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It depends on what you mean by perfect. My husband was offered a job at his interview 200 miles from where we lived. We visited the only realtor open on that Monday holiday, and visited the only home advertised for sale that day in the newspaper. It was a simple 3 bedroom ranch style house on a rather barren looking hill with 2 1/2 acres of land terraced down to a stream. The landscaping was a few scrawny bushes, a maple tree, and evergreen seedlings.

In his mind’s eye, my husband saw gardens. In mine, I saw room for two children to run and play. Within nine years we had a son and a daughter,
who built forts and hideouts. Both went on to run cross country in high
school and college.

We added 3 stories, possible because of the hill—two car garage, family
room with woodstove and outdoor deck, and upstairs office/hideaway. It met our changing needs through our lives, and is now an exciting place for our two grandchildren to explore. Trees and flowers have grown lush, and
the land by the stream seeded into what has become a forest.

For us, perfect was what we needed from the house as we all lived and
grew here. We couldn’t have imagined the lovely setting we have now. In
a way, buying that modest house was an act of faith, and the perfection
came from dreams fulfilled and the work we did side by side along the
way.

Our idea of perfection isn’t something that has everything new perfect landscaping and all. We don’t mind an older house but all our stuff hs to fit, the drive way and garage has to be the right size, don’t care about dens and offices, just reasonable sized bedrooms where our kids won’t hit the wall when they roll over in bed. A sturdy mold free clean house with good roof. Don’t care too much about fancy landscaping and decks. We can plant a lawn and add shrubbery. We want a backyard with a secluded feel and a little room for a few veggies. Don’t want to be the only WTs on the block. Don’t mind something pretty old as long as there’s no moldy dank verminy smell. We looked at a halfway decent one this weekend. It was freshly painted with updated kitchen and bathrooms but still had a really mousy moldy mousy smell. My nose was itchy and icky for an hour after we left.

When we go through the house we look for things like water stains on the ceiling, open and close everything, run water ask a ton of questions.

We have mold in some of our walls. I worry about getting into something and finding mold after we’re stuck. I really have to narrow things down and control my emotions. All of us run around all excited at the newness and then come down after getti g away from it and realistically picking it apart.

I guess it’s going to take a while.

We absolutely love the neighborhood we’re in but houses are kind of expensive here. We have sort of an absentee landlord who hasn’t raised the rent in almost a decade. We like that part and contribute by doing small repairs. We try and keep it up as much as practically possible for renters. Things like very small imrovements in the yard, painting, new faucets if old ones are too far gone just minor stuff. We would buy this one but too many problems need addressing.