We were kind of busy lately

A little while back, I asked Alan whether he's not excited about the prospect of maybe moving to Egypt (which has since done a disappearing act on us).  Alan loves Egypt as a concept, he thinks pyramids are cool and mummies are scary, and insists that scuba-diving in the Nile river has to be the best.  His most beloved preschool teacher moved to Cairo last year.  But Alan had one of his sad days, and he turned to me and said, "You know, I just want to go home." And I thought (but didn't say), "Sweet boy, we have no home."

This was reason one.

Reason two was that we couldn't find a decent house or apartment for rent in the area close to my parents' home in Germany.

Which makes this look very intentional but nothing could be further from the truth.  In reality, it was all very accidental.

I really only looked at houses for sale in sheer desperation after we'd been turned down by potential landlords three times in a row for a variety of reasons (the number of kids played some role here). I saw this offer, and I saw the price, I saw the house and the yard, and called Doug over, and he said, "Hm" in an interested sort of way. So I called my Mom and said, "Can you go and look at this house? Do you think this is a good deal?"

You have to know, this house is in my mother's birth town, and the city is teeming with relatives. It turned out that half my relatives either knew the house, or had shared a maid with the former owners, or now went to look at it, and all approved. My uncle crawled through the house and declared it sound. We looked at more photos and the floor plans.  We played with the numbers.  We made an offer. Well, my Mom did. She got 5,000 Euros knocked off the asking price and a great deal on the mortgage. That settled it.  All that's needed now are our signatures on the title which will happen at 2 pm on March 4. We already have the keys to the house – the financing is via the local bank, and since they know my family, and my Mom in particular, and since they also sell the house… things worked out very much in our favor. And we did it all from 3,000 km away! Yay us.

Yes, you can tell from the look it's a German house, vintage 1966. A good year, if I may say so myself, but it needs some sprucing up – a bit of work in the kitchen, new wallpaper/wall paint in the bedrooms, the purple tile in the bathroom absolutely has to go. But it's in great condition and in a great location, ready for us to move in. [For Carlos and Natalie: it's only 200 meters from where we celebrated the wedding.] It's also only 250 meters from the kindergarten und in the other direction, 350 meters from the bakery which sells delectable German bread and pastries.

The house has four bedrooms, a full basement, a lilac tree in front of the house, and one on the terrace at the back of the house – I do love me a nice lilac tree –, a great fenced backyard full of climbing trees for the boys, running and biking paths in spitting distance, and three places secured at the local kindergarten. My aunt used to run the local grocery store but she retired, and now there is a big supermarket at the fringe of town, in easy walking or biking distance. The dentist is my cousin, there is a general practitioner (to whom I'm not related), the best shoe shop in the area (true that, I buy all my shoes there), there's a butcher, and in the next town a great organic store. A great place to relax between and during assignments.* (I know, too many "greats" in this post!)

The month of March will be spent ripping out the kitchen wall to make a large kitchen with the adjoining dining room, putting in new cabinets, and painting all the rooms. The bathroom needs new tiles. We'll put a playroom into the basement, a guest room/study in the first floor, and something play structure-like into the garden. [UPDATE: We just received a play structure as a gift from friends of ours. I have a feeling this is a lucky house! Thank you, Wendy and Alan!]  Also sunflowers, strawberries and one red currant bush for Alan and a black currant bush for David.  Jacob prefers raspberries, so lots of raspberry bushes because they are my favorites, too.  Doug's apple tree is already there, I hear.

We have space for all our books including the ten or so boxes in my parents' attic which is pretty amazing in it's own right.  We have enough space for all the kids in safe distance to neighbors and others who might mind the ongoing boy noises.  We have space for guests!

Housewarming party to be announced, but will be sometime in April/May. Who is coming?

 

*This is not to indicate that we know where we are going next. Qatar seems a possibility but you know, we've never ended up at places that have been a possibility. It's always been a surprise. Just Afghanistan it won't be for sure.

Comments

[karoline]

Wonderful,Claudia,glad it all worked out. Yes,owning a home will take a lot of physical labor but painting and remodeling are very good tension relievers! I know that from experience.
It's also wonderful that you'll be close to your mom. Glad for you.
karoline

[Natalie]

Very nice, though the purple tile in the bathroom needs to be chased out of town. Definitely sounds Natalie-friendly. Look for us in late December, as Larry has agreed to a visit. :-)

[Lois Fundis]

Claudia (and Doug and kids), I'm so happy you found a nice house, and near your family, too.

What a lovely lilac bush -- one of the first things I did when I bought my house was to plant a lilac!

And trees! Your boys are going to have lots of fun there.

[Christine]

Sounds like a great solution. If Doug gets a job in someplace that you'd be willing to go to, will you rent it out?

[nattie]

Sounds like a lovely place to call your base.

[Larry]

Looks good, I will come laden with wireless routers and access points. Signal strength will be extra strong in the purple bathroom!

I don't recall any FAST FOOD places in that town :-(

[Natalie]

Larry, I am sure Claudia will find some yummy German salamis for you...

[claudia]

I have to confess, Fast Food was not on the list of qualifying criteria. ;-) Did I say "butcher"? Salami, Bratwurst, Liverwurst, and meat galore; we'll feed you!

Re the router - just bring the laptop. DSL and Wireless, although not mentioned, are the first things on the list to go into the house. Everything to make you feel right at home!

[Doug (not Muir)]

"from the kindergarten und in the"

Blogging with an accent!

(And congratulations on the house. Looks like we are headed in the other direction. Iris has signed a contract to head on of the German political foundations' Tbilisi office.)

[claudia]

Ach! That's silly - why do come into the Caucasus now that we are leaving! That's just not fair.

I heard Georgia is nice. We never made it (see car trouble). A lot of snow! ;-)

[claudia]

"from the kindergarten und in the"

Blogging with an accent!

----

I think my brain saw the "kindergarten" and insisted on a German word. It's hard to live with my brain sometimes.

[Natalie]

I'd live with your brain, if I was given the chance. It's cute, interesting, witty, and smart (in several laguages...)

[Carlos]

yay sausages! I mean, yay housewarming!

[Doug (not Muir)]

"I think my brain saw the "kindergarten" and insisted on a German word."

I figured you were writing offline given the intermittent internet difficulties in Yerevan, and Word's autocorrect feature put in the German word.

As for the timing, Fistful central says that there's only room for one correspondent named Doug at a time in the Caucasus. Seriously though, it's too bad we won't overlap. Iris will be doing stuff for the Heinrich Böll Foundation, and the dates depend mostly on how they move people around. Our ETA is June. I hope to get into Armenia, and into Karabakh, since I wrote my thesis on it lo these many years ago. But Georgia looks very interesting, and I'm hoping that I will be able to take my main project from my present job with me when we go. The client is in Switzerland, so I'm sorta working remotely to begin with. We'll see.

The house looks lovely!

[lala]

hi! pretty house; I love mid-20thc houses so much!

[Noel Maurer]

Claudia, please send me an email. I know that you and Doug are peripatetic, and while Amma and I can't make it to Germany in April or May, we have a June proposition that may interest you.

Also --- very nice looking house. Would it violate a German norm to ask how many square feet and how much you paid for it?

[Claudia]

Nope. I mean, it would not violate German norm. I don't think.

The house has 134 square meters (1442 square feet) and it cost 74,000 Euros. It has a yard of 1,300 square meters (0.3 acres) with lots of trees and and a full fence all around it (great for runaway kids like Jacob!). It seemed like the right size for a vacation/base home.

[filkferengi]

Yay! I'm so happy for all of you.