More Songs About Buildings And Food

We did a little house hunting yesterday afternoon, and I feel that I learned a few things about myself. One of these things being that I really like “Mess With Time” off of Built to Spill’s You In Reverse.

That was something I kind of knew already, so not a great example.

Perhaps a better example would be learning that I do, in fact, know the things I like; and one of these things is not townhouses. Also realizing about myself that I may say things that people take personally, I feel that I should say that I do not find the liking of townhouses a personality flaw – if you like them we’re gold, we just disagree.

The journey started with a fairly forgetful house, one story box with a roof, which is in the price range we can work with – which is to say small and in a semi-questionable neighborhood. It was small to be sure, it felt smaller than our apartment, and had pretty low charm factor. What it did have was a sizable backyard and a separate 2 car garage that was roughly the size of the house. I wasn’t thrilled, but I thought to myself, “If this were all there was in all of Seattle that we could afford and move into, I could definitely make it work.”

Not exactly resounding praise, but I feel positive.

Then we looked at townhouses. They were nicely appointed with pretty kitchens and hardwood floors, but no character whatsoever. It felt like taking any sort of charm out of the apartment we were living in, and then piling it into 3 layers. The view from the bedroom on one of them was actually the construction site of what will no doubt be more shitty condos, no less than ten feet away. No yard… The third townhouse, complete with beige carpet, a fireplace that would have been smoking hot to a swinging bachelor round abouts ’72, and a nailed in 2x4 keeping the door to the garage closed as the current owners meth-head son had been squatting in there, was giving the two of us bad flashbacks of Orange Country. The realtor gave a look of bemused curiosity when we made it clear that our memories of Orange County weren’t all blow jobs and donuts.

I was depressed, very. The prospects seemed to be getting as dim as the 4 o’clock winter sky. The realtor had mentioned showing us a place that had cropped up in the listings, but was too small. She was waving it off, but the consensus was that we were out already, let’s take a look.

A none too crowded street and small bungalow set off from it by a good sized front yard. Cute from the outside, but going in knowing it was small I wasn’t terribly excited. I got inside and just on entering the door got the feeling. You know the feeling? The feeling that this is in fact home?

It’s something that I can’t explain easily, but when I see it in my head, the perfect house, it’s pretty close to this. Built in the 30’s/40’s and everything about it I just fell in love with. And if it were just Bif and I living in it, it probably would be home. It was just too small to make it work with the baby – and it breaks my heart a little bit. Those walls of fantastic texture due to years of painting and repainting, those window frames, that tiny little eating area, the wooden deck down to the back, the unfinished basement… It’s not meant to be mine, but felt like it may have been in another life.

Over beer and tots at Six Arms, I did feel hope - mixed in with the bittersweet taste of losing a place that was never mine. It gave me hope that there will be house that works for us with the right size and yard and character, hope that again I would walk into a house and already be home. I realized about myself that I will sacrifice a fair amount of comfort for character.