House Hunting part II

We saw 4 houses and a plot of land today.

The first was a nice enough house, but had a very Irvine vibe going and had two formal spaces, one we could wall off for an alternate use and the other we had no idea what to do with. While it had an acre, it felt like a very cookie cutter neighborhood. K's biggest complaint? It was in the city of Boring - she seems opposed to living in Boring, Oregon.

The next one was a complete surprise because the pictures did not do it justice. First it was up a hill (steep driveway). The house was okay, but it lacked a garage and had narrow hallways and only two bathrooms --- the master on the main floor was also the general first floor bathroom - it was a little strange. Downstairs it had a couple of bedrooms (one originally was 2 rooms), a mini office, and a tiny room (too small to be called a true room, too big to be a closet). Here is the kicker though - it listed a 2nd manufactured home. When we looked in that we were beyond surprised at how awesome it was! 1700 sqft, 3 rooms, 2 bathrooms, its own laundry and kitchen. Clean, bright, open floor plan. Really an incredible guest house... compared to the main house, I would be totally jealous of my guests.

The next was a one story ---- YAY! It had a really nice layout, 3600sqft, tons of storage, etc. The pits was --- top dollar price, siding issues - damage and not maintained, not a great piece of land - though an acre, not completely finished in some rooms, water damage in the ceiling near skylights, needed a separation between the laundry room and a full bath - doable (but a lot of work), and looked straight out of the 70's except for the one peach counter top that must have been done in the 80's. The info "said" it was built in 1991....riiiiiiiight.

The last one was a split level (ugh!). They could have saved us some time if they had said it, but instead they described it as a "ranch style house". It was nicely updated, but weird. Fireplaces were drywalled over to make alcoves, no true master, one common bath upstairs and one down. The cool part was an amazing shop with 4 HUGE bays. Inside those bays - ride on lawn mower, a big speed boat, and a HUGE HUGE lawn mower - the kind that mows stadiums, golf courses, schools.... we are talking like a 30 to 40 foot wide cutting span! OMG! It also had a view of Mount Hood over the roof of a 3.7 million dollar home that was owned by the same person as the split level. Both are up for sale.

The land? We are looking into it, but are not confident that we would know enough to get it built. I could be faaar more complicated than we want to mess with, but it would be exciting to have exactly what we want.

Oh well...we are going to keep looking...