That’s right! We absolutely love it here and we’re building our dream home in the outlying Washington DC suburbs. We can’t even believe our luck! Someone just stalled construction and left a half-finished home, and we’re going to take it over and finish it to our ideal specifications. Jen and I constantly complain that we don’t have enough room to buy more stuff. That won’t be a problem anymore.
The lot is situated on several acres of old growth Virginia forest, which we’re clearing to make room for an extended garage, concrete patio, and tetherball court. Not counting the 3 story deck, the home will be about 12,000 square feet. It overlooks the highway and is just minutes from a mall that has a Cheeseburger in Paradise restaurant and the largest indoor Laser Tag in the DC beltway.
Honestly, we never thought we could afford a home like this, but it’s amazing what you can do with financing. Jen and I got a 5 year ARM with a 1.5% introductory rate that won’t adjust for at least 6 months. Because home prices always go up, they’re also extending us an equity line of credit for an additional $80,000.
Our new neighbors are awesome! They’re helping us pick out molded falcon sculptures and bronze torches for our front gate.
One downside is that we can’t ride our bikes to work anymore. Our commute is increasing from 30 minutes one-way to about 4.5 hours roundtrip. But I think we’ll be really comfortable in our new rides, thanks to the home equity advance. Jen and I are each buying one, since she gets up 20 minutes earlier than me and it’s therefore impractical for us to carpool.
We’re going to have 16 guest bedrooms and are really excited to host all of our old friends. Come and see us!
An H3, that is so lame. You should really go with some Italian sports car.
Gunner is wondering if you have cleared some nearby forestry so you can use the Hummers as off-road toys. I ensured him that you two were well on top of that issue.
We look forward to spending time in one of your guest rooms…hell we might as well dirty up several of them just to get extra use of the washer and dyers you must have set all around the house.
And thank god for that mall being so close, so you can buy stuff to fill all that space!
I think we saw this place. The bedrooms are all stripped to the studs, and there’s no plumbing or electric (yet), but the wainscotting in the garage is fantastic!
You win best blog post of the week my man. I love it.
Javaun – You are a true inspiration! Just the other day I was considering removing you from my “friend” list mainly because you just weren’t keeping up with the social standards of materialism that I demand from my friends, but then you go and totally redeem yourself! Welcome to the club my friend. Let me give you a few bits of wisdom as you move into this new social status. The good things in life aren’t free. Actually they cost a lot of money, but don’t let that deter you from finding total and complete happiness because happiness can be financed. I think financing is what the founding fathers were talking about when they wrote the constitution. So basically its your inalienable right to be rich……well not really rich but to have a humongous house with a pool, 4 car garage and a iron gate to keep the commoners out all courtesy of an interest only loan. Once the joy and newness of your new home wears off do not become discouraged because happiness is just one credit card purchase away. I think credit cards are the greatest invention of our time. I am not entirely sure how they work (I have ADD and am not good at reading all that legal fine print) but I also don’t know how electricity works and I use it everyday. Anyway I just wanted to wish you best of luck.
So NOW WE KNOW the assholes who outbid us…
well, congratulations. I guess. All you need now is to fill the place up with some snot nosed kids.
As a housewarming gift to bring you up into the next step in the evolution, Meme is preparing a generous batch of Tiger Penis Soup, with shark fins and ground rhino horn thrown in for good measure, to help JV with his virility in this important time. See you soon.
hey guys – does this mean you aren’t going to ride as much any more? missed you at Big bear!!
kristen, keith and the patapsco crew
Congrats man! I saw this house on Al Gore’s list of the top 10 carbon-deficient homes on the planet! I hope you try to break the top three…the heated sauna with drafty windows is a great way to start, but also, how about a room or 12 where you can keep your Hummer engines running, just in case, you know, you want to take a drive? Starting the car requires so much effort on your part…might as well have ém running before you drive out to the Cheneys for fox hunting weekend. And by Fox, I don’t mean the network….the animals, darling.
I’m teaching a new course at VCU called global change biology and your bog popped up when I did a search for “VA Old Growth”. I took a double take, and love it man! Beautiful home and glad you are making good use of the land, since it wasn’t doing anything productive before.
As for the statues, consider going with a pair of ferrel pigs.
Chris, we will certainly take your feral pig suggestion to heart.
As you all can imagine, we’ve fallen on hard times lately. But Jen and I are always optimistic, and when life deals you a lump of coal — strip mine it.
We have come up with some very clever ways to not only make ends meet. Let’s be frank – we’re back to rolling in the dough.
We had an unused wetland in back yard, and after taking down the sign that said “Chesapeake Bay Watershed”, I was able to strike a lucrative deal with a company that wanted to use that portion of our lawn for lead and mercury storage. This also conveniently took care of our mosquito problem, though we’re keeping a stockpile of DDT in the garage, just in case they return.
We were also able to sell full extraction rights for everything below-ground to a rather large mining concern. It’s been so successful, they’re actually talking about building a railyard next door.
So as you can see, everything works out in the end.