Next in the house hunting saga comes the negotiation phase. We are still looking at other places: in fact, Carter and I saw a beauty today, but it doesn’t have as much character as the place that is still our #1. It’s hard to explain: it’s older and not nearly as nice, but it’s bigger and has a really nice flow.
Tomorrow we meet with the landlord and hand him our wish list. They tell you at the housing meeting to ask for anything. If you don’t like the tile in the kitchen, ask them to replace it. If you want a home gym, ask them to provide gym equipment. If you want a pool and there isn’t one, see if they’ll put one in for you. Whatever we want, now is the time to ask. Since military members are desirable tenants (the landlord is pretty much ensured a 2 year occupancy with guaranteed monthly payments) they are likely to be pretty accommodating.
I feel weird asking for stuff, but since there isn’t much furniture in the place and we are renting it “furnished” we will start with things like beds for the kids, a living room sofa, locks for the doors and gate that lead to the pool and an American size washer/dryer (the European style machines wash and dry small loads and take 4+ hours to complete a cycle).
If we get ambitious we may ask for the carpeting upstairs to be replaced with some sort of hard flooring — the boys are hard on carpet and if we get a dog, I’d much rather have hard floors. Oh, and with a potty training toddler in my future, hard floors are much better.
We meet with him tomorrow morning and then head to check out the church services on base. I have to get used to an entirely different weekend since we’re now on a Friday/Saturday schedule. I spent all day thinking that because Josh has off tomorrow that it would be Thursday and we had another day before church. Just when I was finally getting used to Oman’s weekend . . .