House Hunting =D

I don't know what it is about Adam and I, but when we go house hunting, we find 'our new place' on the very first day of looking. When we bought our house in May 2007, we looked at seven houses in one day. We knew House #5 was promising as we drove up. We fell in love with it when we walked in. And we knew we wanted it to be ours before we finished the tour. We looked at Houses #6 and #7 because it never hurts to look, and our realtor had already set up these appointments. I didn't really see them, though. In my mind, images of a beautiful tri-level home in Roy, Utah, kept flashing over and over. We put an offer in that night and the rest was history.

Well, yesterday, we went looking for 'our new place' here in Belgium. A lady at the NPC who helps newcomers find their homes set up four appointments at four houses for us to check out. (There are not a whole lot of rental homes available in the area we are scouting.) We have in our minds an idea of what we want and are aware of some of the amenities we will be giving up that we have been so spoiled with in Utah, like: forced air, carpet, dishwashers, 30 inch ovens, disposals, stand-up showers, closets, and overall space. We know we can look forward to radiator heating, wood and tile flooring, hand-washed dishes, itty bitty microwave/convection/toaster oven combos, picking potato peels and junk out of the kitchen sink, taking showers bent over in a tub using a flexible wand, wardrobes, and tiny rooms all over. That's all ok. We both grew up on farms; we can do this!

I fully intend on taking pictures of each house to help us compare and contrast and make our decision later. I also know that my camera's batteries are almost done, but the light has been blinking for a while now and it's still working, so.....

We pull up to House #1. The brick is new. It looks really nice. Ms. Ingrid meets us at the door and shows us around. She tells us she's been cleaning, and the place smells of paint. There's a fresh coat on most walls, and still work to be done. She tells us to use our imaginations as it's still a work in progress. I ask if I can take pictures and she agrees.The living room is finished, though, and it's wonderful! It's huge, and the fireplace is gorgeous!!! The kitchen, weeellllll, that's another story. I try to take a picture. Whoops! My batteries are finally dead, for real. We'll just have to go by memory. Anyways, they've redone so much of the house because the previous tenants practically destroyed it, didn't clean it for the two years they were there, or so she tells us. The kitchen, however, has not been redone. It looks old, but functional. Even the oven works, she says. Her husband disconnected the timer, so now it turns on (the other tenants never used it). She promises it works. But, its energy comes from a set of propane/gas tanks sitting just outside the window. She starts rambling on about how the tanks will have to be changed and some other stuff about it that we didn't really understand. Wow, we're getting kinda leery about this. There is a yard for Shasta. The bedrooms are roomy, and the upstairs bathroom is brand new (she said that room was really bad). I love it! We head to the basement. There is lots of storage - good. Then we walk into a room that has this huge green tank in it. The oil tank. It holds 1200 litres. The house and water are heated with oil. We were warned about this by Ralph. He said to avoid oil if you can. We really don't want to be buying 1200 liters of oil off of the economy anyways. We say good-bye, we'll contact you soon, and move on to the next house.

House #2 is house number 26 in its street. We're driving around and see this beautiful house with topiary and greenery and beautiful wood. It's 26A. Is this the place? Uh, nope. Bummer! House 26 is connected to it. It looks simple: white with grey trim. Yard maintenance out front is zilch. It's all decorative rock, which is nice. We pull up into the drive and meet Joël. He shows us around, and we looooooove it! The kitchen has a dishwasher. An oven can be arranged. It's heated with gas. It has A/C!!! The whole place has a very modern feel, nothing like the houses we expected to see. And then there's the verandah! Oh, joy of joys! The verandah is a haven, with a beautiful skylight, big glass windows, so light and airy. I am in love. To top it all off, he has a beautiful black mare with a one-week old colt in the meadow behind the house, and he says he'd be willing to let Rachael ride every now and then!  =D!! The only drawbacks are this super weird flooring that he has upstairs. (This guy has a thing about flooring - he showed us the thermal flooring he just put in that day for one of his horses.) This floor is made of tiny little shiny smooth black pebbles, it looks similar to a very nice rubber running track. Also, there is no fenced in yard for Shasta. But everything else is so perfect. We say thank you, we'll contact you, and move on.

House #3 is a waste of time. Marina, the lady helping us from the NPC, made sure to ask each prospective landlord if they would allow pets. Apparently, this lady didn't catch that, and only after going through the whole house with her did we ask about Shasta and she told us 'No.' Anyways, she was very proud of her very old house with some 2-year-old updates. And, she just seemed nervous that we would even have kids on her wood floors. Whatever. We won't be entering that house ever again.

House #4 is also a bust, though it was promising at first. We've been living in Hotel Malpertuus on Tongeresteenweg since we arrived. Just down the road are four brand-spankin' new houses that we've been noticing. We were surprised when Marina set us up with an appointment to see one of these. We've never lived in such a new house. How exciting! We get there; the landlord shows up late. We can't hardly understand him, and he doesn't even know how parts of his own house work. We check it out. It has everything we want, except.... the living space is so small and it's right on a very busy street that I definitely don't want to be backing my Honda Odyssey out onto, especially with the way folks drive around here. The whole appointment is just very awkward, and we leave.

So, while we were driving around and also while waiting for the landlord to show up, Adam and I have been talking about our options. There's not a whole lot to choose from; we've pretty much seen what's available to us in the locations we would be comfortable living. Our decision is coming down to House #1 and House #2. I really like the first one. It's homey, it has a yard for Shasta. The fireplace is gor-gewah. It has oil; we can live with that. The oven/gas situation is super freaky. Adam was glowing about Joël's house before we could even reach the car after seeing it. It has everything except a place for Shasta. I think it's kinda man-ish and the flooring is weird. I'm also a little uncomfortable living so close to our landlord (like sharing two stories of wall with him!), but he seems like a great guy and the previous tenant also worked for the NPC, so he's already worked with this system. We decide that we can buy an invisible fence for Shasta and choose Joël's place as "the one." We leave the 4th house and head straight for his. He's got one of the black horses saddled up, giving a little girl a lesson. We tell him we like his place, talk about the oven, shake hands, and drive away floating on Cloud 9. We've found 'our new place,' our new home! Oh, I can't wait to get inside again and take tons of pictures and show you all what a wonderful place we've found! I guess I'll save that for another post. Until then... Ta ta!