Scatterbrain: Looking for a Home

We have been talking about finding a new home for a while now, ideas evolving with time. We were originally going to look for land and eventually build a house, but the longer we stay in this apartment right over the main street with a lot of tractor trailer and redneck truck traffic, the more I realize I need my quiet. So our plan now is to find a home with a small amount of land that we can make a little farmette on for now. Then, once we have more time to save we will look for the perfect piece of land and start the process of building our (hopefully) final home. In the meantime, I thought we would bring you along on our house hunting! Today we checked out two houses. The first was at the top of our price range so expectations were high for it, the other was one we knew would need work, but the amount of land had us hopeful. Sorry I don't have better pictures, it was a stormy day!

Home # 1 on 3.64 acres in Rockingham Virginia. This picture is from the listing because I did not get a picture of the outside.

View from the driveway looking to the side

View to the right from the driveway

Neighbors, much closer than photos led us to believe

The driveway can go two ways, one goes past the neighbors above and the other goes out through the property to the main road. This is the entrance from the main road.

View from the top of the drive, to the left

Back of the house, facing towards the neighbors property. The property line is pretty much the trees on both sides.

Carport

Interesting piece in the carport. Lots of little additions out there that would make it a nice hang out space.

Going up the walk to the front door

Old HVAC unit, Jordan said it's a kind that's usually used in double wide trailers, not houses.

Pantry space under the stairs. It was a weird, large space.

Now, I did like the kitchen. Good flow, nice amount of counter space, even a little space for some stools for counter seating. Small table space where I was standing to take the picture, the floor was tile in various types. It was definitely unique.

View into the living room. It might just be me used to the high ceilings in our current apartment, but I felt compacted in this house. Small living room. Lots of storage but I would have preferred more space in the rooms than all the closets. Custom tiling at the top of the fireplace. There were a lot of very unique design choices, unfortunately not ones that appealed to us. I didn't take many pictures inside the house because I knew early that it wasn't the house for us.

Overall, the house was ok. No AC upstairs and the bathroom was very unique. Next houses I'll work to get more pictures. Anywho, as you might have gathered from my comments, this house was not the right fit for us. For it being at the top of our price point, it had too many cons and not enough pros.

We also went to check out a place in Staunton. Lower price, more acreage (12.74), but a longer commute for Jordan and the house was only partially finished. I'm not going to be commenting on each picture. The house was built in 2008 and never finished, it's been sitting and the basement was open to the outside and critters and mold/mildew had gotten in. The cost and time to clean the inside was not worth it for the price as well as the cost to finish building. The trailer was out in the wooded part of the property, the storm got heavy when we were there so I didn't get out.

Left goes to the house, right goes into wooded space with the trailer

Looking back towards the house

The views were wonderful, it was so quiet. If the house were better we would be making an offer right now. But, we can get more land for cheaper and build from scratch and come out better than taking on this project.

This is open into the basement which is open to the whole house. Jordan mentioned snake skins so I did not venture to the basement for pictures. The smell in the house was horrible from the mold/mildew/urine/animals.