House Hunt: 20 Acres and a Billion Bees

We've gotten pretty burnt out on the whole house hunting thing, having explored eight homes, driven by and rejected about three dozen others, and sorted through who knows how many listings. We've walked miles of property lines and Googled a gaggle of addresses, only to arrive at dead ends.

Everyplace is too far away, too run-down, too small, too big, too expensive. Too weird ... one place had an enormous master bathroom with the toilet set on a diagonal about a yard out from a fully mirrored wall. On shag carpet. With an aquarium with plastic fish in it over the spa tub. And a little door halfway up the wall that opened onto the old roof, which was now inside the attic.

The realtor, however, hasn't given up on us yet, and he just may have found us The One. It's out in the country, but only about 15 minutes away from here. It's been empty for a while, as you can see from the weeds. Bees have made nests in the eves, and there are swarms of them around the front of the house, so we only peeked in the back windows. Orkin can fix that, though, provided they're not inside the walls.

There is a long, long driveway through a wooded section of the property. The house is big and seems to be in good shape. There is a new barn on the property that would make a perfect woodshop for the hubby. There is way too much land, but most of it is woods and the rest is out back, where it could be left to be its own wild self. There is a pond, too, though it's stagnant.

It is, again, at the upper limit of our price range. But if it turns out not to need much work, and if they'll come down on the price, it's doable. We're going out this evening to see the inside. Wish us luck!