For Sale, Part 2

By the end of the second day, we'd had more than half a dozen realtors bring clients by to see the TH. Saturday morning we met with our realtors, John & Vicki Hopkins. First we reviewed the three offers we'd already received, and picked the best one to accept. Then we went house-hunting. We looked at 6 or 8 houses, from Warrenton to Nokesville to Manassas to Haymarket to Gainesville. Some we left shaking our heads and asking, "What were they thinking?!" One house had no front. Really. It looked like we pulled up to the rear of the house, but when we walked through the house, there was a definite back door that led out to...nothing! No step, just a drop of 2 or 3 feet to the ground. It had 7 bedrooms and was very big, but the kitchen was tiny! There was an upside-down house, where the main floor was a living room and bedrooms. The four of us ran all over the house going, "Where's the kitchen? I don't see it anywhere! Do you see a kitchen down there? No!" So funny. It was way in the back of the downstairs, around a corner, cut off from everything.

Two houses we looked at were immaculate and perfect except they had no basement. We really need more space than they offered. We fell in love with a farmhouse in Nokesville with 7 acres and horse stalls. Lon named it Prather Ha-Ha, after a family friend's place in Maryland. The list price was way more than we planned to pay, and it was a foreclosure with a lot of minor damage. We oohed and ahhed and sighed over it, but decided to keep looking.

The last house they took us to for the day ended up being the one we put an offer on. It's in Gainesville, close to the major roads, but you'd think you were up on a secluded mountain somewhere! It's at the end of a private driveway, and although neighbors are fairly close on either side, you can barely see them through the trees. There are 1.8 acres, most of it wooded, but there's a good-sized back yard overlooked by a deck that runs the length of the house. About 25 yards down a path in the woods, someone built a camp. There is a huge lean-to, a fire pit, footlocker full of supplies, a trash can lashed to a tree, a couple seating areas... A real haven for a teenage boy, and I can picture Kip spending a lot of time there!

The house is more than twice the size of our TH, but the main level rooms are just average size. The MBR has the walk-in closet I dreamed of, and its own bathroom, and one of the 3 sliding glass doors out onto the deck! The other 2 BRs are unremarkable, and the kitchen is not large but there is a pantry, a dining room and a breakfast room. A fireplace in the LR, and one in the large family room in the basement. Another area of the basement is unfinished, for lots and lots of storage space. YAY!

Now we wait, and wait, and wait, for Vicki & John to let us know if the current owners accept our offer. My stomach is in knots.