My husband and I are moving. In 3 weeks (eeep!)! We're not moving cross-country this time, just about 2 miles across the highway. We'll be in the same town, same zip code, just at a different address.When we moved to Maryland (1 year and 4 months ago) from the midwest, we were put up in a condo in Annapolis by my husbands company while we searched for a house. While searching, we fell in love with the city of Annapolis! It's beautiful, old-world, charming, accessible to both D.C. and Baltimore, kind of a calm amidst the hustle and bustle of the east coast - in short, it was just perfect. While we were house hunting during that month we decided we wanted to try to stay near/around Annapolis, which is exactly what we did.
CONFESSION: Our credit scores were not the best (come on, whose are in this economy?), so we were searching for houses via craigslist. And boy did we find a steal!!!!
2500 sq ft, 3 bedrooms 2 bathrooms on an acre of property for a really cheap rental price (at least,
cheap for out here) and close to Annapolis!!! You have to understand that in Maryland, if you find anything on or near an acre of property - you're either going to be paying an arm and a leg for it or you'll be out in the boondocks/no where near your workplace. So this house was awesome!!!! We signed a year long lease and were happy as could be! :-)December 2010:
A year went by, December rolled around and we got a letter saying that instead of a lease renewal, we'd be on a month-to-month lease. YUCK.
I'm one of those people that hates not knowing what they're doing (I like to plan), and I hated the idea of packing up and moving at a moments notice. So I started house hunting online.
Now, the reason we're on a month-to-month lease is because the owner of the property also owns both of the properties next door which total up to somewhere around 30 acres. The owner wants to develop this 30 acres.......I could get into a whole different spiel about nature preservation and what I personally would do with that 30 acres, but I won't get into it now otherwise it'll just upset me again. The point is, they're going to bulldoze the beautiful woods behind our house, the neighbors houses, our house and put up condos or track homes in their place.
Flash forward to February 2011(and several hundred real estate listings online later):
I found a house! An old farmhouse! It's beautiful!!! I contacted the realtor and we went to go see it. It's wonderful and *bonus* in the same town close-by to Annapolis!
2700 sq. ft, 3-4 bedrooms, 3 full baths, home office, wonderful kitchen (10x better than our current kitchen) - the only downsides were:
a.) the property it was on, and
b.) the price
We realized we wouldn't find another unique, historic house like the farmhouse anywhere else in this town, so thought we'd try haggling the price. Why not, right? Well, it worked!!!! We talked the owner down a massive $450 from the original rental price!!!
Lesson learned: It pays to haggle.
So, we got the farmhouse. We signed the lease. And I'm sitting here thinking of how I'm going to miss the woods.
We lived in suburbia back in the midwest and the house was constantly shrouded in vertical blinds, horizontal blinds and curtains. I detest the idea that you can't live your life without neighbors, or random passersby looking in at you. That's just not living.
In this house, we didn't have to buy any blinds or curtains because it's all woods surrounding us. It's been very relaxing, very Zen, kind of a respite.
The farmhouse is really close to the road...like, there's not really even a driveway, it's more like a landing pad for your vehicle...and it's a busy road. Behind the farmhouse is the B&A Trail (a public bike trail, which used to be a railroad). I love that the trail is behind our new house so now we won't have to drive anywhere to use it, but this also means that we'll have people surrounding us - like suburbia again. It's not nearly as bad as suburbia...but we've definitely been spoiled by the woods.
I'm not having hagglers remorse, we knew where the farmhouse was before we started negotiations. It's an awesome house, and it's the best we can possibly get in our price range and in this town. Like I said to my husband while discussing pros and cons, 'there are things we can change (like the price) and things we can't (the location)...'
So in these last 3 weeks we have here, in the house in the woods, I am determined to savor the seclusion around us. The crawling vines, tall trees, birds, deer, fox, coons and other critters that live here too. It's not just us that are moving, they will be too.
For the next 2yrs we'll be at the farmhouse.
I'm going to focus on the great things about it, and I will most certainly enjoy living there (and using the fabulous trail!).
Goodbye wonderful woods! I'll savor you while I still have you.
