Nathan Exposed » Househunt, Part 4: The Burbs

Househunt, Part 4: The Burbs

We had spent 2 exhausting days touring homes all over Nashville and its suburbs. We had fallen in love with a house in Hermitage, and felt it was the one. But we still had one more day of touring ahead of us, and were working to keep an open mind.

Sunday - LaVergne, Smyrna, and Murfreesboro

LaVergne was first. Holy hell, what is this place? This town has absolutely nothing. I’m not exaggerating. There isn’t shit to do there. It’s an industrial town with like one Food Lion. That’s it.

Okay, I’m sorry. Maybe one of my readers is from there and likes it. Let’s just say it wasn’t right for me.

The first house was taken right out of a horror film. I cannot even describe the awful feeling we got when we walked in it. Something very bad happened there. In context, the house was a good size, well maintained, and all that. But something made our hairs stand up on our necks. Even our Realtors admitted feeling strange.

They left all their furniture behind. But it was obvious nobody lived there. The heat was turned off, the clocks had stopped in the kitchen. There was a collage on the bedroom wall of this man named Nathan. Can you believe that? Nathan. One the photos was a “sexy” one. I giggled a little.

His wife, I forget her name, also had her name on some marriage plaque. But there were no photos of her. Come to think of it, all the photos of her were missing. Weird.

We went on to another house in LaVergne, which Rodney LOVED. I failed to take any pictures of it, which really annoyed him. Oops, sorry.

We moved on to Smyrna, where we visited a nice house pictured to the right. The problem is that the interior looked like a floral orgy. It was wall-to-wall floral wallpaper. Sickening.

I realize wallpaper is cosmetic, and can be removed. But we all had a very hard time overlooking it. I’m not kidding, it was a lot of work. And a lot of flowers.

Our final stop was in Murfreesboro. Of all the towns outside Nashville, this was the furthest away. Most of my friends from work live in this town.

My first impression of Murfreesboro was negative. A lot of the homes we toured were in a specific area, which I call “cookie cutter”. I hate cookie cutter neighborhoods with a passion.

You know the type. All of the houses look exactly the same. All the roads are completely flat and boring. There is no architecture or history. There are no large trees. Everything has just been planted in the ground.

I love neighborhoods with a history. I love large, beautiful trees, especially in the spring. Cookie cutter neighborhoods like this piss me off.

I was ready to call it a day. Rodney loved a house in LaVergne (the one I took zero pictures of) and I loved the house in Hermitage (which I had 20 pictures of). We had a decision to make, and needed time to think.

Right before we left, our Realtors introduced us to a popular builder in Murfreesboro. “Hey, there is this one house for sale,” the builder told us.

“Okay,” I said impatiently. “Let’s have a look”…

Tue, Apr 25, 2006 @ 12:18 pm | Filed in Life | Permalink

7 Comments

You’re killing me, honey. Killing me. And how cool if you move to Murfreesboro! My best friend’s family has a condo there (I know, what? It’s a cookie cutter neighborhood too). It’s not a bad place, but, yeah, farthest from Nashvegas. You’ll live.

Oops, I’m jumping ahead of the story. Sorry. I’ll wait.

Posted by sara on Tue, Apr 25, 2006 @ 1:23 pm

Omg, that first house sounded so interesting … I got goosebumps reading about it. Should do some research to see if something really happened there, eg, the husband might have slaughtered the wife there. *shudder*

Posted by Sunshine on Tue, Apr 25, 2006 @ 4:58 pm

I’m glad La Vergne scared you off. Had there been a home in Smyrna that I liked I’d bought it. Having you in Smyrna would be cool, you’d be that much closer to coming out to the middle tennesse blogger and podcasters meeting we have once a month. Good luck, I hope you two agree on the house of dreams.

Posted by Dewayne on Tue, Apr 25, 2006 @ 6:19 pm

I am so confused why you haven’t looked in East Nashville.

Why are you focusing on suburbs?

Posted by Jackson on Tue, Apr 25, 2006 @ 9:02 pm

SAAARRAAAA … you’re spoiling the story!!!

Posted by Sunshine on Tue, Apr 25, 2006 @ 10:31 pm

Sara - Yeah I actually like Murfreesboro after some more research. I can see why your friend lives there. Now you’ll have 2 friends in Murfreesboro… well, that is *if* we bought a house there

Eddy - You know, I thought about it…but for some mysterious reason, I’ve lost all paperwork about that house. No kidding. I went back through my files to pull the house listing for this post, and it was gone.

Dewayne - Sounds like fun. What do you talk about when you get together?

Jackson - East Nashville? WHA-WHA-WHAT? Because we don’t want to have to install bullet-proof windows. Aren’t you the one who wrote a post a few months ago about all the shootings that go on that aren’t even covered on the news?

Really…Nashville itself is not for us. We have always been the surburban type. You often get bigger houses for lower prices, and also very big lawns.

You’re a city boy, we’re small town boys

Posted by Nathan on Tue, Apr 25, 2006 @ 10:47 pm

Some politics, some advice. This last weekend we did a little of everything. Aunt B. of Tiny Cat Pants talked about why she left blogger and went to squarespace. Gunner of No Quarters talked about a new spam weapon. It’s always interesting. Brittney from NiT came by and visited this last weekend as well.

Posted by Dewayne on Wed, Apr 26, 2006 @ 8:14 am