Home Sweet Home

When we bought our house 7 years ago, it was our dream house. We were convinced that it had everything we would ever need. After all, 5 bedrooms, 3 baths and the usual kitchen, family room etc should be enough for two or three people right? With that much space, why would we ever need a basement? So we were not interested in a basement. More so, our bank account was not interested in the extra $$s that the builder wanted for a basement. So we got a decent house, a decent yard in a fairly decent school district and lived happily ever after! Right, except for the last part. Seven years and one toddler later, we seemed to be running out of space, closets full to the maximum extent, garage being used to keep junk rather than cars, mess all over and no time to clean it! That’s when we got the bright idea that we needed to buy a house with a basement. That way, we could dump all our junk into the basement and live relatively mess free on the upper floors. Supporting our idea was the fact the neighbors whose kids were in school were complaining about the schools. Yes, we definitely needed to move in a better school district!
And so the search began. In the so-called ‘better school districts’. The houses we have seen so far are either very expensive, crappy or both. In the meantime, we decided to put our current house on the market. Based on the realtor’s suggestion, we got the carpet replaced, some paint work done, landscaping improved and so on. As a final step we organized all our stuff, cleaned out all our closets, garage and threw away a whole bunch of stuff. After we were done with the ‘make over’, hubby and I looked at each other and said ‘vow! This looks great! If I was a buyer, I’d like this house…hmm….why are we selling it again?’ The school district is a lame excuse! After all Georgia ranks 46th in the United States when it comes to education. Does the school district really matter?
Anyway we went ahead and listed it. Now since it is on the market, we have miraculously managed to keep it spotless in spite of having a two-year-old. The two year old used to be our excuse for all the mess (I’m sure we had other excuses before her). Of course I know that if we take it off the market, it will go back to its original messy state and we’ll go back to losing our appreciation for it.
Anyway, a funny thing happened in the midst of all this. As we were finishing up the final touches to our house, a relative from India visited with his family. They were in the United States on a vacation and were visiting relatives in the vicinity so they dropped by for dinner. Since the house was already mess free and just cleaned by our cleaning lady, their timing could not have been more perfect. Since houses in India are different, they wanted to take a tour of the house and we were only happy to oblige. After looking at the house, the lady said, “How do you manage to keep your house so neat and tidy with a two year old in the house? Look at the carpet, it is so clean! It is amazing!”. My husband and I just looked at each other and smiled. Should we tell them that it took a handy man, a couple of carpet replacement guys, a cleaning lady and the three of us (my brother who’s temporarily staying with us helped out too) slogging for a couple of weeks to get it to this stage? Nah! We just let them be awed by our tidiness!