Beer Gardens

So the news of the day is that Jack and I appear to be house-hunting. Er, I mean, condo-hunting. We already decided that we do NOT want a house; the maintenance and yardwork-free lifestyle is completely worth the association fees! That's how we chose to spend Halloween 2010.

We have been trying to live the humble lifestyle (read: packed like sardines in an 800 square foot apartment...coming from a house nearly twice the size of that). My bachelorette pad was fine when it was just me and Jack would come to visit every third weekend. But now, with some of our furniture, the crystal and small appliances that we received for our wedding, and my beloved shoe collection, we just don't fit. Plus, we're literally tripping over each other during our morning routines. Jack leaves when I do and has to get all gussied up now for work. While it's great that we can guzzle our (Caribou!) coffee together in the mornings, this tiny apartment just isn't working out.

When you can get something cluttered up in the span of 10 minutes, it's not good. I abhor clutter and I mess up the living room just by setting down my crapola from the day.

So we're in the market for a condo. We briefly tossed around the idea of moving downtown, but it makes more sense to stay in our Chicagoland suburb. We know and love the area, it's a decent commute to work, and we're only 20 miles from the Loop. We haven't called the bank for a pre-approval yet (that's this week), but we toured a couple condos yesterday.

One was in what can only be described as a retirement community, but it was GORGEOUS. Rose-colored brick with huge windows, it was nearly brand-new and offered stunning blond wood floors, cathedral ceilings, two bedrooms, wainscoting in the office, and two huge bathrooms (hurray!). The kitchen was okay, but the open concept was great and allowed a lot of light inside.

Then we visited a two-story townhouse (also with huge windows) that had two bedrooms, two glorious bathrooms, an awesome kitchen with an island, and a loft (for a cool office! Hurray!), a two-car garage, and a beer garden.

Seriously, a beer garden. There's about a 15-foot space between the French doors and the garage...just enough space to set up a couple of chaise loungers, a grill, and string up some lights for summertime parties. As we walked out, Jack leaned over and said, "Can we just buy this one? I want a beer garden!"

We're looking into this and while we have a general idea of our price range, I think we're going to move forward and see what the bank has to say. Despite our rotten experience selling our house in SB, now we'll get to be the buyers in the buyers' marketplace and make all sorts of crazy demands on the sellers!

Just kidding.

But if, for some crazy reason, we end up buying that townhouse with the beer garden, Jack said we have to clear a tiny patch of the yard, put down some dirt, and "plant" a couple empty beer bottles in the ground. Y'know, for a beer garden. Hey, admit it's a funny idea.

So more to come, I'm sure. I do have to admit that it's WAY more fun to be a buyer than a seller in this market!