I sat in shear disbelief. You see, I hadn't read that local paper for weeks and this one fateful day I decided to open it up. It was pretty early in the morning and all I wanted to do was call my oldest daughter Megan to tell her of my discovery. I held back and decided I would hop in the car and make sure it was the house on "my street". As I turned into my future neighborhood I could not believe my eyes. Yes, the cute little salmon colored stucco house was for sale but to my disbelief and what made me even more excited is that two doors down, the house that I was having a secret affair with, the bright blue one. The one with the large window. The one I had placed on my desktop. The one with the flat roof and beams... was also up for grabs. I called my daughter. Long story short she told me to call her realtor.
The poor woman...I was a hysterical mess on the other end of the line, begging to go see houses on Mother's day. I told her that I'd been looking in this neighborhood for a long time. Understandably she didn't really want to take me to see the houses on this special day. I'm sure her husband was serving her breakfast in bed and a wonderful dinner was planned later that evening with her kids. I held back as she told me she would look into it and we could set up an appointment for the next day. God bless her soul. She called me back later that day. I would see both houses back to back the following afternoon.
I had trouble working that day. I was meeting my daughter, her husband and the Realtor in front of the "blue house" that Monday afternoon. I can't lie, I had huge expectations. The blue house was brand new on the market and wasn't even on MLS yet. She told me the price and honestly it was way above what I was willing to pay for it. Unfortunately the salmon stucco house had an offer on it and apparently it was in mint condition inside, not to mention it was a steal. As we walked through the front door of the blue house I was surprised. The large window that I had believed to be the living room was actually the stairwell. This house needed a lot of work...did I say a lot? I mean HEAPS. Every wall was wood. Either paneling or slotted fir boards. The kitchen was the worst I'd ever seen. As I rounded the corner into the living/dining room there was a sea of windows and a gorgeous and plentiful backyard with total privacy. I did my best to see beyond the hideous decorating which included doilies on the chunky dining table and deer heads on the walls and lets not leave out the horns that adored almost every surface of furniture. They had trimmed the windows with heavy, posied drapes. Everything was dark but shouldn't have been. There was no place for the light to bounce off of so it stayed outside. The fireplace was a large bricked wall with colored slate at the base and it possessed a monsterous, grotesque wood burning stove. The stove had to go! The decor around the fireplace also included a robot and a replica army tank...what??? We made our way upstairs. Four bedrooms, not bad. The bathroom was very dated and looked pretty well original from it's 1956 birthday. There was a balcony off the master bedroom which was a plus but the door stuck and all the windows (and there are many in this house) were all single pane. I told my daughter I felt comfortable in the house but she pointed out that it was probably because it was a lot like our summer cabin. I couldn't deny it...she was probably right.
Okay, that done it was on to the salmon colored stucco house. I still wanted to see it even if it did have an offer on it. The price was a lot less and apparently it was "mint". I suppose the word mint is appropriate, at least to that era. Mint is a word from the 50's, right?
As we walked up to the front entrance I looked at my daughter and we both wanted to cry. I new I was going to be dazzled by the interior. It was still in possession of the original owners. That in itself facinated me.
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