Buying a House in Arden and Other Irrational Behavior, Part II

photo by Joe del Tufo

Probably the best way to tell you about our experience seeing our house in Arden that we bought sight unseen is to post an email that I sent out to a friend the day after we came down see it.  We had to wait 2 days after getting the house to see it. As you might imagine we were going crazy.

Dear M--
We were coming down to go to a dinner gild at Arden at 6. Originally Cynthia was going to take us around to look at houses starting at 1. But since we bought a house, she asked us to come 4 or 4:30. We said 4; we couldn't wait any longer. We were a bundle of nerves Thursday night into Sat. We finally left the house with Maren. Jonah didn't want to come. But it was funny weather [freak instance of sleet and freezing rain]. There were 5 accidents on the turnpike. It took us an hour longer to get down there, and we only reached Cynthia's house at 5. Joe and Keri weren't at "our" house when we arrived. We would have time to look at it without them about. First impressions. We had seen the outside before. The side of the house faces the road. You turn left into a circular driveway with a carport (More like a party pavilion) on one side and the house on the other. The house faces the woods, sunset, and the carport. It has a huge slate patio and ground cover (no front lawn). Enter through the side front door. Joe and Keri don't use the formal front door because it creates an alcove that is better used as a seating area.

I cannot tell you how perfect this house is for us. The first thing I saw was a chalkboard hung just outside the front door of the house as you enter and another hanging just inside the house. I lamented that the realtors made me paint over my chalkboard [menu board in dining room] to sell our house. It was like I had to cover up my personality. But what greets me first thing in the new house? Not one, but two chalkboards. There is a window seat by the door which overlooks a hammock outside. The kitchen is amazing. Amazing. Amazing. I can't even describe the ways I love it. Maren loved the huge warm chocolate chip cookies, Keri set out for us. The back yard has been fenced in for pugs. It is small and requires only a rotary push mower. Slate patio out back. Totally enclosed. So many little seating areas. Very little upkeep to be done. [Ha ha, I say now.] Who needs a yard when you have a whole forest?

Back inside: Bookshelves. Two fireplaces. Security system. Great closets. Bathroom to die for. Beautiful colors. We won't have to change a one. Side screened in porch. Basement storage and workroom which hardly any houses in Arden have. Maren loves her room.

Being late, we had to hustle off to dinner which was being put on my the Ardensingers Gild who were doing a preview of the musical Yeoman of the Guard that they are putting on next month. English themed dinner: Cottage pie, brussels sprouts in mustard sauce, pea/radish salad in light dill dressing and chocolate bread pudding. It was BYOB. We got a table in the front room and who joined our table but the mayor of Arden [Sorry, Arden, I didn't know the correct terminology then], the woman who sewed all the costumes for the Shakespeare plays, and the welcome committee chair? Cynthia said she could not have planned better.

After dinner we went back to Joe and Keri's to have champagne with them and Cynthia and David. We stayed for 2 hours talking. We are similar in so many ways. We feel like we already have friends in Arden. Joe and Keri are Unitarians, as are we. Their daughter Alex is 6 weeks younger than Maren (both born at a birthing center) and is ready to introduce M to all the kids in the neighborhood. Alex spatter painted her closet door and had all her friends sign it but had to cover it up to sell the house. Maren is going to invite her back to do it again. Keri wants to help me bring a labyrinth to Arden. Joe is going to leave one of his framed prints with the house. Mark and Joe discussed microbrews and sound systems. There were many freaky moments of serendipity. Alex and Maren kept shaking their heads at how similar we all were. Cynthia was very happy she could make this work. She got some flak for selling the house without letting it go on the market, but she did everything above board. There are some people who are angry they didn't get a shot at the house. And we are on our way to becoming famous because Joe and Keri are telling everyone how we bought the house sight unseen.  There isn't any traffic on our street, but Cynthia said there are going to be people taking a walk in the woods who never took walks in the woods before.

Here ends the email. I am so happy to have this record. What else do I remember about that day? The soundtrack of the evening was Kate Miller-Heidke. Joe and Keri apologized for some of the language in her songs (an apology which seems funny now). I remember the bedroom was smaller than we thought it would be, but still plenty big, and that the back room was bigger than we thought. We were thrilled at the walk-in closet in the Master bedroom, which hadn't shown up in any of Joe's photos. We didn't quite have the layout correct when we looked at the pictures. It was great to see how the puzzle of rooms fit together. After leaving the house, we were so excited, and the late June settlement date seemed so far away. We knew we would be back in a few days for home inspection. That's when the true test of courage would be called into play. But after seeing the house, we knew that we had made the right move by putting in our bid like we did. I am pretty sure the house itself, in addition to the community of Arden, was calling to us to it.

Buying a House in Arden and Other Irrational Behavior, Part I

Today is Pi day, so it's a perfectly good excuse to be irrational. Two years ago, we celebrated this day by buying a house in Arden, sight unseen. I am going to write my account of this here because it makes for a good story we've told countless times.

Is this our new house?

Houses go very quickly in Arden. Good houses go even faster.  Many times, homes here never even reach the market. I've heard an account of a house selling at a yard sale. Arden houses are quirky. Quite a few started life as summer cottages that were later updated (a little thing called heat) and added onto over the years. They are the kind of homes that drive home inspectors crazy, because level lines and building codes are mere suggestions in this neck of the woods.

We started checking out houses in Arden in January of 2013, but we weren't quite ready to buy. During the January tour of homes, we looked at a house that wasn't on the market yet. Owners Bob and Lon had reached out to Cynthia when she put an appeal out on Facebook for anyone who may be looking to sell a house in Arden in the coming months. The two had redone the entire house, top to bottom, which they had done in several houses across Arden. They might be convinced to make a move again if the right offer came along. This is a couple who has great taste and attention to detail. The house was gorgeous. Large whirlpool tub, new kitchen. Artwork featuring pugs hung throughout the house, which didn't hurt when trying to sell to us.  They even left homemade, chocolate-dipped biscotti for us to nibble on. We loved the house, but it was more house than we were prepared to buy. Anything with an in-law suite is too big for our purposes. But it got the wheels spinning for Cynthia. Bob and Lon had redone another house and sold it eight years earlier. An enchanted cottage-type house on the edge of Sherwood forest. Her friends Joe and Keri and their 15-year old daughter lived there. They weren't looking to move, because they loved their cottage, but Cynthia put a bug in their ears. "What if I could find a house that was exactly like your current house--only bigger?" Never underestimate the puppet master. Joe and Keri loved the bigger house. SOLD! I am not  sure if the sellers realized they were selling or if the buyers realized they were buying; Cynthia is that good! Now, Cynthia had a new house to sell. A smaller house.

Next, the  puppet master came to us with hints that the smaller house would be coming on the market. She described approximately where the house was located. One day we were out driving after dropping Maren off at play practice in West Chester and decided to do a little spin through Arden. Mark was determined to find this house that Cynthia was talking about. This house was down a little road which, though public, looks like a private driveway. We felt like trespassers when we first drove down the road. We did find the house and did a stake-out. Mark took one look at it and said, "It looks too small and dark." He also didn't like that you could see the water tower peeking out from behind winter-bare trees. So, it isn't quite true that we never laid eyes on our new house. We had, and we were unimpressed. We would check it out when the time came that it came on the market, but we didn't hold out much hope.

We had to sell our Reinholds house first, which we did. We had an agreement in place in March, pending inspection and mortgage approval. We planned another outing to look at houses with Cynthia on Saturday, March 16th.  We would be in town the day before the house in question officially went on the market at an Open House. Cynthia wasn't technically allowed to show it to us, but she had to do a walk-through before the open house on Saturday. She told us to be ready to put in an offer first thing Sunday if we liked the house. There was lots of interest in the house, and it would take a miracle to get it.

On the Thursday before we were slated to come to Arden, Cynthia sent me a link to the web profile she created for the house in order to advertise for the open house.  The photos were incredible (taken by the incomparable Joe del Tufo--natch). They were a great record of what we recognized immediately as Bob and Lon's handiwork. All the reservations we had about the home fell away. I immediately sent Cynthia an email saying, I want this house; I just need to check with Mark. Mark replied to me that he wanted the house, too, based on the photos.

Text message from 3/14/13

"Is there any way we could get in to see it tonight? "

Cynthia explained she couldn't show it to us before it came on the market. We were to put together our best offer and have it ready, but she reminded us that there was an open house on Sunday so they probably wouldn't accept our bid until they had heard back from those who attended. She cautioned us again that there had been lots of interest.  A house in similar state had gone after one day and at above asking. So we talked and considered. We crunched numbers and decided what our tolerance for pain would be. All of this was happening over text and email while Mark was at work and I was at home. I came back to Cynthia and asked if we could make an offer on the house--sight unseen. She had never sold a house sight unseen, but if we put our best offer forward and did it quickly, they might agree to the sale just to get out of the hassle of an open house. It was only at this point did we learn that the house belonged to Joe and Keri, who we had met once at a dinner party Cynthia and David had thrown. Mark and I both remember talking to them that night. They had talked then about their home and how much they loved living there.

We gave Cynthia the offer around 6 PM after Mark came home from work--as if he was getting much work done after this conversation started. HA! Cynthia talked us through it, emailed us the exclusions/inclusions and sellers disclosures about the house. We signed them and emailed them back and gave her the go-ahead. She called Keri and Joe and asked if they had time for her. She had talked to them at lunch and warned them of the possibility of an offer. They had 15 minutes before their dinner reservation, so Cynthia went over, orally presented the deal, and they accepted it on the spot.

At 8, we got the call that we had bought a house. We kept walking around as if in a daze repeating the mantra, "Holy $#!%, we just bought a &*@#ing house!" Hard to sleep that night. We decided against telling our parents what we had done until after we had seen the house. Even at the ripe old age of 44, neither of us wanted to risk parental ridicule. The next day, Mark went into work where he was informed that he had got a promotion and a raise, after only 6 months with the company. We took that as a sign that the energy of Universe was backing us up on our leap of faith.

(Tune in next time when I tell that the story of what it is like to visit our house for the first time.)