OK, this is a week late, but we hadn't signed the lease until today so didn't want to jinx anything.
WE FOUND THE PERFECT HOUSE!!!!!!
It's wayyyyy out in the country surrounded by trees and fields and nothing else. BUT, off a busy enough road that plowing will be done regularly. The house is a bi-level. Lower level has been made into an "apartment" with a sitting area, one bedroom, full bath and a nice big family room, full kitchen and a great furnace room for storage. The main level is a HUGE kitchen, with a propane cooking stove (I LOVE cooking on propane) laundryroom, big bathroom, 3 bedrooms and the livingroom. Go out the kitchen door to a small deck in the back yard, or out another kitchen door to an attached 3+ car garage with a workshop already built in......go out the FRONT door onto an enormous deck. Under the deck is the entrance to the lower level kitchen, sliders. The house has TWO water heaters, and a geo-thermal heating/cooling system! In the garage, a kennel is already built in that leads to a dog run..........huge above ground pool dug down to 6 foot deep in the backyard.......
And, get this....the owner, who is moving to FL, is the Shelter Supervisor for the Humane Society!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! He loves critters (has a neopolitan mastiff himself and cats) and could care less HOW many we have!
I gotta say, this house is EVERYTHING I want in a house, right up to the geo-thermal, the stove....everything is PERFECT, including the owner! We're going to rent for a year, get our ducks lined up, then do a rent-to-own for another year before we purchase it outright.
I'm so totally physced!!! AND, Mom got to go home from the hospital today too! So a GREAT day for us all around!