For years, I walked by a house in our older, established neighborhood.  I would wonder what it looked like inside?  Who was the owner?  Why was it sitting vacant for so many years?  To my husband’s chagrin, I once drew out a plan of what ‘I thought’ the house’s layout might be.  Then the unexpected happened . . . the ‘dream house’ that I had been coveting was for sale!  Dragging my hubs kicking and screaming, we toured the house.  By the time we left, I had placed furniture, chosen paint colors and knocked down walls.  Something my Realtor husband likes to hear from his clients, but certainly not his wife.  And certainly not after we had recently completed a nearly 3-year remodel on our current fixer-upper project.  He told me to put the idea out of my head, it was not going to happen.  “It is too big of a house”, he said.  “It is way over priced”, he said.  “It will take too much money to get it livable and the way we want it”, he said.  But I was undeterred.

A few weeks later while on vacation, I was still obsessing about the ‘dream house’.  My hubs promised to take me to look at it again ‘if it is still for sale, because it could be sold by the time we get back’.   It was still for sale, we looked again, and went back again, and again and again.  Each time with a posse of friends, family, contractors, electrician and a plumber.  All the time my husband becoming more and more interested.  Finally, it was time to make an offer.

Our initial offer was totally discounted as the owner thought it was way too low and informed us ‘she was not having a fire sale!’  However, the house had been vacant for nearly 14 years and needed substantial upgrades, so we held firm with our lower than anticipated offer.

After a few back and forth negotiations, our offer was accepted, as long as we closed by the end of the year.  Wait a minute! This did not fit into my ‘plan’ of closing in March and having two months to relish in picking out tile and paint color and perusing beautiful design magazines!  I need time to plan!  Maybe I want to stay in my old house!  Fear totally set in and with a vengeance.  However after a few stressful days, and after everyone pointed out, we never thought the current owner would accept our offer, that the bank could turn everything around in a matter of two weeks, that contractors and cabinet makers would fall right into place – it was meant to be.  The coveted Dream House would be ours!

As my husband said ‘Be careful what you wish for, you just might get it!’  Let the fun begin!