In the spring of 1990, my dad and I drove from Longview to Shreveport to shop for a car. We'd looked at Subarus and Nissans, but what I REALLY wanted was a Mitsubishi Galant. The car I'd been driving since I'd gotten my driver's license had been purchased, barely used. It was a 1984 Buick Skyhawk, and I loved it to death. But I'd put a ton of miles on it driving around endlessly in high school for lack of anything better to do and then, when I'd started college, making the frequent 500+ mile round trip to and from Austin. It was time to trade her in.
My dad, not known for his soft-and-fuzzy qualities nor his love of salesmen, made me cringe throughout the negotiation process with the dealer. I'd never been a part of anything quite like the car buying process, and the whole thing just made me want to crawl under the floor. We got practically nothing for my road-weary coupe with more than 100-thousand miles on it, but when it was all said and done, we drove off the lot in a brand new, badassed 1990 Mitsubishi Galant LS, with cruise control, a sunroof, and--most important to me at the time--a bitchin' stereo system. I was in heaven.
But as we pulled away from the dealership, I saw my little Skyhawk, sitting there looking kind of...I don't know...saddish, and it made me feel like I was leaving an old, fun and reliable friend behind for the exciting new friend who'd just moved to town and had nicer clothes and better hair. I was flooded with memories of all the fun that my friends and me had in that little white coupe, despite its complete absence of any bells and/or whistles. And yes, I started to cry a bit until we got on the highway and my dad urged me to, "Punch it" so we could see what kind of pick up the new car really had.
Tonight will be the last night I spend in this house. My starter home. The place where I've lived while so many things--good, great, and lousy--have happened along the way. The place that I bought all by myself as a single mother, even though the concept of being a homeowner and understanding terms like "escrow" and "homestead exemption" were terrifying to me. The place where I have watch The Geej graduate from a crib to a toddler bed to her current big-girl bed. The place where I threw a surprise 60th birthday party for my mom and hosted Thanksgiving dinners for friends and family. The place where I first got to play Santa and the Tooth Fairy. The place I was living when BH and I reconnected, fell in love and got married. The place where we blended our families and our lives but that always felt more like "my" house than "our" house.
We are moving to a nicer, more family-friendly neighborhood with better schools and neighborhood "amenities." A place where we'll watch our kids grow in to teenagers and eventually leave the nest. A place that is finally and truly ours together. It's something we're all psyched about and have been focused on making happen for some time now. But there's still that weird feeling of leaving behind something that you've loved for years for this newer, sexier opportunity. Although I completely understand that buying our current house when I did and for what I paid for it, and then caring for it like BH and I have for the past (nearly) seven years is what has put us in a position to make this move, it still feels vaguely disloyal to leave this place behind. The (single) guy who is buying this house seemed really nice and genuinely excited about this place when we met him at the closing. He's currently living in a nearby apartment, and so this will be his starter home too. I'm happy for him and hope he takes good care of it and creates a thousand happy memories here.
Showing posts with label domesticity. Show all posts
Showing posts with label domesticity. Show all posts
Wednesday, June 06, 2012
Saturday, February 18, 2012
Shit's Getting Real
A couple of posts back, I mentioned that we were starting to get serious (finally hallelujah) about putting our house on the market. Well, I'm pleased to say that we're making actual progress in that direction.
First, I researched some real estate companies here in town. I know at least a half a dozen people who are realtors and BH knows a realtor or two as well. But we agreed not to go with someone we know personally for several reasons, the biggest of which is the fact that we want this whole process to be a business transaction/relationship.If we went with a friend as our realtor, it could get messy. Anyhoo, we decided to go with a locally-based agency and set up a meeting with a guy who specializes in our part of town. Let's call him "Tom" even though that's not his name but it's what BH insists on calling him, which is really confusing. I spoke with Tom on the phone and covered some preliminary stuff, and then we set up a time for him to come see the house and speak to us both. Because I'm a genius, I scheduled our meeting with him on a Friday right after our housekeepers had come, so our place looked pretty great. We walked him around, inside and out, and pointed out upgrades and work we'd put into the house along with areas of concern. He liked what he saw and said, "I'd show this house in five minutes," which made me nearly burst with pride. Tom is cool. He doesn't seem like a schmaltzy used-car salesman type. He loved on our pets and we talked music and kids (he's got two young ones). Plus, he seemed smart and had really done his homework on our neighborhood. He had a couple of suggestions for us to do to get it staged and photo-ready, but (thankfully) nothing too major. He told us he'd call us on Monday with a suggested listing price, and we could go from there.
The following Monday (which also happened to be my birthday...43...yee fucking haw) rolled around, and he called just like he said he would. His number landed exactly where I was hoping it would, and so we are definitely going with him and his agency to list.
Since then, BH has been working his adorable booty off doing projects around the house--inside and out. As I type this, he's painting the dadgum kitchen--taking it from a bright, cherry red to a cool, pale gray. We're also painting the front door (going from white to terracota) and doing some other tweaks here and there. I think the next BIG thing we'll do will be move some of our stuff to storage in order to declutter a little bit.
Crazy, but exciting.
On my end, I've created this "New House Scorecard" spredsheet that has a list of subjective criteria (ex. "Style of home") that can be rated on a scale of 1 to 5 and then more objective stuff (ex. His/Hers Closets in Master) that is given a point value like +10 points the house has it, -10 if it doesn't. The moer important the item is, the higher the point value. Dorky? Yes. But I'm hoping that it will help us when we start looking for a new place in earnest.
The thought of a new house--that we purchase together--makes me all tingly.
First, I researched some real estate companies here in town. I know at least a half a dozen people who are realtors and BH knows a realtor or two as well. But we agreed not to go with someone we know personally for several reasons, the biggest of which is the fact that we want this whole process to be a business transaction/relationship.If we went with a friend as our realtor, it could get messy. Anyhoo, we decided to go with a locally-based agency and set up a meeting with a guy who specializes in our part of town. Let's call him "Tom" even though that's not his name but it's what BH insists on calling him, which is really confusing. I spoke with Tom on the phone and covered some preliminary stuff, and then we set up a time for him to come see the house and speak to us both. Because I'm a genius, I scheduled our meeting with him on a Friday right after our housekeepers had come, so our place looked pretty great. We walked him around, inside and out, and pointed out upgrades and work we'd put into the house along with areas of concern. He liked what he saw and said, "I'd show this house in five minutes," which made me nearly burst with pride. Tom is cool. He doesn't seem like a schmaltzy used-car salesman type. He loved on our pets and we talked music and kids (he's got two young ones). Plus, he seemed smart and had really done his homework on our neighborhood. He had a couple of suggestions for us to do to get it staged and photo-ready, but (thankfully) nothing too major. He told us he'd call us on Monday with a suggested listing price, and we could go from there.
The following Monday (which also happened to be my birthday...43...yee fucking haw) rolled around, and he called just like he said he would. His number landed exactly where I was hoping it would, and so we are definitely going with him and his agency to list.
Since then, BH has been working his adorable booty off doing projects around the house--inside and out. As I type this, he's painting the dadgum kitchen--taking it from a bright, cherry red to a cool, pale gray. We're also painting the front door (going from white to terracota) and doing some other tweaks here and there. I think the next BIG thing we'll do will be move some of our stuff to storage in order to declutter a little bit.
Crazy, but exciting.
On my end, I've created this "New House Scorecard" spredsheet that has a list of subjective criteria (ex. "Style of home") that can be rated on a scale of 1 to 5 and then more objective stuff (ex. His/Hers Closets in Master) that is given a point value like +10 points the house has it, -10 if it doesn't. The moer important the item is, the higher the point value. Dorky? Yes. But I'm hoping that it will help us when we start looking for a new place in earnest.
The thought of a new house--that we purchase together--makes me all tingly.
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