I love houses. When I was much younger, I’m guessing that I paid a lot more attention to houses than the average young person. A couple years ago when I was interviewed by one of my favorite designers on his radio show, he asked me whether I had redecorated my bedroom as a young girl. I told him that I had, but what I omitted was that not only did I redo my bedroom, I mentally redecorated all of my friends’ bedrooms and their houses, too. If we were friends at any period after about fifth grade or so, and if I visited your house, then there is a very high liklihood that somewhere in the recesses of my mind is a very detailed design plan of your home.
I notice the way houses smell, the lighting, how I feel while there – I did then, too. In the dark months of the year, I’ve learned to disguise my excitement as I peek into people’s well-illuminated spaces lest I be viewed as some kind of voyeuristic weirdo. Mostly, I just like checking out the way that people decorate, but sometimes, (okay often), I imagine what it would be like to live there, in that house, in that part of town, living that life. It should then come as no surprise that a.) I chose the career that I’m in, and that b.) during the home search process, I became quickly addicted to online home search websites. Yes, I’m the kind of girl who looks at these sites from time to time even when she’s not in the market for a new home. Unlike most ‘normal’ people who find the search process somewhat stressful, I L-O-V-E-D it.
These days, it’s pretty cool that you can tell a lot about a space without having to set foot in it. Anyone who has started a home search online, though, knows that the camera angles portray the spaces quite favorably and do the equivalent of airbrushing a model in a magazine spread. Admittedly, it’s a great way to do a preliminary scan to know which ones are worth your time for an in-person visit – a kind of match.com for real estate.
Now that you know how strong a sense of ‘place’ I have and how much I love looking at interiors, it should surprise you (it did me) that we made an offer on a house that I had never set foot in. My husband was already living on the island while my daughter and I were tying up loose ends with the sale of our condo in Chicago. So to be fair, at least one of us had vetted the space and thought that it was a great big green light. It fit all of our criteria: old with that je ne sais quois quality of old homes, close to town and the ferry, not too big, within our liveable budget and with a nice-sized yard for the kiddo and dog to enjoy. And, cooks of the world hear this: it had a kick a&$ kitchen, recently redone completely to my taste. Yee haw.
So that you don’t get as excited as I was, because I’m about to let us down, we are not living in that house. Thankfully (and I mean thankfully), the inspection did not go well. The je ne sais quois ended up to be a little less romantic: a foundation problem and...I’m still cringing...a rodent infestation.
There is something about being in a house and feeling it.
Not to say that my Beagle Brigade-worthy sniffer would have detected something amiss, or that without the help of an inspector with a good eye that I would have had any inkling about the foundation problems. But I like to think that some part of me would have had a vibe that this was not the house for us. Many years of observing and sensing would have hopefully bought me that.
Which leads me to...the house that we are living in. Unlike most of the houses that normally catch my attention, ours is about eighty years younger and has more natural wood trim and detailing than I could ever imagine me enjoying, and yet, here I am. And I’m not just enjoying; I’m loving. It’s funny, back when my husband phoned me with his then most recent round of open house updates and started in with: so there’s this one house... I said: the green one, right? Although its online showcase wasn’t as impressive as the others, I had some notion that this might be the one.
Its je ne sais quois turned out to not be its age or its updated kitchen, but truly about its certain unknown quality that spoke to us both. On the very day that we said goodbye to Chicago, hopped a plane to Seattle and took our maiden voyage on the ferry as a family to our new island, I saw our now home for the first time. As I have jokingly recounted that night and said that I basically took a couple peeks around and said: “okay, this is it,” the real story isn’t that different. Although it looked different than the perfect house in my mind’s eye, it felt the way that my favorite places have throughout my life: well-lived in, happy, and like it would hold me and all of my stories as they unfolded within its walls. The best places I’ve ever lived in are the ones I secretly said “goodbye” to if I were leaving for more than a day or two. This was one of those places. And isn’t this what I was really looking for in a house? Isn’t this the best a house could be (aside from being rodentless and rather sturdy)?
And so that is how it happened, how I found my first ‘real’ house. Not particularly ceremonious, not at all what I expected or had planned on, but more or less exactly what I was looking for.
There is something about being in a house and feeling it.
 |
Ours is the one in the background, not the foreground. I just realized we barely have ANY outside photos of the house!
NEXT UP: THE HOUSE, PART II |
0 Responses to “THE HOUSE”