Last weekend it was back to Charleston for a second round of house-hunting. We got a late start on Friday night, so we didn’t make it to Charleston until after midnight – not a fun drive, folks. We were up and at it the next morning though, driving by a couple of rental options before we met our fantastic agent, Jason Ogden, for a full day of house shopping. In the middle we stopped for a great lunch at The Glass Onion, a really cool place with awesome pimento cheese (we’ll definitely be back). We saw some interesting places that day to say the least, but we did find one that we really liked. Jason did some pricing research for us and we submitted an offer. Then, we just had to wait.
While we waited, we hit a local favorite, Bowens Island Restaurant, for fresh steamed local oysters. This was our kind of place. In the middle of nowhere (you have to drive down a dirt road to get there), fantastic views, a casual atmosphere, and great food. Over our meal, we discussed which of our family and friends would enjoy this place the most.
Great views from the deck.
After a little discussion with the guy running the register, we settled on a tray of steamed oysters and a sampler type platter with fried fish, shrimp, crab cakes, slaw, and french fries.
The task at hand. These were fresh local oysters that you had to shuck yourself. I was wary of the shucking, but as it turns out, it was kind of like a game.
Final score: Phillip and Jennifer - 1,000,000; Oysters - 0
I mentioned this was a casual place – as evidenced by the 5 gallon bucket they gave us for our recently vacated oyster shells.
The next day we were a little slow to get going and ended up having breakfast at our new favorite, Hominy Grill. Then we hit the interstate again and made our way back to Alabama. Along the way, we got a counteroffer on the house we’d liked. Unfortunately, it was a good indicator that the owner wasn’t interested in negotiating to a price the market indicated the home was worth. After one more round of negotiations, we had to walk away. It was a great house and the timing of everything would have worked out perfectly for us, but I suppose it just wasn’t meant to be. On to plan B! Plan B involves another trip to Charleston (next weekend) where we will (hopefully) find a short-term rental and decide either to (i) keep looking for a house we love as new things arrive on the market in the coming months or (ii) take the plunge and build in one of a couple of new developments on James Island. Comment below if you have any advice to share! Our move is about a month away at this point, so we are getting anxious to have housing secured.
