More house hunting

We're beginning to get this real estate thing down to a pattern. (I'll avoid the term science.) We did a handful of open houses this morning and afternoon and here's how it goes.

Cate has been researching real estate in the Twin Cities for about two years, so she has the sites down. She had a list of open houses with times. All five of us descend on the house (when we're all available) with instructions to not talk about anything we see out loud in front of anyone else. Then we meet in the backyard and discuss what we liked.

We save three today and only one even remains on the list.

Elizabeth takes copious notes. Here's her notes on one house we saw this afternoon.

tree shutters - dark green
birches
playground
small forest
mudroom window
playhouse
ferns pines
white fence
slanted wall, small living room
lots of windows
window seat
dark color
brick white
fireplace
striped dining room
kitchen tile
lots of cabinets
porch into eat-in kitchen
electric stove
closets
light green
red stairs down
carving stairs
up porch
green bathroom - tiles - down
screen door
different type wood floors
nice downstairs
horrid laundry room wallpapers
cool exercise room/bath
closet
side yards
window boxes

It's an odd little house, a cottage that had an attached garage which was turned into living space. There is indeed a porch off what could be the biggest bedroom, upstairs, but the chimney sticks up through the middle of it and there's no place to actually fit a bed.

Another house got marked down for the following: creaky stairs, not in good shape floors, old metal awning, metal fence, loud neighbors. Oh, and no dining room.

This could take a while.