Swing and a miss

Friday, April 19, 2013

Life has been crazier than ever. I am quickly remembering the stress of selling/buying a home. The roller coaster of emotions is hard to deal with. We have been looking for homes in both West Palm Beach and the west coast of Florida. We have virtually toured hundreds of homes from our very own living room computer and have actually toured a few brand new models.

I randomly came across a 3/2 on half an acre in the Fort Myers area. Jason and I both liked the house and the fact that it met a lot of the criteria on our wish list. It had a pool, large storage shed (both air conditioned and set up with electricity), large lot, smaller house, and even rv hook ups for water, electric, and even sewer. Jason apparently liked it a little too much and woke me up at 5:30am on Friday. He told me we were driving to the other coast (3 hours away) to see the house. . . Seriously?

The best part was we had to be back in the West Palm area by 1pm for a mandatory work meeting. We drove the 3 hours across highway 80. We watched the sun rise in the rear view mirror and listened to snores coming from Taylor in the back seat. We traveled through random small towns with 35 mph signs and saw multiple crops growing such as oranges, corn, beans, and sugar. I couldn't believe how simple things were out there. It made me so proud to live in this country. One where people still road tractors and did hard labor to make an honest living.

We took a lone dirt road to the house and pulled into the gravel circular driveway. Since we had Taylor with us, she got to explore the house as well by running around the backyard and leading the way to the bedrooms. Of course she has to be first :) She is such a stinker sometimes. She immediately ran to the far corner of the yard and found the only whole in the fence. I started to notice a few odd things with the house;
1. pool enclosure screen falling down (right after the lady told us it was just redone)
2. large pile of garbage and debris stacked behind the shed in the yard
3. uneven baseboards and a shadow at the ceiling line
4. corner tape pealing up
5. 6 different types of flooring choice

Look and see what I mean!

Pretty cute from the outside.

Kitchen could use some updating, but very bright and open.

 Living room was large, but cut off from the rest of the house. You can see separation from the base board and the tile in the far corner.

 This room was a good size, but the main closet was taken up by the hot water heater and breaker box. No, I do not want my children able to play with that thank you. Oh. . . and the awkward little door??? The air handler is behind there.

 The second bedroom was small and boasted yet another flooring choice. You can see the separation of base board and floor in the right corner as well as the shadowing around the ceiling. The shadowing is caused by a separation of the tape line and the drywall.

Here is the same room at another angle. The floor issue is now on the bottom left corner.

 

The master bathroom needed an entire remodel job, but could work for a few months.

The yard was the perfect size. Half an acre. 

Not too much to take care of and just large enough to not be on top of your neighbor. 

The trees however would of have to be trimmed or completely taken out. The million of fallen leaves were killing the grass.

The shed was 360 sqft and already air conditioned. Jason was pretty happy at the thought of 'tinkering' (as he likes to call it) in there.

The pool was by far the best part of the house. The enclosure however was extremely low 

and reachable from the surrounding deck.

When talking with the realtor, I asked why the base boards were a tad off (flush in one area and not in another). Her response was not done correctly. I mentioned it looking a lot like our old home and seemed to have foundation issues. She replied, "Well what do you have to do? Just jack it up?" Actually. . . that's exactly what you have to do. . . how did you know that if you didn't know there was a problem? When Jason came in, I showed him my findings. He asked for a pen and while explaining about foundation issues to the realtor, he laid the pen on the floor and we all watched it roll to the corned in question. It was perfect. I could feel her tense up. There is no way in heck we are buying another house with foundation issues.

We took off to Sanibel Island for lunch at one of my favorite restaurants, The Island Cow.

We love this restaurant and have even made it a traditional to bike here for lunch while vacationing.

We love the beachy vibe and that we can bring the dogs. 

Flips flops and board shorts are fine with them!

The main reason I love this place so much is for their homemade funfetti muffins. OMG!

We paid a $6.00 toll to cross the bridge from Fort Myers to Sanibel Island. The water was gorgeous and we could see the pelicans diving into the water right from our car. The wait at the restaurant was only 15 minutes, but we quickly realized we wouldn't have enough time to sit and eat. Jason had to be back for his meeting by 1pm and it was already 10:30am and we still had a 3 hour car ride back across the state. I ran in, returned the pager and menus, and bought a half dozen muffins :) It was well worth the money. . . and the additional $6.00 toll we just paid to get here.

I drove us back up 75 and across to highway 80 before connecting us to 27 and then 80 again. 

Check out our route for yourself!

We managed to get Jason all the way across the state and back for his meeting only a few minutes late. We were kind of bummed about the house not working out so well and that we drove 6 hours total to find out that it had foundation issues, just like our old house did. Back on the hunt again!