The House

In my mom's goodbye letter she said she imagined me in the house I would buy with my inheritance. Looking at houses on Zillow kept my spirits up in the months right after they died. I had hip surgery six weeks after it happened so for months I could go far from the couch or bed. I watched Doctor Who and sobbed about Rose, the Pond's, and River Song. And I would look at houses imagining what mom might like.My mom loved to house shop and loved old Portland houses. My favorite childhood house was my step dad's old 1920s home with a big porch and white columns. Some of my best childhood memories are of holidays in my aunt's Craftsman and exploring my great aunts old Tudor.

My absolute dream home is a big craftsman bungalow with a porch. If it had living space in the attic and crawl spaces I would be in heaven. I've been lusting after big porches for as long as I can remember. I've often driven slowly through the older neighborhoods stalking my dream homes. 

Housing prices have shot up in the last year in Portland. My friend almost doubled his month on a house he purchased four years ago. I watched them creep up and figured that dream house would be my next house. I wanted to stay in my neighborhood because it was the last area in the city where houses are affordable and the investment is worth it. A year ago I would have easily afforded the dream home but people were listing (and selling them) for 50-100k higher than a year ago. 

I had my plan of a good investment I could be happy in. Maybe something newer so I didn't have to worry as much. Then I could pay off debt and sell the House later for a profit. I went on vacation and waited for private to close. I hoped there would be the right home once the dust settles. 

The day I came back from vacation I headed to the lawyer to sign the finals papers and said "I'm in no rush for the funds to transfer" then hopped on Zillow for the heck of it in my car before o drove home. I saw this and almost fainted:

It was beyond perfect. It was the absolute most I wanted to spend. I would

Need to hop on getting that new job (more on that later) so I could afford all the extras but I could make it happen. The only reason I could afford it was because the rest of the houses in the surrounding blocks haven't been remodeled so it was the first one going for that price. 

In a little over two weeks I made an offer, had an inspection, and closed. In three weeks I had that new job. All of the photos in this post have been of my house. I can't even believe I found it. She's 105 years old and has all original hard wood floors. The porch is huge and they are ten foot ceilings. My bedroom is a giant finished attic. There are secret doors under stairs and Eves. It has so many windows. So many windows. It hasn't been all smooth sailing. They remodeled and while they spent money on fixtures they also did bonehead things like dump concrete mix down the sink and forget to put Teflon tape in the shower so it leaked and I ended up with four holes in my walls. 

Home ownership is fucking stressful. I don't care though. I live with two amazing people who are keeping me from letting the place fall to ruins. And I figure if she has made it for 105 years she can handle some ineptitude on my part. If you're ever in town give me a ring, you might want to take a bath in my giant tub ;)