mushin no shin

So ya see I’d been stalking the MLS listings for over a year… watching & waiting, lurking in the shadows, ready to pounce… Well finally it all came together, and as of this past Tuesday, I have joined the ranks of the deeply mortgaged, as the happy new owner of this little beauty:

The universe really came together on this one for me… after all that searching, after looking at thousands of listings — here it is, almost exactly what I had in mind, at my budget almost down to the penny, and the listing shows up during the very last week I had before the deadline to give notice to my landlord. I see the listing just before bed on a Sunday night, and I’ve got an offer in by Monday afternoon.

I wanted to stay in South Nashville, for a few reasons. Cartographically the location is unbeatable — largely because I work in Franklin, and the “reverse commute” is priceless (20-25 minutes in rush hour), plus I’m very convenient to the yoga studio (12 South) and the Tibetan Buddhist center (Berry Hill). Downtown is less than 10 minutes up Nolensville Pk, and Hillsboro/Vandy is 15 minutes down Wedgewood. My most remote regular haunt is the dojo in Antioch, but even that’s just a short jaunt east on 24. And in any case, I’m a stones throw from 440 and near entry points to all three interstates, which puts me 30 minutes away from damn near everywhere.

I looked all around the South Nashville area — 12 South, Berry Hill, Waycross / Fairgrounds, SoBro — all the way south down past Old Hickory Blvd to the Bradford Hills area. But the best intersection of price + neighborhood kept pointing me to pretty much exactly where I’ve been, in one of the neighborhoods that make up the area known as Flat Rock. I do love the area — not only do I get to immerse myself in a cornucopia of world cultures, but it’s one of the scant few places left in Nashville where one can still pick up historic housing without dropping a quarter mil or more. I just could not abide the “brick trailer parks” they were building from the 60s through the 80s. And though I’m not too elite for one of the micro-McMansions they started building in the 90s, I wasn’t prepared to go to Smyrna for one I could afford.

One complication — this area having never had the money found west of Franklin Pike, a good percentage of the old houses here are frame and/or siding houses. I really wanted to hold out for something brick — or even better, stone. A second complication — I’m not particularly inclined towards home improvement handiness. If we were all forced to define ourselves by sit-com archetypes, I’m sure I’d be a whole lot closer to Niles and Frasier than to Tim the Tool Man. I can do some things, but it will be slow and I’ll hate it. So it needed to be something at least well maintained, if not already renovated.

So when the listings showed me a beautifully maintained stone house, built in 1938, right in the heart of the old section of Woodbine proper, which got a new roof, A/C, hardwoods, plumbing, and wiring about 6 years ago?

Well I say it’s time for me to move!

So, yeah. I closed last week. I spent the weekend painting the bedroom, which I’ll also get recarpeted this week, then I’m moving in this weekend. I’ll have more painting & minor work to do once I’m in, but it shouldn’t be too much, the interior really is in pretty good shape. I’m sure I’ll keep y’all posted.

This entry was posted on Monday, October 23rd, 2006 at 2:04 pm and is filed under Babble, House & Home, South Nashville. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.