Pennbrook Farm Chronicles

October 2001

Now, it is one thing to move because you need more space; you change jobs; you hate your neighbors; that body you buried in the basement is really starting to stink; etc. It is quite another thing to start house shopping when you have a perfectly good house in a perfectly good neighborhood and the bodies are buried deep enough that you hardly even notice the smell. But . . . that is what we started to do. When we built our current house starting in 1989, we were young, naive and not nearly experienced enough in life to know what we really "wanted". Twelve years later, we had completed building our house and our family. We have two wonderful boys and the factory is closed. We realized that whenever we went out, we were always ogling and swooning over nicely restored older homes. In fact, back in the 1995-1998 time frame, we had actually gone to look at several older homes for sale in our area. It was more of a curiosity bug satisfied by a very nice realtor who was also a friend. But, the kids were still very small, we had not "finished" our current house, and the motivation to move was not yet fully developed.

Now, with the kids older and less likely to gnaw at lead paint coated window sills, we got the urge to look again. But what did we want? In the earlier searches, we had looked at several Victorian style homes. They looked nice, but were not really "us". We are far less formal at home, and those beautiful "Vickys" deserved the full blown formal treatment. Jean and I tossed this around for a while, and realized that an older farmhouse was likely to be the ideal solution. Rambling, comfortable, quirky, and informal. We also wanted as much property as we could afford. Given that most Victorians and other large, older homes were usually built in or near "Town", most did not have large lots, let alone acreage. A farmhouse it was to be, so let the search begin.

After searching the local real estate listings for weeks, we started to see potential prospects. Eventually we connected with a realtor that, contrary to most, actually listened to what we said, understood what we were saying, and did not waste her or our time searching for the right home. We were not afraid of projects, but we needed something we could live in, no matter how rustically, since we had no desire to camp out for a year or more to make a liveable space out of a disaster. An honest and pleasant person to deal with, Anna showed us several houses. Some had great property, but only a so-so house. Some were too far gone or "re-muddled" to really be practical for us. We quickly exhausted the initial "inventory" of homes our realtor had to offer. We did a quick "drive-by" at one potential property, but it was dusk on a cool, damp October evening, and we were not real impressed, so we decided not to go back for a walk through. Sometimes you can't see the forest for the trees, but . . .

By the end of October, we really had nothing to show for our searching. To our realtor's credit, she did not show us anything that did not reflect what we were looking for. So, the search continued.

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