Is house hunting turning me into a crazy person?

CW and I have recently aquired the services of a real estate agent and a mortgage lender and the hunt is officially on.  We’ve spent ages poring over the MLS, looking at photos online, and have finally started seeing houses. So far, we’ve seen three in person and will see five (!) more this afternoon. Here’s the thing: one of the first three we saw, we really, really like. We both keep thinking about it more and more and liking it more, not less, when we consider it. It’s listed at just a bit more than we’d like to pay and we don’t love the particular shade of brick, but otherwise, we basically love it.

I just keep hearing that you shouldn’t fall in love with the first house you see (it was the third we saw, but the principle still applies, I think) and that you for sure shouldn’t fall in love with any house until the inspection. Of course. And, I mean, I don’t know. Are we in love, or is it just a crush?

At any rate, the five houses we’re seeing this afternoon are all similar to the object of our crush, but priced a little better. Online, none of them looks quite as great, but we’ll see. Maybe you get what you pay for, I keep thinking. Maybe they’ll come down on the price, I keep thinking. If we don’t like any of these other houses as much in person as we like The One We Like, we might just make an offer.

It’s funny: this whole house hunting project has me (well, both of us, but this is my blog so I’m not going to write about my husband’s feelings) — it has me really evaluating what I want, and finding that it perhaps wasn’t what I thought I wanted initially. I’d always pictured specific neighborhoods and older houses that could be fixed up: places “with character” that I could “make my own.” I think I may have been overestimating exactly how cool I am. I may also have watched too many episodes of Property Brothers.

When moving from hypothetical dream fixer-uppers to potentially real purchases, real dollars, and real work, I suddenly find myself less and less interested in doing much renovation. Painting and changing certain fixtures? Sure. Replacing all counters, cabinets, flooring, and appliances in a kitchen? No. Anything that involves (re)moving a wall? Absolutely not. We are two busy people who work full time and are trying to procreate. Ain’t nobody got time for that. So it turns out that rather than an older fixer-upper in an established neighborhood, what seems more attractive to me now is a newer house that might not be in the center of town but that requires very little work to move in. Basically, a house in a subdivision: the antithesis of cool. I’m not even sorry.

The whole thing has the feeling of being a gamble, too. We started looking a little early — we don’t need to make an offer this month in order for the timing of a summer move to work out. So do we make a move now, or wait? Do we go for the house we like best now? Or do we risk losing that one while waiting to see if something better comes on the market when the “busy season picks up,” which is supposed to happen “soon”? Hmpf.

I suppose we will figure it out. In the meanwhile, we’ll probably both be spending at least two hours a day scouring online listings, squinting at terrible real estate photography, and trying to answer some of life’s most difficult questions, such as “is that a tile shower?” or “why is there a water heater in middle of this ‘bonus room’?”

By the middle of next month CW and I will have been living together for a full year. I love our home and especially love that he is here with me. I love the fact that we get to come home to each other and go to sleep together and wake up side by side every single day. It absolutely hasn’t gotten old to me yet.

The flipside of that coin, though, is that — as it hasn’t gotten old to me yet — there are still things I haven’t quite adjusted to yet. Napping, for example. I used to be a champion napper: on the couch, with the dog, under a blanket, television droning quietly in the background, passed slap out. How I miss those naps. I have had probably fewer than five really good naps since CW and I have been sharing a house.

I don’t know what the problem is, but I tend to sleep a lot more lightly now. So lightly that any movement or noise he might make — even if he is in another room, even a noise as slight as his opening a can of soda or the clicking in his ankle when he takes he first few steps after sitting for a long time — is enough to wake me from my sleep. I don’t just wake up, though. I EXPLODE into consciousness, heart pounding, blood pressure through the roof, every muscle at complete attention. Because my husband stood up and took a couple of quiet, barefoot steps on a carpeted floor.

I can hardly blame the man. What, should he hold perfectly still and stop breathing while I take a nap? Of course not. But I also would be lying if I said that his own ability to nap — deeply, for long stretches of time, while I unload the dishwasher and cook an entire meal, for example, in a room twelve feet from the couch — makes me so envious I could shoot lasers out of my eyes in his (peacefully snoozing) direction.

See also: the incredible ability to sleep through his own beeping alarm clock, which is set for 30 minutes before I want to get up. How can he possibly sleep through those beeps so soundly, when they’re waking me up like a blast from a cannon? I am so jealous.

I think my nap failures stem from the fact that some part of me hasn’t internalized the idea that I don’t live alone anymore. Simply put: there’s another person here. I know that, of course, but my sleeping brain doesn’t expect to hear those sounds, so — even though they’re quiet, quieter than the pets are — they startle me.

Napping (or, more accurately, the loss of napping) isn’t the only new thing I’ve been adjusting to. So many little aspects of life are just different now.

[It occurs to me that these thoughts are pretty original, aren’t they? You’ve probably never heard anything like this before. “Oh, gosh, cohabitation and marriage take adjustments? SHOCKING.” Well, simmer down. I feel like talking about it for a bit, so just humor me, please.]

Daily life at home can become the source of so many odd debates. We have two very different philosophies about how to load a dishwasher, when to unload a dishwasher, how many water glasses should be left around various rooms of the house, what temperature the thermostat should be set to, and what to do with laundry fresh out of the dryer.  The most serious philosophical questions of our time, people! They’re being debated right here in my very own home! No conclusive answers yet, however. I’ll update you if we ever resolve the question of whether bowls should go on the top rack of the dishwasher*.

Of course, I’m not the only one who has had to adjust to living with another person after many years of flying solo. CW has had to face the fact that he basically cannot leave a drinking glass unattended for more than five seconds before it gets disappeared into the dishwasher. He also has had to adjust to always eating with a wife who likes to photograph her food. Carefully. With, like, lighting and shit. He now lives with a woman who can’t watch an entire movie without checking her phone, who likes to have as many lights on as possible, who hates fans, and who routinely leaves the kitchen cabinet doors wide open. He has never been anything but gracious about these things, but I know they’re adjustments for him as well.

(And how many of you are thinking right now that I would be very annoying to live with?!)

I lived on my own for 13 years after college, so I’ve had quite a long time for my single-living routines to become deeply entrenched. Adjusting them is hard. Worth it, of course, to contribute to a happy home for both of us. I wonder, though, how long does it take before these aspects of daily life are no longer conscious adjustments, but simply the way we do things? How long before we settle on a temperature? Or before my brain can tune out the sound of another human being around and just let me nap without waking me up in a state of adrenal alarm? I really do miss those naps.

People who’ve been cohabitating for a while — what are your thoughts?

*They should absolutely not; are you crazy?