December 28 Unbelievable?!

Wednesday:  A few weeks ago (a VERY few), Ruthanne and Terry put an unusual and frankly totally unexpected question to me. Would I mind very much if they moved to Grand Rapids ... if they looked for a house at Leisure Village?

WHAT?!?!?!

You could have knocked me over with a very light breeze. Seriously?

This was Ruthanne's idea evidently. The last time they were in Grand Rapids (quite recently), Ruthanne had gone into my bedroom to use my "master bath" (which is tiny but nice) and remarked about how nice my little house is ... how adequate ... how cozy ... how much storage I had, etc. I agreed with her and didn't think anything more about our conversation.

But then ... she called one afternoon and asked me the above question. And Terry too was inquiring. They asked a bunch of questions about this place and asked if I could look and see if there were any homes available.

Then Christmas happened. Ruthanne and Terry flew down to Georgia to be with Shari and Mark and kiddos and were gone for a week. In their absence, I did talk with the office manager here at the park and just asked about availability, etc. She said there wasn't really anything available ... except for one double-wide--but then she said she thought the owner was "asking too much" for it and we both blew it off.

However, I talked to Ruthanne and Terry a day or too later and casually mentioned that home to them. They asked me to find out more information--which I did. And then they flew home to Detroit and today they drove up to take a look at the house that is for sale--through the park management.

The house was a total DUD. We hated it. Definitely a smoker's house--it wreaked of smoke. We were given a "tour" by our park manager (in charge of the sale) and we were polite and took our time with her but basically declined pursuing anything further with that particular house. 

We decided to just take a little drive through the park and have a look around. I thought it would be fun to just show them the rest of the area--because there is a south side of the park (where I live) and a north side too. We drove up and down the streets, casually commenting about which houses were pretty and which ones were junky ... and suddenly Ruthanne said: "That one's for sale!" And she was right! The "For Sale" sign had phone numbers, which Terry called and the owner agreed to meet us in one hour to show us inside the house. This house was being sold by owner, not through the park sales.

Meanwhile, we looked it over on the outside and discovered the house was completely empty ... and a much nicer house than what we had just looked at. We could see in the windows on the front of the house and liked the openness of the layout--the kitchen looked super nice, and it flowed right into the main room. 

Here's a picture of the outside!

This is a 3BR, 2bath house of approximately 1750 sq. ft. Don't you love the front porch? AND it has an extra long carport that is partially enclosed! At the far end of the carport is an attached work room with built in shelves and lots of nice storage space--the door to it was not locked; so we walked in and looked around. 

When the owner came, she and her husband showed us all around the inside. It's SO NICE! It's a 2002 model and hardly looks like it has been lived in. I love the layout. Both Ruthanne and Terry felt very positive about it and said they would call the owner back tomorrow with an offer.

PS. That's exactly what happened. Terry made an offer that was accepted and Friday they are coming back to Grand Rapids to finalize the deal. I am so excited I can barely contain myself.