Well hello there! When I last wrote, it was in early May and I was expressing happiness that Spring was here. Now it's late August. It's been a busy summer. Here's a basic rundown on what's happened since late May.
I bought a house. We moved into it in June. House shopping was fun. There were some crazy things on the market.
- A teensy house in a lovely historic neighborhood, but the inside of the house looked like a suburban townhouse development had hit it--all beige carpet, shiny fake brass lights, beige walls. Overpriced, to boot.
- A National Folk style house in a highly desirable neighborhood that was in terrible need of repair. It was fun to fantasize about fixing this one up, but it would have been an enormous pain in the rear.
- A couple of houses where people had bought them in order to fix them up a bit and flip them, but then run out of money. These were sad because the things the owners had chosen to change were the only things about the house that had any character.
- What was once a gorgeous arts and crafts bungalow, but was now home not only to a dude and his dog, but probably some raccoons and various birds and rodents. It smelled of smoke, had fake brick siding, and a leaky skylight. Extra bonus was the large painting in the dining room of two well endowed gentlemen making love. While I appreciate the human form and depictions of love, I was not prepared for HELLO PENIS. I had to hold in about ten penis jokes so as not to shock the real estate agent.
- A beautiful, well maintained old house in a nice neighborhood...except it had a nasty bulge in the kitchen ceiling and no off-street parking. The built-in bar cabinet in the living room almost made me forgive this. Almost.
- Another house with lovely old built-ins and woodwork that was unfortunately situated right next to train tracks. If I had to live next to train tracks, these would be the ones I'd want to live next to. There's a strip of beautiful community garden separating the tracks from the street. But I don't have to live next to train tracks, so I'm not gonna.
So I wound up buying a Cape Cod style house built in 1927 in a pleasant neighborhood. It is structurally sound and doesn't need any emergency repairs. It has some cosmetic issues that I hope to correct over the years; while the house was lovingly maintained, at some point in its history its former owners clearly wished they had a 50s ranch style house and did some unfortunate remodeling.
There's all this stuff I want to get done to the house, but I have to pace myself. I'm trying to focus on getting all the unsexy stuff done first. Replacing the water heater, getting a fir tree removed (it had been planted five feet from a birch, and the two were preparing to fight to the death), new insulation, blah blah blah.
I'll post here with before and after pictures when we get to the sexy stuff!
