Finding A House

When Seth and I decided to accept his job offer and make the move back to Tennessee, I immediately started searching online for our next house.  I spent hours upon hours clicking through pictures.  Seth spent hours upon hours listening to my daily house hunt updates.  We were leaving a charming 1910 bungalow that we both loved inside and out.  We are not new construction kind of people so we were hoping to find another old home with loads of charm.  However, after researching Jackson a bit, we found a neighborhood we wanted to focus on (location, location, location) and it did not include homes built before 1950.  Bummer.

I kept a running house list and would check the MLS daily for new additions.  My Our requirements were pretty simple:

1. 3+ bedrooms
2. 2+ bathrooms
3. 1200+ square feet       
4. NO cigarette smoke   AND...
5. at least 1 mature tree in the yard

The last one may seem strange to you, but it was very important to me.  It's not like you can move in, plant a tree, and get an instantaneous mature, shaded lot.  At least, I don't know how to achieve that.  And I like a little shade.  Amos prefers to sun bathe, but I can only stand it for so long.  

We narrowed it down via the online descriptions and pictures and scheduled some showings with our realtor.  There was one house that stuck out in our minds.  We pretty much fell in love with it via our computer screen.  Every few days I checked to make sure it was still on the market as we waited for our trip to Jackson.

We had one weekend to house hunt.  ONE.  If we did not find a house that weekend we had no hope of closing in time to move into it when we arrived in Tennessee.  And I did NOT want to move into a rental just to move again when we found a house to purchase.  My sanity would have been compromised (I had already moved 9 times in the previous 10 years).  We had seven houses to see the first day we arrived in Jackson.  The first four or so we breezed in and out of knowing that they weren't for us. There were one or two that were possible contenders but still just didn't feel like home.  Our "online dream house" was the sixth house we saw that day.  I prayed and prayed that I wouldn't smell cigarette smoke when our realtor opened the door.  And, thankfully, I did not!  We actually spent very little time walking through the house, because Seth and I both knew it was "the one" after a quick look.  We made an offer that night and it was accepted the next day.

Whew.  We had done it.  In 24 hours no less.  If I remember correctly, I was already sketching out furniture layouts at the hotel that very night.