The Mauve House is an interesting place. I've tried to come up with a good nickname for it, but it's just so ... mauve. You can't get past the color when naming this house. I think that's the building's biggest problem. It's ... mauve. And not an attractive shade of mauve, might I add. There's a lot of grey in it, so it looks rather sad & unloved. And the grey shutters & roof just emphasize that sadness. It's dreary. It's dowdy. It looks the way I feel on those days when I don't get dressed & I just lie around all day in my robe. A truly despondent shade of mauve.
Have you ever noticed that it's nearly impossible to say "mauve" quickly? That "au" bit just draaaaags itself out. And is it pronounced "mAHv" or "mOHv"? Merriam-Webster approves of both pronuciations and we honor that in our little family (Tim says "mOHv"; I saw "mAHv". Kinda like how we don't pronounce "capillaries" the same). But either way you say it, you can't help but drag out that vowel sound. Mauve. Maaauuuuve.
Anyway, about this house. The first time I saw it, I was not exactly impressed. Hated the color. Noticed that it had no guttering. And this made me suspect that the roof was probably 20 years old. I instantly imagined that the interior would be in worse shape than The Bad Boyfriend & quickly moved along. But one night our realtor, Jim, had it on our list of houses to see. We were scheduled to tour 4 houses that night & I thought, "Oh, what the hell. I'm sure Tim will hate it, but we can always leave."
Well, I was wrong. I liked it. I liked it! But I was still sure that Tim would hate it, so I didn't investigate it thoroughly. But the next morning when I woke up, this was the house I was thinking about. The Mauve House. We toured other homes, but still ... The Mauve House stuck with me. And I was wrong about Tim because he actually liked the house! So I thought about it for a week as we toured other homes. Then on Thursday I talked to Jim and told him that I just needed to tour it one more time. So on Thursday night, we took another walk-through.
And god help us, we really like it.
The square footage is generous. The layout is nice. The storage is amazing (lots of big closets & the biggest kitchen we've seen, and the crawl space is tall enough for our bikes). Even the bathrooms are up to Tim's standards. And if we want to expand the master bath & get the garden tub we long for, it could easily be done with very little sacrifice. The interior has almost everything we want. There were even two "signs" that I'm sure mother would love:
1. There is a stained glass window in the stairwell that features a cardinal
2. The back yard is currently covered in wild violets.
But the exterior. Oh my. Besides the horrific color, the house is at the end of a cul-de-sac, so there are streets on two sides. Plus the neighborhood walking trail runs along the back of the property. Luckily, the house is set up on a slope, so there's no way that people using the trail could look into the house. But still. It could use a little help. It could use a few more trees in the back & maybe a few more bushes along the side. It already has a good bit of vegetation, but it could use a little more. No big deal.
We decided we need to know more. So on Friday Jim hit the books & called a bunch of people. He even had someone go out & give him an estimate on painting the place & putting up gutters (the roof man will see it next week). He unearthed various bits of information, but the most surprising fact is that the house has been on the market for much longer than we originally thought.
This house has been for sale for a. whole. year. Twelve months. I'm not kidding. Why? What is the problem? Is it haunted? Did a horrific crime take place there? Could it really be just that it's so ... mauve? The investigation continues.
Random news
Last night I experienced 2 "firsts" in my life:
1. My first professional hockey game (Our team lost. Boo.)
2. My first snow in April. Snow! Not a lot - maybe a quarter of an inch - but enough to accumulate in places. Eeeee!!
3 comments:
it SNOWED??!? wowee, that is so frikkin cool, baby! i heard it snowed a little at home this week as well. meanwhile, it was 80 degrees and sunny here these past few days. oh the irony of it all.
p.s. i don't think the mauve is all that bad. you could start with the shutters and go from there. this might be the place, eh?
The mauve doesn't look that bad in pictures, oddly enough. But in person? Blech. I could live with it for a while if I had to, but I wouldn't want to go longer than 6 months. It would depress me too much.
And yes, SNOW! And back in Oklahoma, too! It's as if the weather decided it was Backwards Day. Maybe we should've eaten breakfast for dinner or something. ;)
I think the house would be VERY cute in a different color. A nice gray, perhaps.
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