Plan B, Chapter 5

Doesn't it seem strange that some weekends you have nothing going on and other weekends you have too much going on? The latter was the case this weekend. Our HR manager had given me two tickets for the Mariners game Friday night against the Athletics. I haven't really followed the "M's" this year, and they haven't had a good year anyway (am still a Cubs fan; don't ask me why). But Rex and I had never been to Safeco Field (which replaced the Kingdome a few years ago) and were curious to see it. And it was a good game. We won 4 to 1, Ichiro got his 200th hit and it was popular catcher Dan Wilson's last game. So it was worth staying for the whole game. However, that meant we had to wait an hour and 20 minutes for a ferry. We didn't get home till 12:45 a.m. So we didn't get as early a start as we would have liked for our 3-hour drive to Vancouver to see what we sensed could be the model home we have been longing for. The weather slowed us up a bit as well. "Scattered showers" were predicted for all of western Washington. At one point, about halfway there, the "showers" turned into torrential rain and hail, bad enough that we pulled over and waited it out for 10 minutes. Then it was back to pesky on-and-off showers, but finally a little after 2 p.m., we made it.

We planned to look at all the models at this location, having driven all that way in the rain, even though I already sensed which one would still be right. This was confirmed for me as soon as we walked in. It looked every bit as good as the pictures. One unique feature was, as you walk in the front door, off to your right is a cute, tiny room that I originally envisioned as a computer room/office, the way our pastor and his wife use a similarly placed little room. But instead, I think it will be a place to put our two recliners and the TV. It would give us a cozy place to watch TV and keep that function separately from the rest of the "great room". The "great room" itself has (this is hard to describe) a divider with three large arched openings separating the living and dining areas (a feature we were shown the photo of at the local office and said "wow"). So it is actually two rooms, but the openings are so large that it still feels spacious and connected, in addition to the arches being attractive and architecturally interesting. This whole area is open to the kitchen, which is not as huge a kitchen as some other models we have seen but is still a nice size with LOTS of very nice cabinets and the large island I want for food preparation and other duties. The master bedroom is a nice size and its walk-in closet is HUGE. The master bathroom of this model is the deluxe version (with both the large round tub and shower stall) at no extra charge. Another big plus of this model is that, unlike most "mobiles", it has flat, level ceilings throughout instead of sloping ceilings. So you definitely don't feel at all like you are in a "mobile". The only possible drawback is that the utility room (which we sort of wanted to have a door put in for the dogs to come in and out) is in the front of the house - and the location of this room can't be switched with the second bathroom which is opposite it. So this would mean putting a second door on the front of the house, which we would rather not do. (The second door of the house is a sliding door in the back of the dining area.) We will figure something out, since everything else about this model really spoke to us. In addition to the deluxe bath, it comes with other features that have to be bought as extras on other models we visited: thicker walls and insulation, the deluxe kitchen cabinets that come in either alder or oak (we thought we wanted oak, but the alder is very pretty - darker than oak but not as dark as cherry), window grids, wood windowsills, etc. The only extras we may need to buy are the double French doors on the TV room (the model had these and it's very pretty in addition to allowing for quiet if the other person doesn't want to hear the TV), a pull-out sprayer on the kitchen faucet, possibly the thicker carpet pad, maybe a second window in "my" craft/sitting room and Rex's office/room, and he wants horizontal "lap" siding to give it even more of a house look. (He was impressed with many of this builder's construction aspects as compared to the other builders I don't know if skylights are offered - but due to the high, flat ceilings, many of the windows in this house are extra tall which should let in plenty of light. We did also learn that the model we saw actually had two feet added to the total length - making the master bedroom/walk-in closet and the dining/utility areas one foot wider than the standard model. So we want to see what that may add to the cost, since we liked the size of the rooms the way we saw them. All in all, I feel this house has more personality and features suited to us than the house we originally tried for earlier this year, and is 5% larger in square feet even if we don't extend the length by the two feet.

So.....the next step is to see the lady at the local office and, as hubby says, "crunch the numbers". I hope we can do that one evening this week and not have to wait for the weekend. Hopefully the numbers will be relatively close to the estimate he gave our mortgage person. The payment estimate he received will be a stretch, but should be doable. I do feel our search is over as to finding what best suits us and am determined we must find a way to get the ball rolling very soon. (By the way, according to our real estate agent friend, apparently in this county, mobiles that are about ten years old are currently going for about the same price as new ones from the quality builder we have decided on. So that further helps seal the deal that what we found today is the right way to go.)