February Breakdown

We’d spent the afternoon looking at housing and I was hungry. Really hungry. Over grilled shrimp tacos (me) and eggplant lasagna (B.), we flipped through the sheets on each of the properties we’d seen, dividing them in to “Maybe” and “What? Are you high?” stacks. The waiter – never underestimate your waiter, people – saw the sheets and proceeded to engage us in a long conversation about price per square footage and renovation practices and modern architects and well, I’d had enough; we’d seen eight properties. Check please?

There are some craptacular houses out there, boys and girls, painted in the most vile colors you’ll ever see, remodeled in ways that Make No Sense, carpet in the kitchen and outbuildings that reek of dry rot and well,hoo boy, there are some stinkers. If you’re going to pay to remodel your kitchen,would you not incorporate the appliances rather than leave them freestanding with no place to be? If you’re going to loft your ceilings for skylights, would you not loft the entire room instead of making some complicated shaft? If you’re going to install hardwood floors, why would you leave that weird island of carpet in the middle of the room? Why all the mirrors? Where do those stairs go? What is that smell? So many questions. Only one answer: Um, no.

[Sidebar: Prize to the property with the most amazing neighbors goes to an absolute disaster of a place right next door to the Walker Rock Garden.]

I fancy myself a little cottage house with a bit more room than my current place. I’d like a studio space, a bit of additional dry storage, a way to get the sometimes overnight guests out of the living room. Gravy? Room for a real dining table for dinner guests, a place for an office, a teeny tiny yard to grow tomatoes. It seems not so much to ask, yet I am finding the compromises I’ll have to make to get there rather difficult, plus, wow, the expense is quite shocking! I cannot believe the wisdom of the purely emotional choice I made in buying my current flat, the top half of a 1913 house in a rather swank and getting swankier neighborhood. Getting in wasn’t so hard, but getting out and into something else is a bit more difficult.

There were two properties that made the cut, one, a ramshackle little place in a primo location. Pros? Location, location, location? Cons? It’s a ramshackle little house. The other? Quite a nice little house in a not so primo location. Pros? Quite a nice little house. Cons? Location, location, location. Sigh.

It was raining as B. dropped me at my car. As I rolled out of the parking lot, I noticed something funky about the way the old Tercel was handling. At the light, I looked out to see my front right tire was a flat as the proverbial pancake. I called B. who wasn’t quite home and he drove back to keep me company as I waited for AAA to arrive. “There’s yer problem right there,” said the remarkably cheerful and efficient mechanic, pointing to a screw embedded in my tire. “That’s not supposed to be there!” I said and the mechanic laughed.

Broken houses, broken cars. My website was broken for a bit until I found the stray tag in yesterday’s post. Sometime next week the sewer company is breaking ground (again) in our backyard to fix our (still) broken line. “Give yourself a break,” I think. “This is just February, a broken time of year.”

On the plus side, the air smells like spring and as I walk through my neighborhood, I see crocuses breaking through the wet ground.

[tags]Seattle real estate, flat tire[/tags]

For the fearless, here’s me, singin’ the blues. It’s classic that I learned to play about, oh, 20 minutes ago. One (and only) straight take, no post production.