The first townhome that I looked at was pretty awesome -- for a townhome. While it sports such typical townhome drawbacks as a one car garage and only one-and-a-half baths it does have a series of things in its favor: a very neat floorplan, a den with skylights, valance beams, vaulted ceilings and a sizable back yard with wooden porch. I'd have to do minimal work to make it suit my tastes (the two worst things on my list would be to pull down the super-cutesy-flowery wall paper and install ceiling fans to cut the heating/cooling costs those vaulted ceilings would incur) but outside of those issues the place is almost immaculately maintained. The roof and the appliances are new enough that I wouldn't worry about them for some time, the foundation seems to be sane and the electrical infrastructure was sufficient to meet my needs.
Unfortunately that half-duplex represented the high point of the day's viewings. The other two townhomes were in a completely different subdivision than the first and didn't catch my eye nearly as much. The second townhome I viewed had a neat livingroom that was very spacious, but the kitchen was small (you couldn't open the refrigerator door all the way, to give you an understanding of how cramped they made things with the counter). That would be easily worked around with a side-by-side fridge/freezer, but the big deal-killer, in my mind, was the narrow flight of stairs I had to ascend to reach the living space -- I might as well live on the second floor of an apartment complex. While I stood in the living room looking at the railing I could imagine trying to get furniture up those steps, onto the landing, then making that ridiculously tight 90-degree turn. No bloody thanks! As nice as it was I'm simply not going to deal with stairs like anymore.
The third place we visited was badly in need of work. The trim was messed up, the cabinetry was poorly hung, the carpet in the second bedroom was a disaster, the tile in the master bedroom was cracked, the wood flooring on the ground level was shoddy and it generally made sense to me why that place was $164,000 while the first place I looked at was $180,000. To make things worse the third model's layout was even more atrocious than that of the second place I viewed. With a floor plan that lame I pretty much scratched five other potential viewings off the list since they were in the same complex and of the same model. I will not live in a home that has only one light switch for a stairway (at the top, no less, so you can stumble up the stairs at 2 in the morning and break your neck), no linen closet and no coat closet. Think about that for a second, if you would. No coat closet? That's simply unworkable in Illinois. No, scratch that, it's stupidly unworkable. This is a climate that has very distinct changes of seasons, and you have very distinct pieces of outerwear for each season. Because we get snow I need a place to store my heavy goose-down coat and boots for winter, my light jackets for fall and spring and my windbreaker for summer. No coat closet? What the hell am I supposed to do, keep it all out in the garage? I think not.
After viewing properties the next stop was BD's for the weekly lunch tradition. Have I mentioned how much I love that restaurant? I think it's been made patently clear at this point, but I'll say it again... that's some damn tasty food. Today was unusually busy and I was nearly recruited by Scott to help work the grill because of the number of people in the restaurant (parties of twenty-eight will do that to you, I guess). Regrettably I wasn't able to lend a hand, we had other obligations that needed tending to in the afternoon that limited how long I could stay around the store. I did celebrate a successful morning's work with a nice heavy drink after lunch, though. While I was sipping my specialty up margarita it was discovered by
After BD's was the bi-weekly convention staff meeting. I met with
After MFF's meeting we all piled back into the Expedition, braved the horrendous Woodfield Mall traffic to get to the highway and drove home. A stop was made at Oberweis Dairy so Roho and Kestral could grab a late-evening snack, then it was back to the apartment. When I got home
I have discovered a most dangerous web catalog. When I finally get my house/townhome/cardboard box in an abandoned building I really want to buy a complete set of these Klubi glasses to get things started off right. I am a big fan of crystal barware, oh yes.
Tonight I realized that throughout the month of October I wrote a LiveJournal entry every single day. I think that's one of the very few times when I've gone an entire month and never missed a day. It's sort of scary to consider but I'm going to try for a repeat with November. Let's see how that goes, as I'm sure there's going to be plenty to write about.... but will there be enough time to fit it all in?
You can feel the fire around us