This is not my beautiful house.

[constance]

I went on my blind date yesterday. In fact, it was really more like one of those 20-minute dating round-robin nightmares than an afternoon of coffee and window-shopping, and I saw three houses and peeked into the windows of another and didn't see a fifth at all. The three houses were each of them mighty fine, in their own way, but because I have a yen for May-December romances, it was the turn-of-the-century houses that were the most seductive.

I still like the red one best. It's a Craftsman, which as we all know is an open obsession of mine. It's a bit on the shabby side, but appears to me to be in fairly decent shape. 1750 or so square feet. Five fireplaces, some of which have been stripped in preparation for staining. It has a wide front porch (albeit a porch inexplicably COVERED IN ASTROTURF OMG). It has a kitchen and a butler's pantry, both of which retain their beautiful glass-front original cabinets. The bathroom is pedestrian, but serviceable. Big, slightly overgrown fenced backyard. Floor furnace heat, no central air. It has glittery ceilings. The floors are in decent shape, with no soft or rotten spots that I could see. The neighborhood is like the house, shabby but decent, and it deserves to make a comeback because the houses in it are genuinely charming. It's $10000 cheaper than

, which, objectively speaking, is by far the best buy. It's priced low because it's corporate owned, and that and the fact that the former owners were partway through a major renovation are the only things that pull it into my price range. It's in a comfortably middle-class to upper-middle-class neighborhood, full of well-kept homes. It's got some major sex appeal. It sits on a slightly larger lot than Bachelor No. 1 does, and it is also fenced. It's one of those Late Victorian/Craftsman Hybrids. The kitchen has been completely modernized. There are three fireplaces. It has what the realtor calls three bedrooms and I call two, and it's huge, around 2200 square feet, and all the rooms are big--I worry that it will be a little too much. It has a back deck, with positively dangerous steps that will have to be replaced before anyone can use them. Central air and heat. There are a couple of spots where the ceiling plaster will have to be patched, and the owners had knocked out a wall between a bedroom and the butler's pantry and finished the walls but the floors are still a mess, though the tile they'd planned on using is stacked neatly against the wall. It's got a wraparound porch and lots of windows (both houses have lots of windows, actually). The bathroom's big but awkwardly laid out, and the fixtures are pink, and the wall tile is pink and bright new-leaf green O_o.

It's a good thing to have two houses to crush on, right? I could seriously love either one. And so now I have to decide which one I'd most want to commit to and fight the onset of a major panic attack and set everything in motion.

*takes deep breath*

:::

Of course you have seen neither of these houses personally. But I'm curious to know: which do you like best?

Comments

[dahlia-777.livejournal.com]

Especially, and I hate to say this, in a place as openly racist as Macon, where a mere racial mix in a neighborhood, all other things being exactly equal, can bring down the value of a house. I think the fact that this matters is completely obscene. But it does matter, here.

I winced horribly when I read this - not at you but at the sucky world we live in. If it was me I would put this consideration completely out of my mind, and just pretend it didn't exist as a factor. But then, I live in an overwhelmingly "black" neighbourhood myself (albeit one with dozens of trendy bars and restaurants, and a fab cinema...).

I hear what you said below about practicality versus following your heart . But I think if all the practical essentials are met you're free to give your heart to a house. My sister bought a practical, boxy family house, and although she's content enough living there she'll never love it the way I love my little Victorian converted flat.

I've really enjoyed reading all the comments to this post. The London property market is such a tired old topic for me - I know it all backwards. But it's fascinating to follow a discussion about the US house market.

[tofty.livejournal.com]

I know what you mean about my comment about Macon. I mean, the neighborhood I live in, while not overwhelmingly black, is certainly majority black, and it makes me really angry, the things that people say to me, assuming I will agree with them because I'm a white girl. And while I would certainly not care one way or the other for myself about the demographics of the neighborhood--I mean, I do live where I do--in this case, I don't think I'll be living here for the rest of my life, and I have to consider how the house will sell, five years or however far out.

I am not going to go so far to the practical that I buy a house I can't love. I really think that both these houses are entirely lovable, and so my heart will play in either.... Okay, if I set the practical/lovable to a percentage, I think Bachelor #1 would be 40%/60% and Bachelor #2 would be 60%-40%. So it's just a matter of letting my head or my heart rule, while knowing that at the same time the other will get some say as well.

I am new-ish to the US housing market too! I have the feeling that we will all be experts by the time this is over, if I don't learn to curb my enthusiasm.

[dahlia-777.livejournal.com]

Someone at a party once made a crack about me "living in the ghetto" when I lived in a corner of this posh little town which, unlike the rest of it, had a high Asian population. I said to him "don't be so fucking racist!" and walked off. People told me later he was really embarrassed. I was glad :-).

Btw I just noticed my site is down. I didn't break it, mom, I promise!

[tofty.livejournal.com]

Oh, gosh! Will get on researching the website right away. It is down, man--as in gone.

As for reactions to racist comments: ahhhh, I have perfected my I-am-completely-horrified-but-much-too-shy-to-tell-you-so look. I had cause to use it just the other day, as a matter of fact, and it worked like a charm.