10.20.03 - 3:46 p.m.

Hmmm. I like house-shopping. I've discovered that looking at - and planning to buy - a house is way too much fun. I still want the house that is two doors down from me. :( I think it's the prettiest, nicest house for the money I've seen. There was a house around the corner that was the same (small) price, and I really, really wanted to like it. Except, meh. It wasn't quaint or charming, and even though someone had obviously spent some time remodeling it, it was settling weirdly. And also, there wasn't alot of cabinet space, the garden was up against an alley, and hardly a garden at all, and the bathroom on the 2nd floor - where the two bedrooms were - was only a half-bath. Hello? A half-bath? You had to go downstairs for a shower, which sucks. It might have been a vaguely cute little house if it wasn't up against that alley, maybe on a row of similar frame half-houses, their windows like mismatched eyes, all different, whimsical colors. Mine'd be purple. :)

But, so: no. I wanted to like that house too.

I saw one nice house yesterday: or rather, one really nice house, ready to move in, very little work necessary. The only thing I didn't like about it was that it was way out in the West End, which seems far away to me, even if it isn't, not really. It's too far to walk to work when it's snowing, though, so that's really a problem. Or maybe not, I suppose if it's REALLY REALLY snowing, I could grab a cab. Or, something. I don't like to drive in snow. Otherwise, cute little house. It had a big front porch, big living room, big dining room, fair-sized kitchen, full bathroom downstairs, and pantry. Steps - scary steps! - down to the basement, which was also the garage. Steps up to the 2nd floor, where the two bedrooms were. Both were good-sized bedrooms, with these wee little closets for munchkins (fitted into the dormers, so the closets were short, but deep and long. There was also a full bath upstairs. The carpet was all pretty new, and didn't have that nasty no-one lives here smell that houses get from being uninhabited for too long. There was one lonely tree in the backyard, barely an adolescent, but otherwise it was - really - a nice house. Except, no central air conditions. I think I must have central air conditioning.

The other house I've seen that I like is up in the hills behind the hosppital. Or rather, it's up on the hill behind the hospital. It's a leeetle babyhouse on a dead-end road with a whole flight of steps to take you from the sidewalk to the front porch - and I mean, a flight, as many steps as when you go from the first to the second floor of a house - but I think there's a concrete pad in the backyard where you can park, so there must be car access from that side, so one wouldn't necessarily have to carry one's sofa all the way up those stupid steps.

Inside, the house is quite charming, with rather high ceilings that give the little place a feeling of expansiveness. The dining/living area is one room, without the usual little half-arch or even changing direction to separate them, and I don't really like that much. :( I don't think the kitchen is big enough for a table of its own. I'm not sure. I'll have to look again. ANYway, it has a lovely little fireplace, with gas logs, and a great mantlepiece, decent carpet, a pretty big bathroom that isn't all nasty and ugly. The first bedroom has pretty hard-wood floor, laid in a concentric square pattern. The second bedroom is larger, and has a smaller room off behind it. The smaller room is billed as a "den," but it's more like a walk-in closet on steroids. Still, it has sliding glass doors looking out onto the backyard, and a pretty little backyard it is, too, with big oak and maple trees and plenty of shade. The "den" would make a great little office/sitting room, with a comfy chair for reading, a little desk and the computer, some plants to take advantage of the good light.

The kitchen is fine, IIRC. Not spectacular, but fine. There's a small pantry, and the last owners have left the washer-dryer (bonus!). Upstairs, by the way, is a huge room, the length and half the width of the house. Because of the sloping roof, it has a high center ceiling and shorter sides, and these weird 1970s "pub" lights hanging from the middle of the ceiling. The first floor has central heat and air, but the second floor has neither, and is just called a "bonus" room. It'd make a nice master bedroom suite, but that would require getting plumbing up there and central heat and air. There's a wall unit air conditioner to cool it during the summertime, but in the wintertime, I think it would be hard to heat without putting in a heating system.

Heh. I wish I had time for my mom to see if before her surgery. I'd really like to know what she thinks. But... no time, and bleh.

Hmmmph. Aaaaaaand, time to go home. Yay!