This Is How to End A House Search

For the past several months we've enjoyed living in our apartment in Lawrenceville. We've loved the convenience; the proximity to so many great restaurants, my job, etc.

We've also searched off and on for a house, keeping our eyes open, sometimes looking a little more actively. We know we want a house. More importantly, we are ready to be 'home.'
A couple weeks ago we thought we'd stumbled on the place for us, and when we couldn't reach an agreement with the seller we were pretty disappointed. I guess this inspired us to crank up the search a bit. Plus, we'd also signed a 30 day contract with that seller's realtor and thought, what the heck, let's see what she can do for us.

Nearing the end of a pretty intense week of walking through houses that fell firmly into the 'umm...not so much' category, this past Friday I was reaching a point where I was just ready to put this quest on the back burner again and save some more money. Late Friday afternoon we headed over to Mt. Washington to check out a house Denise had liked the day before.

As we turned left onto Sweetbriar Street, Denise's phone rang. It was the realtor. We figured she was going to tell us she was running late. Nope. She'd just learned that this house had sold. Nice. The house we were scheduled to view next had sold the night before. Purchased sight unseen by someone who saw it online. Sigh.

Now we are all reaching our limit for the day. Em's frustrated by the music. I'm annoyed by the guy honking at me on the Liberty Bridge. Denise is annoyed by me honking back. We're all sick of this search.

We head over the West End Bridge in relative silence. One more house today and then maybe just stop for a while. You have to know when to say when.  I switch the station to 3WS and some silly Ringo Starr song (is there any other kind?) plays softly in an otherwise still car.

We'd looked at pictures of this one, me only briefly, on Liverpool Street in Pittsburgh's Manchester neighborhood. I didn't know much about Manchester except that it was once 'blighted' and sits along the east bank of the Ohio River. But, what the heck. Let's get this over with and relax a little before I go to work.

We turned onto Liverpool Street as Ringo's song mercifully ended and the next came on. 'Norwegian Wood' by
the Beatles. Let's put aside the fact that this is a song about a girl leading on a guy, making him sleep in her bathtub and getting her flat burned down as a 'thank you,' (and it's such a happy sounding song). Instead let's focus on "we turned onto Liverpool street...'Norwegian Wood' by the Beatles."

I'll let others decide if this was some kind of sign, lovely bit of synchronicity, or whatever. For us it was just...well...cool. As in goosebumps on the neck maybe this will be more interesting than I thought I'm getting getting kind of excited cool.

According to Living Places, the "1300 block of Liverpool Street is composed of semi-detached houses placed so close together that they give the impression of being a continuous row. Each house is three bays wide, two and one-half stories high, with mansard roofs, double porches with slim, jig-saw ornamented pillars that occupy the four central bays of each unit." I saw some mansard roofs through the trees (no salty message written in the eaves, though). Manchester is listed on the National Register of Historic Places for its sizable collection of Victorian homes.

1309 Liverpool is a 1920ish, 3 story, 5 bedroom brownstone. It's the kind of house I've wanted to live in most of my life. Old Louisville is my favorite part of the city of our youth because it's loaded with eclectic Victorian houses like this one. If I ever moved back to the Ville that would be my first choice of neighborhood. By now, I'm intrigued to say the least.

For the next 2 hours we wandered up and down the stairs, in and out of bedrooms, around the kitchen and backyard. We checked out bathrooms, the basement, and front porch. All the while I'm thinking, this would be a good place for _______________. What a sweet hiding spot! I'll have to remember this when we play with our grandkids. I can't wait to hang the hammock here.

Our tour guide, Mike, had grown up in this house back in the 60's and fondly shared childhood memories of playing with his next door neighbors and cousins on the front porch. At one point the girls and I sat with the realtor and Mike at the dining room table and all that was missing was Caleb, Courtney and a home cooked meal. The longer we stayed and more closely we inspected and explored, the more I think we all knew.

So, I'm happy to announce that, assuming all the details work out, on June 23 (happy 25th, Jackson!) we will close on, as our realtor says, our 'forever home.' Details about the moving day party to follow.