sweetfrenchtoast

…I made the Explore page on Flickr with this shot of flourless chocolate cake.

So today has been a long day. I got up way earlier than a normal weekday to get Mom to her appointment with the acupuncturist. Kona came with us since we were going to be gone all day. After turning around about three times trying to find the clinic, I dropped off Mom and headed back into town. I had to pick up a key and clicker from GE who was kind enough to let Kona hang out at his old/new place (long story) while I was occupied during the day. While picking up the key and clicker that had been left for me, I ran into an old friend who lived in the neighborhood. It was really nice to see him and chat for a bit. Then it was off to GE’s old/new place, where I dropped off Kona and proceeded to duplicate the problem where the key gets stuck in the door. Like, really stuck.

That sucked.

After nearly sawing my fingers off trying to wrench the key from the door, I gave up and had to leave it there! Craziness.

I returned to the clinic to wait on Mom to finish up. She still had the therapeutic massage portion of her appointment left, so I fired up the laptop and Bluetooth Internet connection to get a little work done. We were meeting my friend the real estate agent at 12:30, so I was relieved when my mom finally emerged, ready to go, at 10 after. She bought some expensive herbal Asian medicine. I hope it’s worth it.

The first place we looked at was interesting. It wasn’t awful, but it wasn’t great either. It was a duplex with an adorable front porch and two apartments — a two-bedroom apartment on one side and a one-bedroom apartment on the other. It’s basically an old house that’s been split into two. It’s on a street of really expensive houses…well, it’s in a pretty pricey neighborhood…but it would likely be a good investment in the longterm. If it were a single-family home now, I could see it easily selling for $100-200k more than it’s listed for now.

The second duplex we looked at was just weird. It was way bigger on the inside than it looked from the outside. The renter on the right was burning really strong incense like it was going out of style. She was also really messy, so I was trying to use my imagination. It had a cute backyard. The parking situation wasn’t so great — very limited street parking on a kinda crowded dead-end street. But it sat right on the PATH — a very nice bike and pedestrian trail in Atlanta. The renter on the left wouldn’t even let us in to look at that apartment. I imagine the seller is going to have a hard time with that one.

We hit the lofts that I really like next. They were still nice, of course. Mom hadn’t seen them before at all, so we looked at every floorplan except for the smallest one-bedroom. I was impressed that Mom seemed to be able to see past the concrete floors and walls and really focused on layout and size, space, etc. She didn’t seem turned off by the modernness of it. It quickly became apparent, though, that she thinks she must have two bedrooms. I can understand that downsizing from a four-bedroom house with huge yards and a pool is going to be a large adjustment. But having a guest bedroom for a guest that will likely only visit for two weeks at a time once every two years (her sister from Japan) is just silly to me, especially when the price difference between the one- and two-bedroom units is so big. The complex itself is really nice…only 68 units, covered parking, very secure, fitness center, etc. But they are pricey, especially since we’re looking at two of them, and especially since Mom knocked us into an entirely different price range by focusing on the two-bedroom units.

The final duplex we looked at was also interesting. I had high hopes for this one. It is in a very cute part of the neighborhood, on an adorable street, with a nice piece of property. The problem is that the building itself is this weird ’50s brick building in the middle of gorgeously renovated Craftsman and Victorian homes. It also needs a lot of work, and the floorplans were just oddly shaped. The pros to this duplex were that we would each get a two-bedroom apartment to ourselves. But the property also had a ton of trees, ivy, etc. and would require a LOT of maintenance and upkeep. That’s a negative.

The final place we went to today was kinda uneventful because the agent on duty didn’t have the keys to show us the two floorplans we were interested in with walls. We could only walk through totally empty, just-being-built units that didn’t even have sheetrock up yet. It’s kinda hard to envision a living space without even sheetrock so you can see where one room ends and another begins.

After we wrapped up at the last community, we crawled onto the highway since it was smack dab in the Friday afternoon rush hour. We didn’t get very far before I exclaimed, “We forgot the dog!” Yep, we had forgotten to go pick up Kona. So I scooted off the nearest exit, wound my way through downtown Atlanta, and headed back uptown through traffic to pick up the pooch. She was thrilled to see us. I’m really glad I didn’t totally forget about her…that would have sucked.

Tomorrow, I think I’m going to take Mom to the Korean grocery store that we didn’t have time to hit today. It’s up by the clinic we went to this morning. If we go, we’ll probably stop by those condos again so we can take a look at the units with walls. They do have a two-bedroom unit that’s affordable, but the square-footage on that condo is smaller than the one-bedroom plan that I like at the other place. So who knows. We’ll see. I’ll probably take her to Ikea too so we can get some inspiration for any renovations that might be coming our way.

Anyway, I’m tired…it’s been a long day! It’s exciting and scary and a little overwhelming all at once to think about selling Mom’s house and moving. I’m interested to see where we end up!