MAY THE ROOF ABOVE US never fall in And may we good companions beneath it never fall out. ~Irish Blessing

The day after the Luau, I left our kids in the capable hands of my parents and flew out to Baton Rouge for the do-or-die get someplace to live trip. Larry had gone out there the week before.

It is super HOT in Baton Rouge. And humid. When it rained, the roads steamed FOR A LONG TIME and made it even more like a sauna. It was awesome. I can hardly wait to be there full time and walk around with sweat running down my face and my clothes suctioned to me!

Back to the houses...

Over the weekend Larry looked at a house that he really LOVED. It is in a neighborhood called Lakes of Ascension. Here it is:

That's a real balcony (so many down there are fake - grrrrr)!

The house has an awesome backyard, a loft, 5 bedroom, 3 1/2 bath, and a nice kitchen.

Meanwhile on my day of looking, in addition to the above house I really liked:

A lovely home in my favorite neighborhood in Ascension Parish - Seven Oaks. No pool, but a beautiful backyard that goes down to the lake.

This house:

Another beauty in Seven Oaks. This one with lake property and a pool:

And this house:

In a newer neighborhood, called Manchac Harbor. This house is two years old. It has a pool and a backyard lake, too:

I should say right here that what they call "lakes" we would call "dentention ponds".

One other house that we really liked was sent to short sell the day we arrived and so it was in the middle of paperwork and it would have been useless to see it because there was no way to get everything done in time. We are ARRIVING in Baton Rouge on July 31st, after all!

Our contingencies are that we close when the Spokane house sells and (hopefully, but not a deal breaker) we would like to take early occupancy and rent from them until our house does sell, starting August 1st.

The house Larry loved and I liked a lot, the owners pulled if off the market about 10 minutes before our Realtor called their Realtor.

Okay.

Next house, Seven Oaks with a pool. That house is under a Relocation Company and they do not do contingencies under any circumstances.

Not a problem, next house also in Seven Oaks.

The Realtor was adamant that there was NO WAY the owners would consider any sort of contingency.

Then the Manchac Harbor house Realtor said, "Let me call you back." They accepted our contingencies, they will let us move in early (we are paying them an ENORMOUS amount of rent - which rent is ENORMOUS in Baton Rouge) and now we have a place to live! We are officially under contract! Yay! Inspections are happening this week and so on.

The Home Owners Association in Manchac Harbor make Nazi Germany seem friendly (I know, entirely politically incorrect, sorry). We have to have 100 shubbery in our front yard, 5 trees, nothing can be on our side yards (play toys, pool stuff, garden, etc.) No privacy fences, no outdoor storage sheds. Only approved mailboxes. The list goes on and on.

This is our family room. Two bedrooms and a large Jack and Jill bathroom are to the left of the picture. The master suite is on the other side of the built-ins.

The kitchen with it's ginormous island/bar. Larry said, "This bar is too big, what are you going to do with it?" Silly man. I am just going to lay down on it, for starters. The two doors that you can see are pantries. Further down that hall is another bedroom and bathroom, a laundry room, a bonus room and the garage.

I wonder what other non-alcohol drinkers have done with their wine storage racks? Any ideas, people? The grandfather clock does not come with it. You can see the dining area through that doorway. The family room entrance is on the other side of the clock.

The entry and the diningroom from the back windows looking toward the front of the house.

More of the dining room. The shades are wooden shutters on the windows.

The bonus room is really a mudroom, because you have to walk through it to get to the garage. I have no idea what we will put here. Or why or when.

Long hallway from the bonus room to the kitchen. I super-hope that the owners forget their Pottery Barn organizer on the wall! Not likely, I know!

A super lame shot of the Master bedroom. Not to worry, there are more bad shots coming. I didn't think I would be posting these - just taking some pics for Larry to get the general idea.

The master bath and closet. The shower is behind the door on your immediate left, the closet is on the right and the ... what is it called? poo room? is at the back on the left. Lots of doors. I find myself missing our pocket doors already.

The backyard pool and detention pond lake. It is a gunite salt water pool. The lake is stocked with five different kinds of fish. Bass and carp are the only two I remember. Right now it is a catch and throw back lake, until they get really established. The other side of the lake is county land. It will never be developed.

A view of our side yard. The yard is completely fenced in with non privacy wrought iron fencing.

This side of the house is mostly east facing so it will be warm in the mornings! The three set of windows of the right of the house are the windows in the keeping room, which is what they call their breakfast areas because they are usually big enough for a table and a couch. Not when your table seats 8.

So, there you have it! Our new house! It's all one level. It's "only" 2500 sf so we are going to be big time downsizing!

Rachel and Ben will be going to Dutchtown High School, it's about 25 minutes away.

The student parking lot is a click below the one at Mead.

One of the doors was open so I just walked on into the gymnasium. All the buildings are separate with courtyards in the middle of them.

The chapel we will be going to, a good 30 minute drive, has the temple in it's backyard.

Hibiscus bloom everywhere! So does plumeria. I am excited about that.

On another gardening note, most homes do NOT have sprinkler systems. Isn't that weird? I guess it usually rains every day (even in the summer) so there is really not a need.

For your entertainment, I will now post some pictures of a few other houses.

I call this style the frog style, a substyle of French Creole. Notice how the windows look like eyes and the side of the house looks like a frog nose. Once I made that connection, I noticed they were everywhere! Haha!

Something I just couldn't get past:

I HATE how out of balance the tops are. See the disparity between the glass topper and the top of the doorway? I would go nuts.

I loved the etched concrete, ice maker, and pass through in this Seven Oaks home, no contingencies please.

And now for the coup d grace. I will just say "you are welcome" now.

This beauty of home was in Fountain Hill where homes start at 560,ooo or so and go up from there. This one was listed at only 375,000. I wonder why? For starters, that balcony is fake. This home is only 200 sf larger than the one we bought. It doesn't have a pool, but it is right next door to the neighborhood pool and clubhouse.

Sadly, the owners are taking all their statues with them. We counted more than 20 on the property. The above is in front of the house and may be my favorite.

From the family room looking into the entry and up the stairs. Yes, that is gold leaf on the railings.

And yes, that is more gold leaf on the kitchen cabinets. But enough gold leaf, lets move on to the light fixtures, shall we?

One of them is reportedly imported from ITALY! I have no idea which one. Do any of you know?

This is the light over the family room.

The light over the keeping room.

The light over the bed in the master bedroom.

The wrought iron cover over the unsightly fan and light in the poo room.

Sorry, I found this gold leaf picture again and had to show it. Notice this is her house STAGED. They asked for a day to get it ready to show. Because we must cover every square inch of counter space to show how much counter space there is. The placemats are beaded. The knobs on the cabinets are crystal. Real crystal, according to our Realtor.

The family room from the kitchen. More gold leaf on the cabinets. I wish I had taken a picture of the dining room. The drapes were black velvet with the pastel plaid that is on these curtains for accent ties.

"Clearly, these people are from Nah Orlins" our Realtor said.

The divan in the Master suite, which Sari would give her right arm to own.

The girls bedroom. But wait! There's more! Note how tall the headboards of the bed are in relation to the door next to them.

Another view of the girls' bedroom.

One of the boy's rooms. The tree stuff was all painted on. It was impossible to get a good picture, they had a gun safe in front of the window.

The mandatory LSU bedroom. Every house has at least one.

GROWL! Tiger stripes on the ceiling of the LSU room. Geaux Tigers!

The half bath. Really. Can you see all those dogs?!

I think the owners must have had a monkey at some time in their lives.

Apparently monkeys are good voodoo to Nah-Lins folk, according to our Realtor, who is the nicest lady, and a long time Baton Rouge resident herself. She LOVED the house!

One closet.

And another. There were several like this. Clicking on the picture does not produce a good image so let me tell you right now that EVERY thing she had was Coach, Channel, and Prada. She had the entire storage room in the garage filled with the same stuff - and hats on actual mannequin heads. It was disturbing.

Here is why the house is priced so low:

That beautiful backyard is about six feet deep and backs directly on Interstate 10. You couldn't hear a thing when you opened the door, except cars flying past. No sound barrier.

You know you are a better person for having taken the time to look at these pictures. This last house is still available, if any of you are interested. The sellers are VERY motivated!

And again, I say, you are SO WELCOME! It was my PLEASURE!