Saturday Rental Hunting in a Nut Shell

1. Townhouse. I love it. It’s only a few years old so it’s all upgraded (high ceilings, granite countertops, tiled backsplash, etc.). It’s 3 stories, has 3 bedroom, 3.5 bath- it’s great. The pool table would go in the garage – and there’s actually a bedroom/full bath down there, too. Problems: The location. Right at Buford/North Druid – sketchiness surrounds it. Parking. VERY little guest parking and if we use the garage for a pool table we’ll need a guest space for one of us every day. Price. They need to come down about $250 (mostly because of location) to make it worth our while. Final Verdict: Maybe.


2. Townhouse. Exactly the same as the one above (same complex, etc.) but the location was worse/less private, it wasn’t in as good condition and it had fewer amenities. Final Verdict: No.


3. House. Amazing location (right behind Tin Lizzy’s), beautiful/older wooded street, charming homes with lots of character, great curb appeal, plenty of parking as it’s paved around the side to the back, fenced in yard – cute, cute, cute. We get in and it’s SMALL. It’s all hardwoods and has 3 bedrooms/2 baths but it’s just odd. The rooms are tiny – the bathrooms are really tiny. The kitchen was awful – at least 2 different floors and 3 different countertops – dated everything. It felt small, the pool table wouldn’t fit (no garage either) and as much as we loved the location and the outside it wasn’t us. Final Verdict: No.


4. House. Awesome location (right by our place now – behind Phipps), great curb appeal, awesome hardwoods, huge rooms, lots of house, had been upgraded in some spots, etc. Problems: Almost too big. Pool table wouldn’t fit. Awkwardly huge underground garage and your w/d sit in the middle of it randomly. No where to put the pool table (unless you put it down there in the scary garage but he mentioned flood damage… twice. Way too pricy. Two bathrooms were DATED – like yellow/blue tile. Some weird deal where it could be sold out from under us only by investors or something? Final Verdict: No.


5. House. Great location (right by Chastain park), great curb appeal, awesome hardwoods, good-size rooms – the main was doable – definitely… then the basement where we thought the pool table could go was all chopped up so it wouldn’t fit, the carpet was heinous, there was all of this random space we couldn’t use (rooms) that had the owner’s crap in them, etc. And they were asking too much for what it was. Oh – and the yard is HUGE- I mean 3 acres huge. Final Verdict: No.


6. Townhouse. Good location (Brookhaven – behind the Kroger past Phipps). Older area but well kept. Townhome was a little 80’s (could mostly tell in the fireplace and bathroom vanities). They had done lots of upgrades though and the rooms were a good size, the floors looked good, etc. The pool table wouldn’t fit in the basement OR the 1-car garage. And if we didn’t occupy the huge space it should have fit in (was like 1’ short on each side) we’d have a lot of house we didn’t need. Final Verdict: No.

So out of all of them only one is a maybe. And we would need to get them down $250 and it would STILL be $1,600 and no amount of money is going to make that place safer. It IS gated, but I mean Cross Keys High School is in walking distance one way and Buford the other way. The people in there were all alive though, right? And it was a bunch of cute, young couples. But out of all of them it's definitely the farthest away from where we work. Here’s some pictures of it since it’s the only one we’d even consider moving:

So at the end of the day we talked about buying vs. renting - pros/cons, and discovered that for us it all came down to 4 things:

1. Location: ITP (rent) vs OTP (buy)

2. Flexibility: have it (rent) vs don't (buy)

3. Renovations: can't do it (rent) vs can (buy)

4. Money: out the door (rent) vs investment (buy)

So if you rent you can live in the perimeter, have the flexibility to move, etc. - but you can't make it what you want to and you're not really saving $ if you're paying $1,600 to $1,800 a month. But if you buy you need to pack it up to the burbs, you're more 'locked in' and you can do whatever the hell you want because it's yours. It's like I told Austin - if you're not ready to head to the burbs, if location is your numero uno - then let's rent and call it a day. But if it's about the $, if you want to get a house a good investment then let's buy (if something happens we'll rent it out or sell it) and we can do renovations and make it ours. But you know Austin - he wants it all! Now that we've really gone out there and really looked and seen what's up and what things are going for.... it seems buying is our best option. Plain and simple. Bite the bullet. Rip off the band-aid and do it. So... it's pretty much looking like that's what we're going to do - but Austin just can't get on board with total burbs right now - so we're looking at places in our price range in or near the perimeter that need work. Some just need wallpaper down/paint up, new bathroom vanities; some need more. So we'll keep you posted on that! Wow.... I'm not exactly surprised it's going like this. This is how it was when we got our cars, our current apartment, our honeymoon, everything! And this is our biggest purchase so I know it makes sense but DANG - I'm just glad (I think) we've come to a final decision. At the end of the day - we've exhausted all rentals and only came up with one we'd live in (above) so.... i dunno. I'm exhausted by it all already! haha

Orange-Inspired Guest Room: On its Way!

K – I’m bouncing back! I’m going to try to see 5 townhouses on Saturday when Austin is back… and maybe 1 or 2 of the other houses. No reason they should suffer, right? One could be the one for us. Anyway, per my amazing sister’s genius advice I’ve decided to write a do-over of the guest room post. Here goes! For the ‘orange-inspired’ guest room here is the updated board (click on it to make it larger!):

I now have: Ivory bedding with Ivory Euro shams and rust standard shams; the ivory/brown leaf pillow to sit in front of all of those pillows and the headboard! My mom has the double bed, too!I always had: the bird cage & a burlap chair cover. I also plan to use this hexagon bamboo night stand that is currently my bedroom night stand. I’m still deciding where the bird cage will sit – maybe it will hang? Genius Dev will come up with something!! :)

I still need:

Sheets: Full Set of Mocha-colored sheets; will look at TJ/Marshall’s

Bedskirt: Burlap or organic looking – taupe/jute; will look at TJ/Marshall’s

Paint: For the rust-colored splash wall

Accents: rust-colored accents for the desk and birdcage.

Lamps: An awesome lamp (still watching that one but it's still $130 at West Elm). Dev had a great idea –get one table size lamp for the end table (maybe this one?) and a floor lamp to sit next to the desk. I like it. Also, Also, I kind of want these lamps – one for the desk and one for the nightstand maybe? They're cheap. But they’re kind of small…. Hmmm.

Nightstand/Chair Dilemma: Dilemma solved! I want a Leather Parsons Chair for the sawhorse desk and a straight back dining chair (covered with the burlap chair cover ).

Petite Sawhorse Desk: The Ballard's sawhorse desk (Austin is watching the outlet; last time mom/dev checked they didn't have natural like I want above).

Mirror: Maybe a large one that hangs – depends on space. Will probably get at Ikea – saw some cute ones!

Thanks to Dev, I no longer need: two brown cubes for the foot of the bed, a second nightstand, this chair in the corner, etc. Thanks for saving me $$$$, Dev, and of course the fab help and ideas!!!

Worst. Day. Ever.

Are you KIDDING me?! So bad... we saw 5 houses... I can't go too far into it, too depressing, but i will tell you that today was totally a waste of a day, I had no idea real people lived in such hellholes, several individuals should be sued for false advertising, and I cried. Twice. Now i'm bed, sad, and just pissed. Where do these people get off selling these crap ass places for $1,700- 2000 a month?!

House #1: Very 70's. Lots of wall paper. Bad paint job - lots of purple. LOTS of wood paneling. Fridge from the 70's. Etc. Managed to avoid all of the bad in the online pics.

House #2: Austin's car couldn't go in the driveway. Seriously. The driveway was so steep we couldn't get down it. The lady was like well I guess it won't work then and started to get in her car. I was like no, let me at least see it. It was bada$$ as far as location and it had charm - but it was SO WEIRD! The bottom floor felt like 3 bedrooms and a kitchen and the top floor felt like four bedrooms. It was small, drafty, old and odd.

House #3: Farthest out house... and not even kind of worth what they were asking. Tiny bedrooms - only the master could fit a full-size bed - and the room that fit a pool table had it's own 'heating/cooling' system, was carpeted, etc. BAD.

House #4: VERY promising. Had the most curb appeal (by far), was in a pretty good area, was definitely the most modern, etc. But the pool table would only fit in the HUGE den with vaulted ceilings, the upstairs and actual stairs had heinous carpet and the kitchen appliances were very, very dated. And they were asking $2,000 a month... that's way too much for what they didn't do... SIGH.

House #5: Worst ever. I didn't even want to get out but Austin made me. You couldn't fit a full-size bed in any of the rooms, the windows were so old you couldn't see out of them, the full basement was a glorified garage, it was just SO SO BAD.

Please note: We're not stupid people. These people just post pictures well, and won't send you any more until you go see it and by then all it's done is waste everyone's time.

So I left the 5th house crying. I'm just SO PISSED. Mostly because I called this months ago - I knew I would be unable to rent a house because they're not fixed up like apt/condos/townhomes and I'm unable to fix them up myself. But whatever. I'm like Austin, here are our options:

1. Ditch the effing pool table and rent a condo or townhome. THESE are going for reasonable prices but none fit the pool table.
2. Buy. I can't rent these POS's and live in them unable to do what needs to be done (i.e. paint, take down wood paneling, paint fireplaces, take down wallpaper, etc.).

P.S. By ditch I mean have it at his parent's house until we can buy a home it will fit in.

That's it - I know I have 5 more rentals to look at but i'm at the end of my rope and i'm livid. You may be thinking, gah - she just found them yesterday - don't get discouraged. But we've been looking for MONTHS and these 10 were simply the best out of hundreds from numerous websites/searches/etc. And the 10 best don't even kind of cut it. What a joke. What a waste of time. I'm so bitter and upset now.