A place to call home

Yesterday, I went with Kev to a job interview in Dodge. While he was interviewing, I was finding a realtor and trying to find some places to look at--a place which we want to call home.

I've been looking at realty websites, at houses online in the area. There's not much that I want to consider, and I'm really afraid that we won't be able to find anything of the caliber of the place we have now...

We want a place in the country, preferably south or west of Dodge. I want 4 or more bedrooms, 3 at a minimum. We want a nice sized kitchen with ample storage. We need 2 or more bathrooms and a laundry/mudroom area. We'd like some outbuildings, some trees, a view, good water, a place easy to get to in all kinds of weather. We want a basement.

What we looked at yesterday was rather disappointing. And, when we got home, I was so grateful for the beautiful home we have.

House A is 10 miles west of Dodge. It used to belong to a family that owned several grain elevators. In fact, it's right across the street from a large grain elevator. It's an old house that has been added on to over and over and over. You can track the additions by 1. carpet, and 2. style and 3. holes in walls, often called doorways. The only original rooms are two small bedrooms, probably 10 x 10 and the dining room, which was the most beautiful room in the house. It still had it's arts and crafts styling. If I could take that room and gut the rest, it could work, but it would have to be gutted and I'm not sure it could be gutted, because when they would add on, they'd cut a hole in the wall--the structural wall and then add another room(s) on. No fooling, it took us 10 minutes to find the front door from the inside (we came in the back door.) And the outbuildings were cobbled together just as badly as the house was.

Then the train went by, and so did we. We could live with trucks and harvest season at an elevator, we could slowly remodel, but we can't live right on the train tracks.

House B was also an old farmhouse that had been remodeled...by idiots. It had 4 acres, but was surrounded by wheat fields. Few trees, no yard to speak of, odd roof line and bathrooms. It had potential, but was rather icky and Kev found lots of evidence of water leaks. Nope, not going to deal with that. Good bye house B.

I also looked at a couple of lots that we maybe could build on. Only problem was they were out east of town by the meat packing plants. No thanks.

So we didn't find anything we would even consider buying. Yes, we only looked at two houses. Lord, I hope there is something better.

I want to find a nice house, one that says "Shell, this is your home. This is the place for you. This is where you need to live." I found one house that said that to me...can I find another one? O lord, am I making a mistake, moving to another part of the State?