Ma! Pa! Someone’s Coming Down the Lane!

I’ve mentioned here before that there is a cross-country relocation in the works. At this point in time the time frame for this to happen is large, ranging from “possibly this fall” to “someday” with no way of knowing how likely either one of those options is. So, just in case, I went to look at some houses in CT yesterday.

A dear old friend is a realtor, so it was a lot of fun, especially because it was the first time I’ve ever done this very grown-up feeling thing. I picked my favorite listings from the emails I’ve been getting and he set up five showings. Boy was it an education.

The first thing I learned was that when you see a listing on the internet, the pictures are very focused on the house only and you have no idea what the surroundings are like until you get there. And so it was that my very favorite internet listing was my least favorite location. The house was fine but it was on a hill with a clear view of about five other houses and most of the property was a wooded cliff. Boo.

Also, I have been vocally opposed to new construction because I like older houses and I hate seeing woods razed in favor of new subdivisions. However, my favorite of all the houses I saw yesterday was built in 2001. Everything in it was new and bright and open. It was move-in ready and all the colors were perfect. Never mind that seven years ago this house was a case in point of my argument with new construction.

I was excited to tell Stewart about my adventure. His reply was “uh, we haven’t sold our house and I don’t have a job there, so don’t get excited.” So that’s the reality. But wait until he hears about the 5-acre former horse farm with a barn and a chicken coop and 2 ponds at the end of a country lane. I can already see our skinny boys wearing overalls but no shirts running down the gravel driveway with hounds galloping after them, announcing the arrival of a newcomer in a motorcar.