Where Dreams Go To Die

I know where dreams go to die. They go house hunting.

Hubby and I are house hunting. This has not been one of the more enjoyable experiences of married life. Buying a house is a lot like a wedding. In our minds there is this idea of what constitutes the perfect, personalized expression of ourselves and our love – then there are the budgetary realities.

Unlike a wedding, however, buying a house is not a one day event whose details quickly pass into the fog of memory.

Buying a house is more like the commitment of marriage – once you sign the papers the only way out is divorce – or a mysterious fire incident.

Finding a house is a lot like dating – there are a lot who say they are cute, cozy, sexy, and have to be seen to be believed that turn out to be psycho axe murderers. Houses are no different.

My dreams died early in the process, like vampire who have been staked, beheaded and their mouths stuffed full of garlic, never to rise again.

The first place we saw was a supposedly 80% rehabbed, converted church. A man must have estimated the amount of completion. I will only say this, 80% can be defined in such a way to encompass anywhere from 30% to 80%, just as 10 inches can encompass anywhere from an half inch to the average six. Also, 80% does not mean that the rehab work is a) good, b) competent or c) adheres to the commonly accepted definition of craftsmanship. Suffice it to say that if two preachers’ kids think a church house would be hell to live in, there is probably something wrong. This is where my dream of coolness went to die.

My second dream of awesomeness crashed and burned a couple of days later. The house was beautiful on line. I had already pictured putting my studio in the solarium. I spoke to the real estate agent to be told that the owners had horrid taste in carpet and wall paper and not to let that put me off the house.

What the real estate agent should have said was the house has gross carpet and wall paper, but the real issues are the stairs of death to the basement, the kitchen that needs some serious rehab work, and bathrooms that are a step up from outhouse and bucket showers. At least then I would not have felt like crying at the thought of the beautiful fireplaces with fabulous tile work and original oak mantles, oak pocket doors, and hardwood floors slipping from my grasp.

When you stand in one room and come up with $15K of work that needs to be done just to make the place somewhere you want to live and knowing that you aren’t married to Brad Studopolis handyman, that house is not for you. No, if I can’t fix it with an Ikea card, forget it.

I will not bore you with the details of all the lies we read in house descriptions. Then again if people wrote the truth (i.e. there is a 20% slope in the floor of the kitchen, foundation shifts that have cracked the walls and ceiling, we just slapped a new coat of paint on the walls without any prep work and we were too lazy to sand the floors enough to get rid of the pet peepee stains) people wouldn’t even look at, much less buy their house. It would have been helpful and saved me a lot of agony and time if people could tell the truth. Just like the guy who says that he loves chick flicks and reads all the Oprah picks, but only reads the IMDB synopsis of the films and the reader reviews of the books. He should just say that he prefers WWF to watching the She Cried No channel. At least you know what you are getting yourself into and can move on from there.

Hubby and I are still married, even though he invited his parents, without previous discussion or warning to join us on the final walk through before making an offer on a house. Hubby and I are still married, even though he has spoken ad naseaum about all of his alternative energy plans. Hubby and I are still married, even though the last two weeks have been the stressful cappers to a stressful six months. I have decided not to think about what comes next, the big move. I prefer to be Scarlet O’Hara for awhile.