First off, I picked out my favorite houses from a list our Realtor suggested, but the pictures never showed the house next door or the car up on blocks across the street. Growing up in a city run by Homeowner Associations, I was amazed at how you could see a house built in 1923 right next to a house built in 2005 that looked nothing alike. Also, almost the entire city felt a little-run down and dirty. My friend Heidi gave it the perfect description: "Deidra, the Virginia Beach area is the land of strip malls."
Secondly, most of the homes were built in the early 1900s, way before cars were invented, thus, hardly any houses have a garage. Granted, Daniel and I haven't had a garage since we've been married, but if Daniel is going to be deployed for an extended period of time and I go back to Oklahoma to hang out family and friends, it would be good to have a safe place to lock up his pretty car.
I found that most of the charming houses I liked were in an area called "Park Place" - named for the Zoological Park not far from it. Apparently it used to be THE place to live, but many of the massive colonial houses have been converted to multiple rentals units and is now considered a gang haven. Awesome. Also why the price of the houses I liked looked so attractive. Surprise, surprise.
One of the strangest things was realizing that there are hardly any "neighborhoods" in the area. Sure, all the listings named the "neighborhood" the house was located in, but my definition of the word is a little different. I grew up in a neighborhood of about 100 houses with only 2 entrances. In Norfolk, almost every block is open to public traffic.
On Monday we were just going to meet up with my friend Heidi Jo for breakfast, then hit the road for the 10 hour drive ahead of us. However, I decided there were a few more houses I wanted to drive by to see what the surrounding area looked like. Heidi jumped in the car with us and I was glad to have another girl's opinion! We found a charming Cape Cod in the neighborhood of "Suburban Acres Park." Immediately the name had my interest piqued, and it was just a mile from our friends John and Gretchen. As we got out of the car, I saw a guy in his Navy sweatshirt with his wife pushing a stroller around the block. Awww... I already felt at home. We peeked in the windows and decided we just had to see the inside before we left. 3 hours later, we were able to get a peek inside, and we liked what we saw!
I'm taking suggestions for exterior paint colors!
We texted our Realtor (who was out-of-town at a conference) and told him we were ready to put in an offer. He called me back and said there was already an offer in on the house, but it had not been accepted yet! Yeehaw!
It DEFINITELY needs alot of work - first thing going is the oven that probably was installed when the house was built in 1943. The master bedroom is HUGE and I have big plans to expand the bathroom and put in a walk-in closet.
Now we play the waiting game to see if our offer was accepted. I sure hope we get it so all of my dreaming and planning comes to fruition -- I already have paint colors picked out for each of the rooms!
