We’ve made an offer on this very spectacular ranch house in the Willow Glen area of San Jose. It’s gorgeous, actually.

I am high on the six-burner, Viking gas stove and the spigot over the stove for pasta water. Oh yeah! The two small built in dishwashers. The stereo system embedded in every room. The media equipment hidden in the pantry. The fabulous wall of glass in the living/dining room. The perfectly landscaped small yard. The patio, perfect for parties. The hardwood and the Berber carpet.

It’s a stunning home.

We swallowed hard, because we are already over our planned budget, and we are expecting an even higher counter-offer today. Our issue is that we will be house-poor until the market recovers, because between us we have 5 properties we don’t want to sell in this market. Once they sell, we’re fine, but until then, we’ll be digging into investment savings.

Today is not an ideal day to get a counter. FLH is not well today, his car is dead and he has a very busy teleconference schedule. Not the best time to evaluate a counter-offer.

The house is fabulous, but not exactly ideal for his 3 larger dogs, because of the gorgeous open floor plan. It’s going to be challenging to close off parts of the house to them.

We looked at other homes that would work better, but they weren’t as nice. Plus it seems a bad idea to buy a house we aren’t crazy about simply because it’s perfect for dogs. But we definitely have to be creative in how we manage, if we get this house.

Overnight this troubled me. The house is beautifully furnished and it would be lovely to have a House Beautiful home. But with three sizeable dogs who will have to be in the house when we aren’t there, it’s not going to be as perfect as it now looks.

But overnight, my mind processed how we can manage. There is a space in the family room where I can envision nice dog beds. And I think there is a space in the side yard where we may be able to construct a nice dog house.

We love our animals. He has more of them — and bigger — than I expected to have at this stage in life. But they are our family and that’s not negotiable.

FLH says that being in California “felt natural.” I introduced him to two of my girlfriends. We love our realtors. We had coffee with Greg, a Facebook friend. I showed him my condo in Pacific Grove.

I think it would be a relatively easy transition for him.

But as my friend, M., said: “What’s not to like?”

I was wavering on the house overnight, but looking again at all the photos, I think we can manage with the dogs.

We spent a day looking at homes in San Francisco, all three stories. Some were lovely but all were so clearly a bad layout for dogs it wasn’t even tempting.

We loved this San Jose home.

We’ll see.