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Stories About Houses
Oct. 5th, 2004 09:45 pmSometimes, out of the blue, my husband will spontaneously turn on music, and that music will be Counting Crows. And that, my friends, is how I know I have a successful marriage. Five years ago, he would have shot himself in the foot before doing that. (I must confess that I'm still not a fan of the weird crap he likes, but I was the only one in the Cranium game this weekend who knew the tune to Girl from Ipanema...)
In other news, I suppose I have to say that M and I both occasionally have the brains of a gnat. One gnat, too, not even a pair of gnats. We remembered to bring our camera to G's wedding on Saturday. M was snapping pictures as the bridesmaids, the flower girl and the ring bearer walked down the aisle. He might have also got one picture of G before the batteries went boom. So.. we haven't looked at them yet, but I guess the pictures from the weekend will be somewhat limited. The camera did take a few pictures after that, as well, after a brief rest between shots. Terrific timing.
Before we left town on Saturday, we decided to drive by and look at houses. As we passed the first house on our list, the realtor came out and asked if we'd like to look inside--she was there for an inspection and was probably quite happy to get the chance to show the house to someone. We were pretty excited about the opportunity as well, since it's a bit of a hassle to schedule house-viewings between the two of us and our working hours.
The papers we had very proudly pointed out that this house had hardwood floors and a sunken living room, both of which sounded pretty nice. It smelled of new paint, so none of the problems we encountered in the last house. There were a few things in serious need of (presumably) cosmetic repair--including a clawfooted type of bathtub that was not installed for the beauty or novelty factor, for it was neither beautiful nor special enough to be fun, a toilet that sat mysteriously low to the ground and horizontal hardwood panels on the shower walls. The kitchen was bright and airy, although containing a grand total of three cabinets.
In short, there were several positive things about the house, but all of those were completely forgotten as we stepped down into the sunken living room. They sure weren't kidding about that whole sunken thing, I've gotta say. To be more specific, the room wasn't so much "sunken" as "sinking". As a matter of fact, the angle of the floor was quite.. well, at a suspicious angle. Even I could see it, and I'm certainly no handyman--but when the shelf on one wall is a foot off the ground on one side of the room and two feet off the ground on the other side (possibly slightly exaggerated for effect), and the room is about twelve foot wide.. you just notice that kind of thing. It was clearly an addition that they built out of what used to be the carport--there was a very badly-patched area in the brick of what used to be a window (why they didn't just slap up some drywall, I'll never know) and the acoustics of the room were different from the rest of the house. Apparently, they had just built a floor a certain height above the concrete but neglected to notice that they had not built upon a level surface. What kind of moron can't see that their floor looks like that? We couldn't help but think that it was just that particular kind of moron we didn't want to have made structural changes to our home before we moved in.
Things Not To Say To Your Realtor #2
This ceiling would be plenty strong enough to support a gold heart-shaped mirror, don't you think?
In other news, I suppose I have to say that M and I both occasionally have the brains of a gnat. One gnat, too, not even a pair of gnats. We remembered to bring our camera to G's wedding on Saturday. M was snapping pictures as the bridesmaids, the flower girl and the ring bearer walked down the aisle. He might have also got one picture of G before the batteries went boom. So.. we haven't looked at them yet, but I guess the pictures from the weekend will be somewhat limited. The camera did take a few pictures after that, as well, after a brief rest between shots. Terrific timing.
Before we left town on Saturday, we decided to drive by and look at houses. As we passed the first house on our list, the realtor came out and asked if we'd like to look inside--she was there for an inspection and was probably quite happy to get the chance to show the house to someone. We were pretty excited about the opportunity as well, since it's a bit of a hassle to schedule house-viewings between the two of us and our working hours.
The papers we had very proudly pointed out that this house had hardwood floors and a sunken living room, both of which sounded pretty nice. It smelled of new paint, so none of the problems we encountered in the last house. There were a few things in serious need of (presumably) cosmetic repair--including a clawfooted type of bathtub that was not installed for the beauty or novelty factor, for it was neither beautiful nor special enough to be fun, a toilet that sat mysteriously low to the ground and horizontal hardwood panels on the shower walls. The kitchen was bright and airy, although containing a grand total of three cabinets.
In short, there were several positive things about the house, but all of those were completely forgotten as we stepped down into the sunken living room. They sure weren't kidding about that whole sunken thing, I've gotta say. To be more specific, the room wasn't so much "sunken" as "sinking". As a matter of fact, the angle of the floor was quite.. well, at a suspicious angle. Even I could see it, and I'm certainly no handyman--but when the shelf on one wall is a foot off the ground on one side of the room and two feet off the ground on the other side (possibly slightly exaggerated for effect), and the room is about twelve foot wide.. you just notice that kind of thing. It was clearly an addition that they built out of what used to be the carport--there was a very badly-patched area in the brick of what used to be a window (why they didn't just slap up some drywall, I'll never know) and the acoustics of the room were different from the rest of the house. Apparently, they had just built a floor a certain height above the concrete but neglected to notice that they had not built upon a level surface. What kind of moron can't see that their floor looks like that? We couldn't help but think that it was just that particular kind of moron we didn't want to have made structural changes to our home before we moved in.
Things Not To Say To Your Realtor #2
This ceiling would be plenty strong enough to support a gold heart-shaped mirror, don't you think?
