Dude. House hunting is not for the faint of heart. You walk in to all kinds of places that are in all states of disrepair and stench. If you are looking for a house and see a place with good bones and carpet out of the 70s, just assume it will smell like all kinds of urine when you get there. Human, cat, dog, opossum?? I have so many questions that I know for sure I will not like the answers to.

Our first weekend of house hunting we saw SEVEN houses. I LOVED the feel of one of them. It was a 1930s craftsman with lots of windows, a wrap around porch, an additional deck over the garage, a decent sized fenced in backyard, and the claw foot tub of my dreams. However, this house had no driveway or parking space, just street parking, our living room and dining room furniture wouldn’t fit, and the bedroom that our bedroom furniture would fit in had a steeply slopped ceiling, so you might have to duck getting into bed. So while the feel of the space was 100% me and 10/10 perfection, the actually space didn’t work for us at all. I was slightly heartbroken to leave that perfectly lit, historic home in an historic neighborhood and keep looking.

Our second favorite house the first weekend was a farmhouse also built in the 1930s. It has a wraparound porch, a large storage shed for Christopher’s tools, our furniture would definitely fit, but it didn’t really feel like it fit me. And I know that is so vague and kind of weird, but it just didn’t feel right. It’s a nice house, and with a few tweaks it could be really great for us, but it just didn’t excite me at all.

Some of the houses that didn’t make the cut include a house with an in ground pool (YAY) that smelled like multiple kinds of urine (barf!) and a full bathroom in the garage (what??), a house with obvious plumbing and electrical issues (hard pass), a house with a basement that had definitely seen murder or some other grisly crime, and a couple more houses that our stuff wouldn’t fit in and had no real charm.

Weekend two of house hunting was another ROUGH set of five houses. We saw some shit on weekend number 2. Some of my favorite weird things were: someone fashioned a “car cover” out of a fleece blanket and an Ethernet cable, a house with cats that basically gave us the tour, the house with amazing 1970s wall paper peaking out through a missing chunk of paint (at least 3 layers worth), a basement with a commercial entry door leading to the patio, and the new build house that you couldn’t pick any of the finishes, they just build them how they build them and you can take it or leave it, I’ll leave it thanks so much.

We did have one house we LOVED on weekend number 2. A 1940s colonial revival on one acre, with a big back deck, a screened side porch, a basement workshop, an old telephone nook, and hydrangeas already planted in the yard. We loved it immediately. It is the kind of southern living style house I never thought I’d get to live in. It felt like a house I could maybe feel “grown up” in. A house that could be a forever home if we wanted it to be. We made an offer on it, and waited a millions days, ok 3 days, and then found out we didn’t get it.

I really hope something works out soon, but I know we aren’t the only people looking for hidden gems in our price range.

We are only two weeks into this process and I am already exhausted. The mental toll is much greater than I was expecting. We have a comfortable place at my parent’s house to stay while we work all of this out, which I am immensely grateful for. I know something will work out eventually, but like Veruca Salt says in Willy Wonky & the Chocolate Factory, “I want it now”.