Place: Texas Roadhouse
Lunch: 10oz Ft Worth Ribeye (medium well), chili (with cheese and onion), rice, water
The server sucks. The bar-like atmosphere sucks. The country music sucks. But the steaks are awesome. What are you going to do?
The "Parade of Homes" happened this weekend. This is not an actual parade...they don't stick a bunch of houses on wheels and drive them down the street with half-naked models throwing candy out the windows. It's not even the "Street of Dreams" every city seems to have where a development with six-to-ten dream homes are constructed and shown off for a $10 admission fee. This is an overglorified open house covering 75 properties located all over the metro. There's a couple of clusters where a dozen or so homes are within a couple of neighboring developments.
I decided to check out some homes. I'm not in the market. It's just something fun to do. And it's free, so why not?
Trying to find the homes proved to be a challenge. The map isn't even close to accurate. It has dots indicating homes south of a main thoroughfare that are actually several blocks NORTH of said thoroughfare. One home was mapped significantly northwest of another I looked at, but imagine my surprise when I happened upon it a block west and two blocks south. I even tried Googling some of the addresses to get more definitive information ahead of going, but alas, these addresses were apparently too new for Google to know.
Anyway, I managed sixteen homes...three which weren't even on the official tour. I visited two others that were closed. I didn't find my dream home (I've already found that plan), but I found some interesting ideas. Homes are listed in the order I toured them.
Home #61: $419,900 - Second favorite home of the tour - I wanted to see this one because it had "cherry stained maple woodwork", and I thought that sounded cool. It was cool. The space over the garage was the master bath and walk-in closet. The walk-in closet was as big as some of the bedrooms I saw in later homes. The place wasn't perfect, but it was neato.
Home #64: $534,900 - Third favorite home of the tour - Easily the nicest decorated home of any I toured with extensive wainscoting, really nice light fixtures, and cherry and granite. I had problems with the layout, in particular the size of the master suite walk-in closet and the dimensions of the family room off the kitchen. And why does everybody insist on sticking fireplaces where the TV would go? The guy showing it was very interested in comments about the house. When I said something positive, he'd say "Thank you!" And when I'd say something negative, he'd nod and look thoughtful. Picture the Iron Chefs when the food critics are analyzing their dishes. That's EXACTLY what this guy was doing. EXACTLY.
Home #57: $349,900 - The only thing I remember about this home was looking out a bedroom window at an elementary school. Children. Ewwww. One of the homes had a double-sided fireplace between the kitchen and the family room. It might have been this one.
Home #63: $509,900 - This is next door to #61, but it wasn't open when I went to the first place so I ended up backtracking. It's a main floor/basement configuration with cathedral ceilings in the main area, which is essentially one big living room/dining room/kitchen seperated by wall dividers or cabinets that don't go to the ceiling. The master suite is right off this area. The other bedrooms are in the basement. I don't like the basements of today with their windows and walk-out amenities. Just seems like big wasted space that's easy to break into. But most of the homes I viewed had them. I still don't get why it was one of the most expensive homes I toured.
Home #62: $428,000 - This actually ended up being a three-home tour because the realtor also had the listing next door and a third three houses in the other direction. She opened them all up, unstaffed, and just invited people to go through them. The wood floors had wider planks and a light color that gave them sort of a country feel. I'll have to think those into my dream home. The second home had a big space divided into the living room, dining area, and kitchen. The kitchen looked extremely small in comparison to the rest of the space. Walking from the living room to the kitchen felt like walking the expanse of Nebraska to get there. This house had a nice loft office area though. I don't remember anything about the third house.
Home #67: $210,900 - This was a "model home", meaning it was a fully furnished model designed to show off the builder. It was the crappiest quality build on my tour. It had those faux laminate countertops that are supposed to look like granite, amongst other things. The master suite not only didn't have a whirlpool tub, it didn't have ANY tub. Just a shower. One of the door handles practically came off in my hand. You get what you pay for. The highlight was the dining room, which had a beautiful sort of mustard yellow color. But I would have gutted the kitchen immediately.
Home #65: $144,900 - Townhouse. The advertised "large kitchen" was a tunnel parallel to the two-car garage. So it was large but uninviting with no windows or personality. I guess you could say it made use of the available space. I guess.
Home #66: $184,990 - Townhouse. MUCH nicer than the first. Kitchen and living room were essentially one big great room, which I love. It had a sunroom off the back and a massive finished basement, which as I've noted before, I find annoying. A family was all but closing on it with the realtor in the kitchen. Their little girl followed me around like a puppy as her mother yelled at her "Be sure to show him the master suite!" The master suite WAS much nicer than I expected it to be.
Home #72: $125,000 - Row house. A row house is a townhouse with the garage on the back side. That's as close as I can figure. The girl showing it didn't seem to realize she was part of the Parade of Homes. She was sad I wasn't actually buying. There was a guy sitting at a desk in the garage whose cell phone went off three times in the ten minutes I was there. The home was cheap in that it had a small apartment-like kitchen (similar to the quality of Home #67, which figures because it was the same builder) and no whirlpool tub. But it was also one of the only places I toured that had walls painted something other than sandy beige. The back wall of the living room/kitchen was brown and looked really good with the cabinets and countertops. The master bedroom was slate blue. I would have taken it over several of the other places I looked at.
Home #73: $135,750 - A cookie-cutter townhouse that was LOCKED! Nobody there. Pricks.
Home #74: $380,000 - Favorite home of the tour - The ad said "Mission-style" interior and they were right. Lots of arches and rounded corners with creamy and dusty tones. The woodwork was awesome. The space between the kitchen and garage entry had a large built-in wood coat rack and cube shelves. The kitchen was beautiful. The backyard was enormous. "It opens up to a park," said the realtor. "There's a bike trail coming through eventually. No other homes will ever be built back there." If I WERE in the market, this is one I'd be looking at.
Home #12: $144,500 - The actual Home #12 apparently sold, so they moved it to an unfinished home in the development. By "unfinished", I mean it was empty rooms...no kitchen cabinets, no bathroom fixtures, nothing. But the development was interesting. The homes are designed to be more traditional. They take up a smaller footprint, they don't have fireplaces, whirlpool tubs, or master suites. They just have regular bedrooms and regular kitchens and regular family rooms with nothing oversized. They're just simple houses.
Home #5: $104,900 - Condo. This turned into a two-home tour becuase the realtor took me through two units...a two-bedroom and a three-bedroom. Condos are like nice apartments. No exception here. The upstairs units were cheaper than the main floor. That would be awesome for the person living below me and my down-firing subwoofer.
Home #13: $209,900 - This was the same builder who built Home #67, and was seemingly the same build quality, but was MUCH nicer. Lovely kitchen with birch cabinets stained to look like maple. Nicer light fixtures. And cheaper! Golly.
Home #6: $129,900 - Some sort of duplex/row house/townhouse type deal, which was LOCKED! Pricks.
Well that was fun. I was surprised that none of the homes I visited were doing any new construction techniques or using anything like Geothermal heating and cooling. Standard wood frame construction, standard furnaces, standard light bulbs.
I guess if I ever move, my dream home will have to be built from the ground-up.
