Tue 26 Feb 2008
Over the weekend Mr. W and I attended my boss’s 51st birthday shindig at his house in Claremont. My thoughts driving out there were, “I can’t believe he makes this commute both ways on a daily basis. This drive sucks.” One morning when it was pouring rain, he got to work 2.5 hours late. As soon as we got there, however, I was bowled over. His house is big, beautiful, and very designer-looking. The backyard has a giant custom rock-lined pool, lots of patio seating areas all surrounding it, and surrounding the waterfalls and rocky pool environment were trees and lawn like an oasis. And that’s just 1/3 of the backyard. He also had wooden patio deck, an outdoor fire, and a bouncy perky dog that kept bringing his little blue ball back to me to throw for him. I threw as hard as I could into the lawn section from the middle of the backyard and lemme tell you, I could not hit any walls.
So after that, we’re like, “Hmm. San Bernardino County, eh?”
The next day (Sunday), we drove around the beach areas and checked out housing by Huntington Beach. I refused to live in most of those neighborhoods, which aside from the prestige of saying “I live at the beach” had nothing more to offer, probably not even safe passage from the garage to the mailbox. We did like one property A LOT, but couldn’t afford the $1.6 million it’d take to get it.
So the hunt’s still on-going. Currently we’re considering these favorites:
Country Living – a beautiful large 2-story home in horse ranch territory, above some winding mountain roads, in Chino Hills
Suburbia – a new and chic medium-sized home with virtually no yard in Brea, almost walking-distance from night life and restaurants
Beach – an even smaller, slightly old but extremely upgraded single-story home a mile from the sand in Huntington Beach. There’s another one there in an upscale gated community that we have yet to check out.
So we’re not doing the city life, it looks like. I wonder where people would visit me at.
What’s wrong with country living? I find that I spend LESS money the farther from the city I live–basically because I’m too lazy to drive to the store!!
Good luck house hunting!
BEACH! *pumping fist* BEACH! *pumping fist* BEACH! *pumping fist*
or better yet, how about a 10-yr old decent-sized home with an ok-sized yard in north san jose? no trendy restaurants within walking distance, but you’d have awesome neighbors who would invite you over for dinner and RB/GH3 showdowns =)
Flat Coke – Nothing “wrong” with country living, that house is doing an open house this Sunday and we plan to attend. We love the neighborhood. The only preferential thing about the house is that we’d be worried about our friends driving home after visiting with us at night, especially after having a drink or two, due to the mountainous hairpin turns, AND there are no stores or shopping centers within walking distance which, as it turns out, is pretty important to Mr. W. As for spending less — I don’t think living away from stuff would curb our expenses as Mr. W is AWFULLY tempted to get a horse if we got that horse property.
flip flop girl – The good thing about the beach is that after visiting the houses down there last nite, we found two that are a tad older but are upgraded in great suburban-like neighborhoods, are walking-distance to some shops, AND when you guys come visit you can bike ride with us the mile or two down to the beach! How’s that sound?
As for moving to NorCal, I’ve brought it up to Mr. W the time Wilco suggested the same thing. Mr. W’s response was, “Sure, we can move up there after I retire in 10 years.” I said, “But I don’t know whether my friends will still be living in the same place in 10 years!”
tell mr. w to focus on the house before the horse – or to hold his horses.
sorry – but that did make me giggle.
Made me giggle, too! But you’re right. It’s like, “Whoa, nelly! Don’t put the cart before the horse! Rein it in a little!” But you know we can beat a dead horse into glue and we can lead the horse to water, but we can’t make it drink, so all this advice to him may be for naught.
retire?! pshaw! who moves to silicon valley to retire??? there are at least as many dumb criminals per capita up here as there are down there (citation needed).
but until then, i definitely vote for beach. the 1-2 mile bike ride sounds perfect — that’s right at my husband’s limit 😉
Way to sell your city. Haha.
I know your husband is capable of going more than 1-2 miles cuz when we went on the Sonoma Valley wine tasting bike ride, he was tracking our mileage with a little gizmo on his bike and at the end of the day he made some comment like we “only” went 27 miles that day.
I would love to see pictures of ANY of these properties…maybe you can post them after the open house. I could look at realtor.com all day I think, just like I could stand in Hallmark all day and read greeting cards. I have weird past times I know. ha ha
beach beach beach!
and chino hills? you said it smells.
Flat Coke – you’d fall over seeing what homes cost in CA. We don’t ordinarily take photos of the homes we visit, but I can send you a couple websites.
Diana – yeah, I was all scared in Chino Hills and kept rolling down the windows to pensively sniff the air. Chino Hills doesn’t smell NOW, but there’s a reason neighboring Diamond Bar smells like cow every time the Santa Ana winds kick up.
My preferred beach home (a large 5 bedroom home in a suburban OC-looking neighborhood) disappeared off the market already. 🙁