New hab for the Crabbes !

So, last week I posed a question to my friends on Facebook -- Would you change your life to fit a house that you knew was a great bargain?

That's was the question we had been wrestling with since we first saw 436 Johanna Place Drive. Emilyn had been inside before... coincidentally, the previous owner was one of her Scout leaders.

I had been looking at listings as they come online, mostly because I feel the weight of history telling me that NOW is the perfect time to buy a bigger house. We have made such good choices and are in such sound financial shape that we almost could make money. That's a powerful incentive.

But none of that matters, I told myself, if we don't find a house we like! And then we saw this house!

It has everything I wanted: Bigger bedrooms. A bigger yard. A deck. A bigger kitchen. All new appliances. New furnace and AC. Beautiful floors and walls. An open floor plan. A master bath with a huge tub and a window. A place for me to set up a desk for my budding freelance editing business.

The downside: The garage is smaller. The basement is badly broken up, and it lacks something we have in abundance now: Storage space. But it is a great bargain, we believe, because of the work the owner has put in since he bought it two years ago... and because he offered it at a loss of thousands of dollars from what he paid then.

We made an offer this week once we found out there was a competing bid... Our offer was accepted after some furious fretting on Thursday night. We close early next month.

Steve is embracing the opportunity to make a great investment and to step off on a grand (and a bit scary!) new adventure for our family. It's closer to both the kids' schools. Allen just loves rolling around on the nice carpet and running through the big back yard. We're looking forward to playing Uno out on our nice new deck. And Emilyn really wants new bedroom furniture!

The most trepidation comes, of course, with the prospect of selling our house. It needs some work, to be sure. We'll have to hire people to clean and paint and patch up some things after we've moved out. But our realtor says she's pretty confident she can sell it quickly, especially since we can be pretty flexible on our asking price. We are very lucky to have bought so long ago and to have refinanced smartly since then. Steve is the master of bill-paying and credit-building!

It has been a great home, the best, and we will miss it terribly. But I imagine some new family will find as much joy on Asilomar Court was we did. And I hope we find that family very soon!