The Offer(s)

We continued to look at other houses, and in fact the listing agent took us to see a different house the next day. We talked about what we were looking for and she actually encouraged us to look in a different neighborhood, closer to where we live now and where our dear friends have lovely houses. We caught up with our own agent and he took us out and about for weekends in a row. It was sort of exciting, but none of it was tempting. None of the houses made me want to stay. None of them was big enough, or on a nice enough block. None of them had a floor plan that would comfortably accommodate more than 30 people (an absolute requirement for our holiday entertaining). I would head out determined to be excited and optimistic, and I would come home mopey and sad every time, because I knew which house I wanted and I just knew we couldn't make it work. I wrote to some friends who live on the other side of the park and told them that the house had broken my heart.

The Kid visits the park conservatory at Christmas time with his Aunt & Uncle

As the weeks went on, I didn't push, beg, nag or cajole. (The Mr. might feel differently, but I was really on my best behavior.) I made a list ranking the possible houses and the park remained number 1. Our agent heard 'I don't like it better than the park' after every house and eventually went to see it for himself. I think he saw what I was talking about, even though he kept painting realistic pictures for us. The Mr. did a lot of thinking and we did a lot of talking (for him) about where and how we wanted to live. The location of the park is really ideal, with a library, a public pool, playgrounds and formal gardens all minutes from the front door on foot. It connects to the bike trails we love that take us to the restaurants and people that we love, and is minutes from the interstate and downtown. We thought a lot about what we wanted for our son, and the type of childhood we wanted to give him. Slowly, ever so slowly, the Mr. started to come around. He saw the advantages of the park, he saw that there wasn't a renovated home that would fit the bill, he saw that much of the work was cosmetic and the bones of the house were solid.

Eventually, he agreed to walk back through the house with an estimator to try to get a grip on what the renovations would cost us. We spent a lot of time talking through finishes and mechanicals and how we would live in the house. We put together some numbers. It was doable, but it was going to take a lot of negotiating.

We submitted our first offer on December 1. We countered back and forth for TEN DAYS. It was among the longest ten days of my life. I could barely sleep or eat. I hid in paperback novels and tried to study for finals. Eventually, we got to a price that we could agree on. It was still a little higher than we wanted, but it was a LOT lower than the seller wanted. I couldn't stop smiling. We were going to do it! To heck with the holidays, we had a loan to close!