The Ones We Didn't Choose: Welcome to Quahog!!

Yeah, so we didn't close last week. Don't ask. It makes no sense. The current owner didn't have much furniture in there to begin with and 2 weekends ago, when she had an in-home moving/tag sale the only items left inside the house were for sale. So why exactly did her lawyers push back closing saying, "she won't be able to vacate the house until NEXT Thursday"?? I have no idea. Anywhoo - closing was pushed back a full week to this upcoming Thursday - the 10th at 2pm. Fingers crossed they don't push it back again.

The process of hunting for a new home is quite possibly the most frustrating thing you could possibly tackle. Real estate sites are similar to online dating - pictures LIE! Most places looked nothing like the listing. It's a daunting process. Even for the home design obsessed like me, it's fun for about 2 days, that's it. When you live in the suburbs of NYC,  with the highest property taxes in the country*, where the average price of a home starts at $400-500k - it seems downright impossible. I'll still take it over wedding planning though - HAH! So in lieu of pictures of the new place we still don't have, I thought I'd share a couple of the runners up that we didn't choose. First up:

Welcome to Quahog!!

Why Quahog you ask?? Well, I'll just let the house speak for itself: 

I made this side-by-side a long time ago so I don't remember the source for the pic on the left.
 All other pics are either from our local MLS or personal pics I took myself.

HAH! We're HUGE Family Guy fans, so we were actually pretty psyched about this. We even toyed with the idea of making it look more like the cartoon version by painting the door red & adding plantings to the front. It actually had pretty decent curb appeal & a brand new roof. The interior needed a LOT of work & we weren't in love with it right away but it was a short sale so it was the right price and it did check off a lot of the points on our list:

• In our hometown (actually really close to both sets of parents - who live in the same area)
• finished basement
• fireplace
• hardwood floors
• lots of windows & light
• great backyard
• close to our friends
• fantastic school dist. 

The "decor" of the house itself (and I use that word loosely) was awesomely horrendous. What? You don't love it when the entire first floor  is painted a salmon color??  It reminds me of that scene in Just Friends when Chris's Mom says, "I love salmon. It's just the 
prettiest color for bedrooms." Haha! No.

We can't forget the Dining Room with it's crazy, plastic covered furniture. At first glance, the built-ins looked like they had great potential, but upon closer inspection, they were poorly constructed (a theme that would repeat throughout the house). Oh & did you catch that mural of the last supper above the entrance to the DR? Yep.

Again, at first glance the kitchen doesn't look too bad. A little paint, a new sink & maybe some updated counter tops would be all it took. The floor too could be an easy fix. The appliances were all brand new & great quality. 

Until you actually walk into the kitchen & realize that there's 3 - count them THREE - different types of cabinets and 2 different counter tops. Completely different styles. No amount of paint is gonna fix that kiddies.

I love Hub's face in this one - horror? shock? LOL

The basement met the Hubster's qualifications because it was a fully finished basement. Not sure if they had lots of kids or if they ran a business out of the house but the entire basement looked like a daycare center. 

Again with the magic of photography it looks like it has great potential. Again though, it was badly done. Take a closer look at the door to the left up there - it's an exterior door, it has a mail slot in it. Only umm... it leads to the laundry room, not outside. And that basketball hoop on the painted wall? Yeah it's not a wall, the hoop is screwed to another door that leads to the 1/2 bath. What's that? You wanna see the bathroom too??

Whattup Nemo?? 

They had installed real hardwood flooring into the basement, which is an odd choice but I admit it looked nice. Unfortunately it too was a shoddy job. Once I opened the closet that houses the brand new furnace & hot water heater (also a plus) - the floor was obviously unfinished. 

Exactly... moving on. 

The backyard was actually a decent size for that area of town but enough with the kids toys & daycare center stuff. The playground took up 1/3 of the backyard. The big bald spot on the grass is where a small (illegal) above ground pool was removed. This would've required completely re-landscaping the yard.

I'll spare you the rest of the bedroom pics, but I did want to share this one with you. These people just LOVE decals. I don't get it. Also, you see that "road" on the floor? I thought it was one of those cute play mats/rugs loved by little boys all over. Yeah, notsomuch it's PAINTED on the dang floor y'all!! Oh & don't miss the painted-over tin tile ceiling.

Are these people serious?? Who lives like this? More important - who stages a house for sale like this!?! My Dad came with us when we saw the house & we all got the impression that whoever the owner was, he must work for a construction company & just uses leftover supplies in his own home. Uhh, and did I  mention we found out that all of the "updates" he did on this house were illegal? Not one permit. No bueno. Even though it was in a really great area, it was a short sale (fir reel - they were practically giving it away), the roof, appliances, furnace & water heater were all brand new - the negatives just overwhelmingly outnumbered the positives. The house needed waaaaay too much work - more than we could handle. So we passed on it & moved on.

Actually I think my Dad said something like, "You may be XX yrs old, but I'm still your Dad & I absolutely forbid you to buy this house." HAHA

I've heard some serious house hunting horror stories so I know I'm not alone. Feel free to share your own home-buying stories in a comment.

* - Hah! Did y'all click on that link? I'd just LOVE to know where they get that median of 9k. One of the reasons we decided on the home we did was because the taxes were the lowest we saw. The Griffin House in this post? Yeah, the taxes were nearly $15k for the year... 9k my @$$.