Andy and Penny are Building a Home: -- How Do You Measure Crazy? Very Tenderly

So, in case I haven't mentioned it before, Penny and I can be a little crazy. Normally, we offset each other because only one of us is crazy at a time. But occasionally the perfect crazy storm occurs where our craziness combines and exponentially multiplies our craziness ten-fold. Let me explain...

From the day the chain wall was laid out on the new house, both of us thought that the footprint of house was a little small. We were certain it was smaller than the model home we looked at - which had our same exact floor plan. Then the foundation was poured, and we both commented that there must be a mistake. So we took a tape measure to the foundation, and sure enough, the length and width of our foundation exactly matched the floor plans we had been given. We must have just been mistaken, but were put at ease... until... the framing went up.

This time we were both sure something went wrong. The rooms we were looking at were way way way too small to be the rooms we saw in the model home. So in a clandestine twilight operation, Penny and I took the tape measure out and measured each and every room in house and once again, it matched the floor plans exactly.

How could it be? How could both of us be wrong about this? Then we came up with the only possible solution, and it made both of us sick. We had been swindled. It was the only explanation. The model home had to have been built to a slightly larger scale. You see, we're already apprehensive because we kind of got pushed around by the contractor who built the house we live in currently. Some shady work in some areas, some things promised to be fixed that never were, some general half-@$$ work that we had to pay someone else to come and fix. It must have happened again. Despite this new contractor's sterling reputation, they must have done it to us as well. We called our real estate agent, told her what was going on, and asked if we could see the model home one more time.

We showed up armed with our tape measure and walked into the model home. One look around and I knew this wasn't going to be good. We went into the dining room first. This was the room that I was sure was the most off. We took out the tape measure and... It matched the floor plan exactly. The kitchen was next. Penny was certain the kitchen wasn't right, but it too matched the floor plan exactly. The large great room, that one was definitely off. I could tell just by looking around that the spacious model home that it's great room was practically palatial compared to the half-closet great room that was being built on our new lot. Zip went the tape measure and... it was actually one inch shorter than our floor plan.

Room after room was exactly like it was supposed to be. We had not been swindled. Penny and I simply pushed each other to the brink of crazy and paranoia. Suddenly, the movie, The Shining, made sense. Needless to say, both of us were more than slightly embarrassed by this. Apparently, houses look different until the sheetrock goes in.

Once again, I have to give a big shout out to our agent, Susan Reardon. She must have taken some course on how to handle crazy people in real estate school. Penny and I had both hoped we could stay in contact with her once our business relationship was over. But she probably prefers her friends to be a little less of the neurotic nut-job variety.

Anyway, in summation, everything is right and on track with the house. the only thing wrong is the new owners.