took the basics of the original story and movie and completely reinvented them to have a different tone and perspective. There are some who would call it blasphemous. There are some that will say the acting was a tad flat in spots. But the concept was nothing short of ingenious. When musicians reinvent a song with a different style, the cover is generally critiqued to death, but sometimes something rather wonderful happens as a result. I think what the creators of "Tin Man" were trying to do was quite admirable. It was definitely worth watching. Just think of it like Marylyn Manson covering "Sweet Dreams are Made of This."

Well, I need to get to the office. I miss everybody, not least of all my wife. I'm really excited to think that my house is almost sold and we will be able to begin the search for a new home. It will be the first home that Kristi and I will get to pick out together. I think we want to purchase an older home and plan to do a little work to fix it up.

Speaking of which, take a look at the link to the right "The Williams House". Brant, one of my buddies in Fayetteville is reworking an older home and is blogging about the process step by step. It's pretty interesting.

Two weeks in Minnesotta

In a few brief hours, I hop on a plane that will take me to Minneapollis to start my new job. I'm both nervous and excited at the same time. I have every confidence I will do great at my new role there, but am nervous still because the living situation isn't quite resolved yet, so in a way, it just doesn't feel very real.

We have had two people look at our house so far. I think they both liked it but we haven't heard a thing by way of actually getting it sold yet. I'm under no illusion that the market we are in right now will help facilitate matters. It will probably be closer to January or February before we actually sell this home. Untill then, I am playing it all by ear. I'm not too sure where I will be staying past three weeks from now. Whereever it is, I'm sure it will all work out fine. But the sooner we sell the better off we will be.

In the mean time, I'm not taking this computer with me for the next two weeks, so the odds of my actually blogging before I get back from this trip are pretty slim. Stay tuned.

Wish me luck!