vlbrown-mzydt

When we left Rich and Vicki, they had just gotten into Seattle and unpacked into their AirBnB apartment. (previous post)

It's a cute "daylight basement" apartment. One bedroom at the foot of the stairs. A bathroom with a stacked washer & dryer down the hall. Then a large living space with a big L-shaped couch, another bed, and a kitchenette with sink, 2-burner cooktop, microwave, and small fridge.

The kitties (especially Harley) love the windowsills that run the full length of the big room, from wall to wall under two windows. They can run back and forth, look out of windows, and hide behind curtains.

I immediately realized that we really must find something to watch on the television. There's a 60” smart tv (We've been watching NetFlix.)

Over the next few days we:

• found the Target and bought things we hadn't realized we would need
• found a PetCo and bought a small cat tree
• started visiting houses

We looked at houses in Port Orchard (on the Kitsap Peninsula) and in Gig Harbor (also on the Peninsula but technically in a different county. We drove up to Sedro Woolley and Arlington. We looked at a house that had a nice basement room that was, unfortunately, only accessible through the garage (not cat-safe), We looked at a house that had an enormous HO train set taking up one 20 x 30 ft room!

We went back to Gig Harbor; it's a pretty town. We tried to go to an open house in Belfair, but couldn't find the house (even with the GPS). We drove up to Seabeck to look at a house at 10101 Misery Pt. (with that name, we just had to go see it.)

We drove down to Fox Island where there was a neat octagonal house and arranged for a visit a few days later (unfortunately, the inside of that one was weird and somewhat disconcerting.).

We took multiple ferries. We drove in the rain. We bought toll bridge passes.

We looked at a house with enough room (if we turned the garage into a pantry) and a huge shop, but the rooms were a bit small and everything about the house was gray (inside and out). However, it was the first house we liked. Not The house, but not bad.

We looked at a house with pretty rooms and lovely interior features, but it was a but small and had many exterior doors and I couldn't quite imagine our furniture in that house. This was the second house we liked. We could conceivably go for this one but… we'll keep looking.

We had an appointment to look at a 1926 Craftsman style house with a pretty floor plan and several outbuildings, but it fronts on a Very busy commercial street and we decided not to bother.

We drove up to and around Snohomish. It's a pretty town with lots of Victorian houses (none of which are for sale).

We looked at a house in a gated neighborhood with a small air field and separate roads for taxiing light aircraft! Interesting neighborhood; awful house. No backyard to speak of; what there was, was on a 45 degree angle down from the house. Blackberry brambles at the bottom. Dense underbrush. Oh, and the house needed a lot of work / repairs.

At 5pm, we toured a house in Snohomish. Big back yard. Nice downstairs; nice upstairs. Not for us but we want something more like this one! (They already had two offers over list price.)

The next day we experienced much disappointment. We toured three houses.

The first was Gray. So very gray. Even grayer than the one we saw a few days before. I am told there was a creek. I didn't look.

I hated it.

Then  we toured what was supposedly a 3 storey house. It was actually 3 and a half storeys (half a flight down from the kitchen to the "family room" and one of the bedrooms and the other end of the deck. The stairs to the (weird, low-ceilinged, partially finished) basement were steep and ran under that half flight. I bumped my head (the house bit me).

I hated it.

Last, we went out to Camano Island to look at a house that was very promising in the photos (Pro tip: the photos lie). I wanted to like this one; I really did.

Camano Island is boring. It connects to the mainland at Stanway which is small and boring. The house was out past a bunch of industrial stuff – a telephone pole factory(?), a septic tank manufacturing plant (?), and up a steep drive with a sharp grade and signs that indicate it can get icy.

The next neighbor over was running something that made a high pitched whine; the house stank of food smells (the people hadn't left yet and they'd cooked lunch before they left; the husband had no idea what the noise was, suggested it was a neighbor in the other direction who sometimes "runs a saw" (I don't think he could hear the whine).

I hated it.

Afterward, we drove back to the mainland, had some lunch, stopped at a cute cafe/bakery called The Cookie Mill, then drove down to Everett and took the ferry over to Whidbey Island, where we drove around looking at houses for sale (from the outside).