A Tale of Two Sisters (and two tolerant husbands)

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Exciting news: We found a house! With the home inspection* behind us, Husband and I have informed the kids and are proceeding to close. I won’t lie, I’m relieved our time in a cramped urban apartment will be short-lived– as are the poor souls living below us.

Before I say more, allow me to back up a bit and wax nostalgic, in order to paint you a picture…

Once upon a time there were two sisters: The first a bespectacled, bossy, excessively chatty (some might say obnoxious), precocious, and inquisitive child. The second more sedate, traditionally charming, obliging, observant (some might say sneaky), and even-keeled. The firstborn liked to pretend the youngest was much older, but only when it suited her…

Each day, en route to school, they’d drive through a tree-lined street of historic homes. Two, side by side, they boldly claimed as their own. The charming little [much older] sister preferred the bubble-gum pink colonial (obvi), the obnoxious firstborn selected the classic brick Tudor. For decades they’d chime, “There are our houses!” every time they passed and imagine how splendid it’d be to live next door to each other as grown-ups.

still can’t believe they finally painted over the cotton-candy pink siding

No, tolerant Husband did not buy me that handsome brick Tudor. (It’s not for sale, darnit.)

However, with a green light from Much Older Sister’s own tolerant husband, he did agree to purchase THE HOUSE NEXT DOOR to their current home.

It’s about an hour south of our original target area, but when it quietly popped up on the market you’d best believe my much older sister and I launched a full-blown campaign lobbying with gusto in hopes of convincing our respective husbands that living next door to each other was not JUST the culmination of a shared life-long dream, but in fact a winning plan.

Our move back to the Pacific Northwest was motivated by a desire to be closer to family… and, well, you don’t get much closer than sharing a property line! It won’t be forever, but it’ll be a fun season and we already have plans to demolish the fence dividing the properties.

* it’s prudent & wise to have a professional full home inspection on any prospective property so one can more accurately determine condition & proceed to closing with both eyes open


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8 responses to “A Tale of Two Sisters (and two tolerant husbands)”

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