Oh. My. God.
We are going to live in our townhouse FOREVER. There is another townhouse on our street that is exactly the same as ours (except they don’t have a fireplace and we do) that was put on the market in January. The listing has been allowed to expire, but I’m not 100% sure what that exactly means. Whatever it means, that house didn’t sell and it was priced pretty reasonably.
The kitchen in that one is nicer than ours, which seems to be a big selling point these days. I know that when I look at a house if the kitchen is crappy, I’m less inclined to like the rest of the house.
One of the biggest issues is that the houses that we’re looking at as buyers are starting to come down in price. We could easily put a down payment on a new house without having to wait for the money from the sale of this one, but there is no way we can carry two mortgages even for a short while so we actually HAVE to sell this house before we can even seriously look for a new one. Bleh.
I still think we’re going to go ahead with The Great De-Cluttering of 2007 and get a storage locker and stuff. If we proceed as if we’re going to sell the place, perhaps we will get lucky? If nothing else, it will force us to live with less, which we will have to do anyway if we’re going to stay here much longer. We grew out of this house two weeks after we moved into it.
Category Archives: House
:headdesk:
Comments Off on :headdesk:
Filed under House, Real Estate
For sale: one mentally deficient cat
Our cat, Chester, is a total nut. We have had him in our home for nearly six years and he still acts like he just got out of the pound. We originally rescued him from the pound, so we don’t know anything about his history, and at first, we totally expected him to act crazy and afraid.
Six years later and he still acts exactly the same way as he did the first week we had him. This cat is totally mental. He’s afraid of EVERYTHING: air, the sound of his food hitting the bowl, wind, air, me, Freddie, Jillian, the TV, air, you name it. The cat is insane.
So.
Our home is not decorated in what you’d call a “style.” We only just got past the post-college-desperation look, where all the furniture was inherited and nothing went with anything. Now we have some things that look nice together and the place looks a little less like a dorm.
Next to our couch, we have a small glass-topped table that we acquired somewhere. I can’t remember who gave it to us, but it’s ugly as hell. It serves its purpose, though, and lives between the couch and the chair so I have someplace to put my candy dish. Next to this table is the floor lamp, which I actually like.
Well, until now. Now I hate the lamp almost as much as I hate that ugly-ass table. I hate the lamp because it tried to kill my kid today.
See, Chester was checking out the baby toys down in the living room while Jillian and I were practicing going up and down the step that separates the living room and dining room. Something happened to scare the cat (he probably got a glimpse of his own tail and was all “OH SHIT! WHAT’S THAT?”) and his fat self tried to dart between the couch and chair to escape.
His plan was foiled when his fat self got entangled in the scrolly-like legs of the table, causing it to fall over, causing the HEAVY GLASS TOP of it to fall off and crash into the lamp, which then fell over, nearly crushing the baby.
It’s a good thing I’m SuperMom because I scooped Jillian up and out of harm’s way.
Can’t say the same for the lamp, however. The faux-stained-glass shade on the lamp got mushed as it hit the carpet and the post on which the lampshade sat was pulled out of its moorings, thus stripping the bolt that secured it.
I’m sure with a little Gorilla Glue and time I could hillbilly-engineer it back, but the shade is messed up and I just don’t want to look at it. SIGH.
I called Freddie at work to see if he would authorize the purchase of a new lamp and if I should get a matching one to replace the table lamp, too, but he’s busy today and not picking up the phone. We always discuss purchases like this, but I might just make an executive decision if he doesn’t call me back before we go out.
So I’m all jittery now, due to the near-crushing of the baby (the lamp wouldn’t have crushed her – it would have probably hit her shoulder and pissed her off but STILL), the cat is upstairs hiding under the bed shedding like a yak because he’s all freaked out, and Jillian is napping peacefully.
Pimp My Fridge
What an excellent idea this is: a dry-erase refrigerator. Too bad they’re only available in Brazil.
That got me thinking, though. How could this concept work for me? I’m not sure I like the idea of a dry-erase fridge because the markers can be used on other surfaces as well, but there’s another way to go about it.
A chalkboard!
Here’s what I would do – get a chalkboard (or, if your fridge doors are narrow like ours are, a nice piece of wood sanded down and painted with that chalkboard paint) and some Gorilla Glue or some other kind of crazy adhesive and VOILA! An instant art space!
I am totally guilty of having a cluttered front o’ fridge. We have photos of our baby and other people’s babies on there, along with Freddie’s various race numbers, funny stuff, and a comic my brother sent me when we lived in Indianapolis that has traveled with us through our various moves.
Oh, and magnets. Lots of magnets.
So when Jillian is big enough to want to start drawing on stuff, I’m thinking that a chalkboard fridge might be the way to go. It’s not like the fridge is going to be an heirloom or anything – so I have no problem at all with pimping it out. Now, if I could only get a fridge in purple…
Filed under House
Uninspired
Urgh. It’s probably due to the grey weather, but I am just not feeling it today. Got lots of things on the list of Things To Do, but I think I’m in that space where there are SO MANY, I don’t know where to start. So I’m going to have to spend some time breaking things down into manageable pieces but even THAT feels like a big job.
We’re going to put the house up for sale, I think. That means there is a shitload of stuff that needs to get done, starting with finding a storage locker in which we can put all of our extra CRAP so that prospective buyers won’t get freaked out by all our clutter. And boy, do we have clutter. Most of it is in the form of yarn and books (whoops), but that stuff is more easily managed if we divest ourselves of all the other junk we happen to own.
This is going to be hard for me, because I am a PackRat and sentimental taboot. I hate throwing things away, especially personal junk like birthday cards and love notes and stuff. I have a birthday card my friend Greg gave me on my 13th birthday. I have the card from the flowers that Henning sent me when I was in the hospital that time. I think I have every note and letter that Cliff ever wrote to me, PLUS my corsage from our first Homecoming.
See? I KEEP THINGS.
I had occasion to dig through a box that houses some of my various music books and stuff. I have the audition piece used my freshman year of high school to determine where to place me. I don’t think I have the skills anymore to play it but I might go crazy and give it a shot. Problem is, I don’t know if any of our three saxophones are in playable shape. Not to mention my embouchure is probably non-existent by now. I feel bad that I’ve let it slide but a) I have nowhere to set my shit up and play; and b) I have no one to play with and I’m a shitty soloist.
Maybe I should find a band.
But anyway, we have a lot of junk. Some things are in boxes and HAVE BEEN IN BOXES since we moved FROM INDIANAPOLIS eight years ago. I don’t even KNOW what’s in these boxes anymore. It would be nice to unpack them and see, but I’m not about to do that if I’m just going to end up packing them back up in the event of a move. So those boxes will probably stay as-is for now.
The problem area is Jillian’s closet. It’s a walk-in, and it’s humungous. I think it’s something like 5×7, which is pretty much the size of our bathroom. There’s room for a lot of crap in a space that big, and it’s probably time to have some tough conversations with myself and let some of it go. Some of it is clothing that currently does not fit, so I should probably get rid of most of that.
BUT.
How can I pitch perfectly good clothes, some of which I am emotionally attached to? They don’t fit NOW, but dudes – I had a baby. Things are different. But not permanent. Wouldn’t it be better to use the clothes that Used To Fit as an incentive to move my fat ass around and make it less fat? I think I’ve plateaued in that I’m not buying anything BIGGER than what I’m currently wearing (and thank god, because the size I’m wearing is embarrassing enough). But the stuff I’m currently wearing isn’t exactly feeling loose and baggy, if you see what I mean. So shouldn’t I keep some of that stuff for when it fits again?
The clutter-busting folks would say no, but those kinds of people tend to be heartless, cold automatons who are capable of throwing away photos of their own kids. Thank God we now live in the digital age or we would have to get a storage locker just for pictures of Jillian. And then we wouldn’t even be thinking about a bigger house because we would have spent all our money getting pictures developed. So Hooray for Technology!
The prospect of throwing things away fills me with alarm, but I know that it’s something I need to do. Is there a support group?
The Realtors are coming!
AIEE! We looked at a house this morning that has definite potential. The house itself was interesting – it was built in 1935 and looked like rooms had been added here and there whenever they were needed. There really seemed to be no “plan” involved, but it was interesting! If we end up buying it, I am totally naming it “The Burrow.”
It has 3 bedrooms but only 1 bathroom. That’s not a huge deal, really. We don’t really need more than one bathroom. In a perfect world, I’d have my very own bathroom which I wouldn’t have to share with anyone, but until I win the lottery, that is just a dream. The master bedroom is a nice size, so I’m sure our bed will fit in there (that’s an actual deal-breaker. If our bed doesn’t fit in the house, we aren’t buying it no matter what other amazingness it features). The other two bedrooms are nice-sized and there are closets and stuff relative to the size of the rooms. That’s always good, too.
The yard is the best part, I think. The house sits on almost a half-acre, which is practically a farm in the area of New Jersey where we live. Best of all, it’s a level lot, so the yard is 100% useful. I can already see where I’d like to put my garden, my shuffleboard court (alley?), and possibly a skee-ball machine or two. There’s not enough room for me to have a cow, but maybe I could get a chicken or two.
The basement leaves a bit to be desired but, like the rest of the house, it has some potential. If we wanted to, I’m sure we could finish it out and make it into a living space.
There is a one-car garage, which is nice to have but not really necessary for us. I would finish the garage as a fitness room and that’s where the treadmill and Freddie’s bike could live. There is plenty of room off of the driveway to build a garage if we are so inclined.
Thursday, the Realtors are going to come over to our current house and help us figure out how to sell it in a market that is pretty much the textbook definition of shitty. There are a billion and three townhouses exactly like ours on the market that have been there for months and months. So in order to sell ours in any kind of reasonable time frame, we’re going to have to price it right (that means low), and clean it up (that means storage locker and paint).
That means there are roughly twenty-four trillion things that we will need to do in this house to get it ready for showing. I’m going to have to start at the top and clean out the attic, clean out the closets, dust, remove cobwebs, dust some more, de-hairify the carpet upstairs (and I’ve been molting like a goat for the last six months, so THAT should be fun), get down with a toothbrush in the bathrooms and clean things like grout, dust,de-funkify the washing machine AGAIN, SOME MORE, organize the closets and bookshelves, dust, get the carpets cleaneed AGAIN, SOME MORE (and that pretty much guarantees that Chester will barf on them), dust, think really hard about scrubbing the brick fireplace, dust, scrub out the kitchen, and dust. Some more.
Then I’ll have to call our Homeowner’s Association and get them to pretty up the landscaping out front, which I have been after them to do FOR A YEAR. Fuckers. I want the tree pruned and the dead azalea bush removed and the rose “bush” (it’s just a pitiful stem of a thing that produces exactly two blooms a season) either rehabbed or removed.
And, while all this is happening, I need to keep my husband from talking himself out of it. He’s making noise about me going back to work and I’ll do it if I have to, but there are 235 things I would rather do instead and that includes plucking out all of my leg hairs one by one. But if that’s what needs to be done, I will find a way to make it happen. Ick.
Comments Off on The Realtors are coming!
Filed under House, Real Estate
Big domestic plans
I am slowly [and against my will] becoming domesticated. I don’t like it, but there it is. I grew up in a house where the housekeeping standards were, if we’re being charitable, decidedly lax. Mess and clutter were ever-present. That’s the danger of living in a creative family – there’s always something more interesting to do besides clean the house.
I had the good sense to marry a man who came from a Pottery-Barn-ad-house. Seriously, Pottery Barn ads look like packrat dwellings compared to how Freddie grew up. So throw my packratty goodness in with his borderline neat-freak self and you have some interesting times.
Over the years, we have figured out how to live in the middle. The house is reasonably clean, even if you can’t do surgery in my kitchen. The clutter is a little harder to keep at bay, but I do the best I can. Between books, baby gear, and triathlon gear, we have precious little room for anything else!
I make a lot of lists. I find this is the best tool to ensure that projects actually get started rather than talked about. We can sit around all day and talk about how we really ought to lint-brush the furniture, mop the floor, brush the cat, et cetera. Once it gets written down on a list, the urge is there to cross it off, so things actually get done!
Today’s list concerns the patio. I would like to get some things to pretty up the backyard, plus I’d like to maybe get some tomato plants or similar that I can grow in tubs. I fear my herb garden will just have to live in the house because the squirrels will eat it. But the patio needs some life and color, so that’s the goal for today.
The long-term goal is to keep these plants alive all summer. We were doing so well last year until Jillian came along. We spent four days in the hospital, and those four days happened to be the hottest days of the year. The plants didn’t get watered and they died. Oh well! We were busy!
The year before that we did pretty well, keeping the plants alive until well into October. That was when we should have brought them inside for the winter but by the time we got motivated to do that (didn’t get on the list, you see), the first frost had happened and the plants went bye-bye.
Can it be done? My thumbs are so not-green that I can kill FAKE PLANTS. I’ve done it, honest! My basil plant is still alive after over a month of my care, so I have high hopes for the rest of my plants this year. Wish me luck!
Comments Off on Big domestic plans
Filed under House