Callie and I made an impromptu trip to GA this past week for a little pet project. I’ll share my little situation with you later this week; it’s kind of adorable.
*Vague much?*
~~Hey, if ya’ll want me to stop blogging about this darn house, just let me know. But, I’m not gonna. Can’t stop. Won’t stop.
While I was here though our desks that we had ordered way back in October were finally finished and were delivered. We commissioned them from the same gentleman who made our fantastic dining room table. Oh and a bench that is in our master bedroom. I thought I blogged about the finished dining table, but can’t locate it. Did I share a pic of the dining table? I can’t tell you how obsessed I am with it. Wait, I just eluded that I was obsessed, so there you go, problem solved. All amish made (no bolts/screws) and the tops are locally sourced Georgia pine, just stained.
It’s a dreary, cold and blustery day in N. Ga. Perfect for napping, reading and snuggling.
There is a ‘morning room’ off of our master bedroom. Well, that is what the GOLDEN PLANS called it; a morning room. Or is it mourning? Can I use it after hours? WHO THE HELL KNOWS. The previous owners had one desk and a daybed in there. Maybe they napped in there. IN THE MORNING.
A set of French doors leading to the morning/mourning room. I need a rug, but a dog bed will suffice for now.
The Coach wanted to make it a dedicated office for both of us, so we ordered two matching Amish made/Georgia finished desks. Are we disgustingly cute or what?Say it! My goal is to be disgustingly cute and in-love forever.
Coach’s desk. I gave him the printer and better view because he works a tad bit more than I do. And you know a tad bit means a helluva lot.
We are using extra dining room chairs for now, but eventually we’ll have dedicated desk chairs, but not really ‘desk’ chairs because, you know, aesthetics and all.
Suz’s desk. All I can think of when I look out the window is:
Merry Christmas! SHITTER’S FULL!
And for real, the wind is blowing SO hard that the door to the shitter keeps opening up….I have visions of the darn thing flipping over and toppling down the hill. I can smell it now…
Why the pretty porto-potty you ask? Doesn’t Suz and Coach have enough bathrooms? It’s for the big hardscape/landscape project going on in the backyard. Surely our new neighbors love us.
I wasn’t even gonna blog today, but seeing that potty out there just cracks me up. I hope everyone is having a lovely day whether looking at the mountains, a snow covered backyard or a pretty turquoise toilet in the driveway.
I’ve been trying to work up the gumption to share something bizarre about the home we purchased in GA. The people who built this house were, um, lets just say special? They went through two builders; the first one quit because it was too difficult dealing with them.
We’ve heard stories from the neighbors and other contractors too about them being a challenging pair. We’ve had a few contractors over to see if they could help us rectify a few weird things, and each time I explain to the contractor that the previous owner must have been ‘touched in the head‘, they agree with me. But even with being ‘touched in the head’ they did make some good choices, but today I’m sharing the biggest negative challenge. This was to be their ‘forever home’; something happened in their family that caused them to need to sell and move out of state. SO, I really did have sympathy for them having to leave their dream/forever home. I just can’t imagine. With that being said, they built the house to what they wanted not thinking of resale.
When you enter the home there is a nice sized foyer, and it’s open to the main/upper living area. The first time we entered the home we went directly towards the porch doors to see the view.
Pic from Real Estate Listing-not our furniture, not our style. Again, not our furniture, not our style.
We tried unsuccessfully to open any of the three sets of French doors in the living area leading to the outside. Hmmmm….we figured they were locked so we moved to the single door next to the dining area. Luckily we were able to get that one opened.
Real estate pic
We didn’t think much about the doors that didn’t open at the moment. We were really loving the feeling of the home; light, bright with very nice finishes.
We continued downstairs and loved this second/bigger family room. We noted that there was again three sets of French doors leading out the the expansive lower porch area; a mirror image of upstairs.
Real Estate pic, not our stuff.
Again, we could NOT get any of the doors to open, but there again was a single French door on the side that opened without issue. Hmmmm….so strange but we didn’t think much of it.
We went and looked at a few more homes in the area and none of them matched up to this one so my Aunt Trisha (AT, our realtor) called the listing agent and asked if we could return that same day to look again. While on the phone with the listing agent AT asked about the unlock-able, un-openable doors. And the agent stated that yes, they DO NOT OPEN.
HUH? They have handles on them, but no hinges. What the fresh hell is that about? Never have any of us heard of this, but we didn’t think it would be an issue to hinge the doors and use them like normal people would. Whatever.
Also, the dining room has lovely windows. They are all fixed. Un-openable.
My stuff, including the guy.
SIDE BAR: THE PLANS. Totally unrelated to the fake doors, but totally related to being ‘touched in the head’
We decided the next day that we would put in an offer and start negotiations. Shortly after that AT inquired about the floor plan/room measurements so Suz could start planning furniture. She was told (sternly by the way) that the plans would not be available until the house was sold and closed. HUH?
Several times over the negotiating the Realtor told us (Aunt Trisha) that the floorpans were SO expensive and CUSTOM to this home and the seller would like to put a premium on them and we can’t SEE them until the house is sold. Come to find out, the seller thought that if we had the plans, we might just go and BUILD our own house with them; this was brought up to AT unsolicited. Mind you, we’ve already given a hefty check $ for earnest money.
This conversation about the blueprints happened more times than you can imagine. At one point Coach told my Aunt to let them know “they should tape a quarter to the plans, drop them in the garbage and then they would have lost something.” The woman clearly was a loon and thought the WORLD of her plans. Maybe they had some secrets in them? The Davinci Code of GA?
So we finally DID get the plans, but not ONE freaking minute before we closed on the house. I’m not even kidding. When AT did the walk through/inspection prior to our closing, I begged for her to look in the attic, because we were sure the damn plans were hidden somewhere and I now wanted them to break the damn code or whatever. It became a joke.
Behold the most coveted plans in the world.
Back to the fake doors.
The beloved plans show WORKING DOORS, maybe that was what she wanted to hide from us? That she made the builder deviate from the plans?
Something fun and unusual about Coach and I? We love fresh air. We love to open our doors/windows weather permitting to enjoy FRESH AIR. Why? Because we are somewhat normal humans.
*sigh*
Moving on….We’ve had four contractors over to see how we can make the fake doors into real doors. One said NO. One said he’d do it then a few weeks later took it back and said NO. One said this wasn’t in his scope of work and then we found THE ONE. THE ONE ended up coming over several times and then returned with a window representative for more help. Guess what? We have to remove ALL of them and start fresh $$$.
*sigh*
What in the world would possess someone to put in fake doors. Right down to the knobs! What a knob. We will never understand, but had we known, we would have demanded to pay LESS for the house because it’s gonna cost us out the ying yang. And my ying yang is going broke.
Coach in our upper living area with OUR stuff and our Fake effing doors.
This is the view from the outside upper porch. You can see the three sets of fake doors, then a single working door on either side. The left side goes into an alcove next to the master, the right side goes into the dining room. We have to remove the upper transoms (because of door size) and we’re going to put in two sets of WORKING French doors and in the center we are doing a large plate glass for a killer view.
The doors/window are on order. Sadly, we can’t not afford to mirror this for the downstairs fake doors at this time, or ever.
I will of course share pictures when the job is complete sometime this year. Right now we have a huge landscape/hardscape project going on in the back yard because the people who built this house apparently NEVER planned on being outside; It was bare. Have you noticed a theme with us? There is always a project going on. Always.
So, anyone else buy a home from someone who might have been touched in the head?
Basically this post is me bitching about our beautiful mountain home. Do you still love me?
We’ve had some really nice winter weather this week in Florida. 50’s at night, high 60’s during the day. ‘Tis a lovely time because we know it will soon be over and it’ll feel like our eyeballs are melting just walking to the mailbox to pick up all the junk mail. Time to dust off my cute boots and break out that cardigan that hasn’t seen the light of day in a year.
GA leaves as we only have palm fronds down here.
The Coach opened up all the doors and windows yesterday and 15 minutes later, I closed them all because I was cold.
Nothing really exciting to talk about today. Can you imagine?
But something funny that I finally noticed. Our friend Kelly took this photo of us on the front porch of our Georgia home many months ago. I made the pic my desktop screensaver many MONTHS AGO. It wasn’t until last week that I noticed I was being felt-up by the bear. Or the Coach. Or both.
Excuse me, but I had my mammogram in August thank.you.very.much.
I hope everyone is healthy and moderately happy today.
