Month: June 2014

The List of “Lasts”

This week the “lasts” began in earnest: my last business trip out of DC, Frank’s last South County graduation, my last Bunco night, etc.  There will be many more of those before we begin to see the flock of firsts (Pointless aside:  I have a weakness for unnecessary alliteration and a fascination with collective nouns.  You have been warned.)

Transition always means we move away from something in order to move toward something else.  The importance of one is not diminished by the presence of the other but past and future cannot coexist; so is the nature of change. As I take a break from the din of the details that must be settled to buy one house (and figure out how the hell to sell the other), the reality of our impending life transformation can be overwhelming.  I am comforted somewhat by how technology has made the world a little smaller so that the increase in physical distance from those we love here will seem more annoying than painful.  I was reminded of that this week when having dinner with a friend that I have not had to occasion to see in person for many months and yet we were no strangers and our friendship no less robust than had he lived around the corner and I had seen him often.

I sit pondering my going away party at work tomorrow where I will try to be witty (still haven’t gotten that right – can’t seem to get past “sarcastic”) and show my enthusiasm for the adventure to come.  It is real and no less compelling than the ache I will feel for what we leave behind.  I suspect that I will put on somewhat of a brave face until that first glass of wine. Or the first tear shed by another. (Insert joke about who would be crying and why.  Make up your own.  Go ahead, I’ll wait.)

Here’s another “last” for the list:  last melancholy blog post.  I’ll go back to bragging about one house and complaining about another. It’s easier to make bad jokes that way.

Too many trees?

That is apparently the latest reason we’ve gotten why buyers aren’t interested in our house.  It has too many trees.  Really?  What did you expect for a home advertised as having a “wooded lot”.

We love our current house; it’s been home for 8 years and has hosted track sleepovers, theater cast parties, fondue nights, massive barbeques, whiskey tastings, pool tournaments and countless smaller events that make it hard to think of moving on.  But we will and we will build new memories in our new house.  I’d prefer to concentrate on that part than worry about when we aren’t going to own two houses.

The real estate purchase process is an odd beast.  Having been on both sides of it – simultaneously – I wonder if I’m a lousy buyer or a lousy seller.  When we went to Kansas City to buy a house, we visited 16 houses in 2 days, an exhausting and thrilling time that resulted in a contract on our new house.  We also saw houses that weren’t the right fit so I understand that.  We saw houses with rooms that you had to walk through to get to other rooms, master bedrooms without a private bath, full bathrooms that opened off the kitchen, yards that were completely decked over with no grass, and others that had peccadilloes that made them not be the perfect house for us.  I do recall having thoughts like “yard needs work” and “that room will need to be painted” as mental notes of changes that we would make rather than reasons not to buy the house.  And yes there were houses that would just require more TLC than we were willing to do no matter what the price. We told our realtor these things and expected her to pass them along to the seller.

Which is why I’m wondering about some of the “feedback” we are hearing on our house.  When we moved in the entire house was a either pale yellow or pale peach.  Ugh.  But we waited a year to decide what we wanted to do with it then hired a color consultant who created a beautiful color palate for us.  This resulted in a butterscotch hallway, blue kitchen, stone living room and family room on the first floor.  All well coordinated and beautifully painted.

entrance livingroom Master

We understood that the red sitting room, dill pickle green bathroom and seafoam bedroom may not be to everyone’s liking.  But most people never mentioned color.  In fact, we got very little feed back from our realtors other than “not the right fit” (that’s another rant for another day).  When we did get suggestions – landscaping is rough – we fixed it.  Some were questionable (well the trash cans are at the side of the house and that ruins the curb appeal.  WTF?) but we fixed it anyway. Then after more than 2 months on the market and watching other houses in the neighborhood being sold quickly by the same realtor, the suggestion that we needed to be more neutral was made.  (Doing yoga breathing to keep temper at bay.)

redsittingroombluekitchen picklebathroom

So gone is the blue kitchen, dill pickle green bathroom and red sitting room among others,  Hello beige and white.  Ugh.  Because we still live here, I refuse to lose my butterscotch hallway with the matching original artwork and the seafoam bedroom that I still sleep in. And now we don’t hear about color, landscaping or trash cans.  Now the reason we are given for buyers not liking our house is “Too many trees”.  Sorry, that’s just too damn bad.  I’ll carry two mortgages until we find someone who appreciates trees.

(Photos copyright MRIS and used without permission because it’s my house.)