Gym day - and house hunt musings

I haven't been to the gym all week.  Work has been a little crazy, and I've been working late and haven't been able to lift. Plus, I'm in the middle of looking for a house, and last night I spent half the night thoroughly examining a house with my brother and father.

I'm lucky, because I don't know much about owning a house.  I don't know much about the kind of things I need to look for when examining a house.  I mean, I know general stuff.  I can look at the roof and see if it's in shitty condition.  I can look at a kitchen and tell if it's in decent shape, or would need to be redone.  Stuff like that.  But the really deep stuff?  I mean, last night my father and brother were picking out shit I would never in a million years have noticed.

The way we do it is this: my wife and I look at a bunch of houses with the real estate agent.  After a while of looking, we find one in our price range that we kind of like.  Then, I bring in the big guns (dad and bro) to really look deep and see what the house is worth, and what work would need to be done.  Last night, the house was in a nice neighborhood with a big back yard and garage.  My dad instantly picked out problems with the windows, skylights, the boiler, the oil tank, the whole basement, problems with the heating pipes, and a bunch of other stuff.  This is good.  Then we talk about what it would cost to fix/repair some of these things and make the house liveable.  That's when it becomes apparent that the house is out of our price range.  When the first 3 things on your "to do" list are:

1) Replace the boiler and oil tank
2) Gut the entire basement (not to mention rebuild it afterwards)
3) Replace most of the windows and skylights on the first floor

You realize that on top of the purchase price, you're looking at approximately 15-20 grand just to make the house liveable.  For the record, the basement was an apartment that was in horrible, horrible shape.  It would need to be ripped out and re-done so that I could make an apartment out of it again.

And that's on top of the simple stuff.  Like repainting.  Putting in new rugs in the bedrooms.  Buying furniture.

All in all, it's disappointing when you realize a house you like isn't such a likable house anymore.  Or affordable.  But, that's part of the house hunt.  Eventually we'll find something we like in our price range.  It's a journey.

As for the gym, I haven't gone since Saturday.  I'm skipping shoulders and going straight to deadlifts today.  325 is happening.  I'll let you know how it goes tomorrow.