Home Sweet Home: the Search for Perfection in 5 Days or Less

I am a huge fan of the HGTV program "House Hunters". However, after more than twenty years of "climbing the corporate ladder" I've noticed that the house hunting trips that I have experienced before each of my corporate moves have been nothing like the joyful, relaxed experiences portrayed on this television program. Corporate house hunting trips seem more like a cross between military boot camp and the harrowing journey described in Dante's Inferno.

Also, because I work in the insurance industry and received training as an underwriter in the homeowners insurance line I tend to be a realtor's nightmare, paying greater attention to the electrical box, roofing and plumbing than to aesthetic factors like number of bedrooms, bathrooms and whether there are granite countertops in the kitchen.

The thing that makes corporate house hunting trips so challenging is the sheer speed with which the task must be accomplished. Once you have accepted a job offer in a new location a local realtor is assigned. My company then allows you to travel to the new location for a stay not to exceed 5 business days. In this period of time you must find a house, make an offer and have it accepted, and arrange for a home inspection and financing. The whole process reminds me of a television game show called "Beat the Clock" that I used to watch when I was a kid growing up in the 60s and 70s.

The Internet has made the process somewhat easier, but my first corporate move was in 1989 when real estate and community information websites were still in their infancy. I remember having many telephone calls with our assigned realtor, Wanda L. and native Oklahoman with fiery red hair and a personality to match as my then husband and I prepared for our first corporate move to Tulsa, Oklahoma.

Not only was it our first corporate move, we were also newlyweds, married just two years, and first time home buyers. The process was interesting, to say the least. We flew into Tulsa from our home in Lafayette, Indiana on a Sunday evening and Wanda was there at our hotel bright and early on Monday morning to begin our quest.From nine to five, every day for a week we looked at homes. Viewing property became a full time job. We looked at new homes, old homes, large homes and small homes. Most of them became a blur after a very short while but there are a few which I can still recall, if only for their utter "awfulness" some twenty years later.

My husband and I started to become so confused after about the third day we began developing nicknames for the houses in order to keep them straight. As young, first time home buyers we quickly discovered that you can tell a lot about a person you've never met by looking around their home. We came to this realization after looking at a property that we came to call, "Bachelor Dentist House."

After touring several fairly forgettable, "cookie cutter" houses in newer subdivisions, Wanda took us to a lovely ranch style home, built in the 1950s in a beautiful wooded neighborhood. She mentioned that the home belonged to a young dentist who wanted to move from the suburbs into a downtown loft, and thus, the home became, "Bachelor Dentist House."

The home itself was gorgeous, with large, airy rooms and high quality built-ins. There was a tremendous backyard with the potential for beautiful gardens, lots of storage and a detached workshop building. What led us to believe that the dentist was a bachelor was the utter lack of furniture in the home itself. The home wasn't vacant per se. There was significant evidence that someone was living there. However, shopping for furniture had apparently not been a high priority.

The larger living room was inhabited by a single, leather recliner, a small side table and a large screen television. There was no dining table which conjured images of a busy young guy eating all his meals standing over the sink.

Most hilarious was the bedroom. The room itself was spectacular. It was a large room with two spacious walk-in closets. There were French doors that opened onto a kind of sun deck where there was a Jacuzzi tub and bar and kitchenette perfect for entertaining. However, the only furnishing in the entire bedroom was a king sized box spring and mattress resting squarely on the floor. And my curious husband's indiscreet look into the small refrigerator in the bar area on the sun deck revealed that "Bachelor Dentist" apparently consumed nothing but baby back ribs and beer!

Running a bit ahead of schedule we next toured a home that was for sale but had a tenant living in it. Because of our earlier than expected arrival we unfortunately surprised the young female tenant as she was coming out of the shower, leading this home to be nicknamed, "Naked Renter House." I was so flustered after that awkward encounter I remember little else about the place, except for some strange reason I do recall that there was a central vacuuming system.

Our strangest encounter occurred in "Creepy House". The home itself was rather unspectacular but it had a rather odd room addition. It appeared as though the family room had once had a window to the outside. However, an additional bedroom had been added. But the window wasn't closed up giving the occupant of the spare bedroom the opportunity to sit up in bed and look through the window directly into the family room.Antique photographs were scattered throughout the house and there was an eerie silence in the home broken only by the very loud ticking of some unseen clock. It was the kind of place that just made you shiver inside with the thought that you were not alone in the space. "Creepy House" definitely did not make it onto our short list of possibilities.

One of our final tours was of a place that looked quite promising from the outside but which we eventually dubbed "Dog Kennel House." It was a charming home with a lake cottage feel and was situated on a wooded lot near a pond. When we rang the doorbell, however, we heard a tremendous amount of barking and stood awkwardly in the doorway as the elderly homeowner rounded up not one, not two, not even three but four little miniature schnauzer dogs and placed them in neatly aligned cages. They snarled disapprovingly as the homeowner proudly showed us her kitchen with the custom ordered chocolate brown appliances (out of date even back in 1989). It was probably the fastest of all of our tours as we were forced to hold our breaths to combat the fierce odor of dog urine that seemed to have permeated all of the carpets.

Eventually we purchased a lovely home from a very friendly older couple. They were quite anxious to move to a mountain condo in Colorado in order to start their new lives as retirees. I still have the rocking chair that we purchased from them because it looked so perfect in the house. The home was special not only because it was our first and the home in which we would have our only son, but also because of the incredible journey it took in order to find it.