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It's been a full month since the shit hit the fan, so to speak, & we were cheated out of the house we'd worked so hard for... It's been difficult to look at anything else, without judging it by the standards of what we loved and lost. But, I now present this possibility to the members here. I've been having a VERY hard time making myself like this place, because it's nothing like the other house, and is no where near the area I wanted to live in. Still, it's in pretty good shape, has a little more land with it than the other one did (good, since I now have the 3 dwarf goats I got for the other house!!!), and is a pretty good price. The floor to the front porch needs replacing, and I hate the interior colors, so I'd HAVE to re-paint. The exterior is vinyl siding, and our real estate agent claims it's a pale yellow, because she knows I wanted to paint the other one yellow, but I just think it's off-white, and would need to be painted, somehow...if you CAN paint that cheep plastic stuff. Any thoughts on this...positive or negative, would be appreciated. (you can see all photos and a video at My Photobucket

My friend Chris has been encouraging me that I can change the look and feel of this house completely so that I don't feel "unwelcome" any longer. (btw, we've made an offer, & the seller has sent in their counter-offer, but I don't know what it is, yet) As Chris pointed out, this place was decorated by someone obsessed with the hunting theme, and very little sense about colors and patterns. From the drab green on the walls, complete with deer wallpaper border, to the stone fireplace, the brown trim on the ceiling (the stripes you see on the off-white ceiling) which I'm told is an old English "Tudor" theme, used to continue the "deer lodge" feel, to the dead animals that used to litter the walls, shelves, and floor.....this place reeks of testosterone! As Terry really doesn't care what I do to it, I may go a little crazy with decorating/repainting ideas, with Chris' help. Oddly enough, the sunroom/laundry room of this house is already yellow, and it connects to the kitchen, meaning that one of my plans is made easier. You may have seen the drab, predictable little kitchen in this house here in my blog. Well, I saw a kitchen in another house we looked at (WAY out of our price range) that inspired me..... Here it is... That's the look I'll be going for in the new one. Anything close will be an improvement. Here's another angle... Now, the so-called "Living room" is a whole other problem. It's actually too small for Terry to consider putting his entertainment center in. Well, not too small, but it's long and skinny. He doesn't think he can find the wall space, and wants to use one of the other rooms that's just off that room (the living room in this house is the green monstrosity with the stone fireplace) that's currently the living room as a "den", and put his tv, stereo, etc in there. So...this long green room will become more of a "library", or something, I guess. A room to sit and read, maybe entertain a guest if we ever actually have anyone over.....or whatever. So.....what to do with the dark green and the hunting theme??? I could be really mean, and paint the whole damn thing pink, you know...... Here's the same room, in a picture taken by me....showing the true color of that room is not so dark (the former picture was from a real estate site, taken in another home we looked at, last month) and showing Terry, goofing off! In my next post....we'll consider the bedroom and the 2 bathrooms......

Just a short update. Tomorrow I'll respond privately to the sweet people who sent me PMs of support today.... We've been cheated out of the house. To make a long, ugly story short.... I've had a bad feeling about this from the beginning. Not the house... The situation. After delay after delay.... the latest delay was because, as we just found out, we'd chosen (without knowing it) a govt loan, because we'd opted for "no money down", though we could have done the down payment. No one told us that this was the reason for all the inspections and delays. Once I found that out, we marched back to our realtor's office and signed a new contract, for slightly more money, with the seller paying a little more towards closing than he would have before. But, in the lapse between the 2 contracts (which would have lasted about 6 seconds) the seller was able to bump us off and take a higher bid from someone else. So, after 2 months of having this house under contract, he managed to wear us down and slip in the back door to sell it out from under us. As you can imagine.... I am devastated. Please forgive my lack of freakishly frequent involvement here for the time being.

It's been a while since I've posted an update. This is partially due to the stress and anger this situation has caused. The closing date for our house has been put off FOUR times, all due to things not in our control. Our part in this is squared away, but there have been clerical errors, people not getting inspections done at the proper times, etc. Then, Friday the 18th, a bomb was dropped. Suddenly, an inspector said he did not like the way the foundation was done on the house (it was built in the early 1900's) and he wanted repairs done before we would be allowed to buy it. This would be at the cost of the seller, and he won't hear of it. I was devastated. We've had a contract on this house since June 1st, and there's been problem after problem all along the way. NOW, only after I pitched a fit and insisted they look for other options, have we been informed that the problem was because, when our real estate agent asked did we want to put NO money down, or $5,000 or more, we said "no money down". She never told us that the "no money down" loan was a govt loan and the $5,000 down loan (which we could afford) was a conventional loan....nor that the difference would have meant a difference in headaches. So, now that we know, we've asked to go through it with a conventional loan.....while I still wonder if this will ever happen. Some people out there might wonder why this is so important to me. Why this house is so important. Why owning a home is important at ALL to me. To those people, I offer the following.... On August 9th, 1975, my parents moved into a yellow house in Maysville GA. I was not quite 2 years old then. The house was in terrible shape. It was *supposed* to be a project for my parents to work on together. Fixing up an old house. That has now become a lifelong dream of mine, since it was a dream never reached by my mother. It seemed that, despite what he'd said before, my father was totally unwilling to even make the house habitable, much less restored. This is a 2 story farm house, with 5 rooms and 2 baths downstairs, and another 2 rooms upstairs, yet I was forced to sleep in my parent's bedroom till I was 8. Why? Because my father couldn't be bothered to fix up the other bedroom for me. It needed painting, insulation, electrical outlets. Finally, it took my mom painting, and finally forcing the issue to get me into that bedroom, which was still not insulated. (nor was the rest of the house) All through my childhood, I wanted a goldfish. Ya know, those things that were like 25 cents? I couldn't have a goldfish, because it would have frozen to death in the winter. Our shampoo froze every year. Most of our stuff stayed in boxes in the attic for most of my life....never unpacked, because my mom was waiting for when the house was finally fixed up so we could begin to live. The kitchen was almost non-existent, and the sloping floor (it used to be a back porch) spent years, rotting away, while my father refused to do anything to it. My mom did what she could, but she's not a carpenter. He at least knew how to do things, but that didn't mean they ever got done. We were totally under his control. My entire childhood was spent alone. I was afraid to make friends, because I knew they'd want to come over and play, and mom was so ashamed of our house that she wouldn't allow it. So, what few friends I had....I had to keep lying to and making up excuses why they couldn't come over. This extended into my teen years, when I started being interested in boys. Certainly couldn't have boyfriends in the house, either! I've lost count how many guys I had to ask to pee outside over the years. How humiliating is that, for a teenage girl who's already shy? And, my best friend, Laury, whom some of you know about, was NEVER able to come in the door of the house. Even when things got dangerous in her marriage, and I asked my mom if she could stay with us for a while, she was reluctant. I've never been able to get rid of the feeling that I failed her, by not being able to offer her shelter. That's pretty much a condensed version of my life. My curse.....never being able to have someone in my house, and never being comfortable in it myself, or feeling like it was home. And so now, there is finally a chance.... My first house started out yellow, and mom painted it white. This house looks like maybe it used to be white....and it's now been alone and neglected for a long time, and I want to change it to yellow. On the plus side, there's actually insulation, central heat and air, and even gas log fireplaces! Finally....a chance....to feel secure for the first time in my life. To feel I belong somewhere....that I'm welcome....and that the people I care about are welcome as well. At last a chance to NOT have to be ashamed and hide from the world. To finally start to DO the things I've always wanted to do with my life, but have NEVER done, because I've always felt insecure and subject to the whims of others. I've been waiting to LIVE all my LIFE. Every breath I take I take very lightly, because I feel it is not my right, because I have no place on this earth that is my own. I've never felt I belonged anywhere! I want to finally feel I'm not just borrowing someone else's space. I want my own space.... to learn to paint.... to grow and breed flowers.... to cultivate home grown eggs from my own chickens, and grow herbs and fruits...... to set up my own desk and write.... to free my mind enough to THINK about what it is that I really want to DO with my life, rather than worrying where I'm going to LIVE my life.... and to invite the people I love to come share life with me, rather than have to hide, in shame and solitude. Is that too much to ask?

As I can't seem to get the gallory to let me upload pictures anymore.... (they're probably too big, but I don't have the software, nor the know-how, the reduce them), I'm linking these images from my photobucket. The house we're buying is in really great condition, except for the kitchen. I've managed to scavenge some appliances (a fridge, a stove/oven, & a dishwasher), but it needs some serious painting & redecorating. The bathroom is ok....but it'll be my next redecorating project. The gardens are also quite out of control, and it'll take a good bit of work to get them shaped up. Anyway, here are pictures of the kitchen the way it is now.... After that, a picture I found on a real estate site of another house, with a kitchen I rather like.... Any ideas, advice? And here's the picture I found online, of a kitchen in a different house. Thoughts?