House #1

This blog has re-launched as the D.C. housing blog. I'm throwing a party over at my place right now to celebrate. We're serving fruit punch spiked with Sprite, but the party has been pretty low key thus far. I'm assuming the cops won't break it up like the last book club meeting we had.

The first house we looked at on Sunday had a real estate agent who was sweating profusely. She kept saying that the house had air conditioning, but she wasn't sure how to make it work. I'm thinking, is this the best way to sell a house? By playing a game of sweat out. Incidentally, S and I were actually feeling pretty good in the house, so the conversation seemed unnecessary. S and I explored the kitchen where she made notes on her pad about how many cabinets it had.

We wandered outside and were barked at profusely by a dog that sort of looked like the Turner and Hooch dog. He was drooling and I'm fairly certain that if he had full use of his legs, he would have jumped the fence and bitten us. I wanted to walk back into the house and ask if the dog came with the house or if we had to pay extra for the barking. The family also put a carport where I would have liked to have a vegetable garden. It seemed really shortsighted of the previous tenants to have put a car port where my vegetable garden was supposed to be and frankly a little selfish.

Then we wandered downstairs to the finished basement, which featured a ceiling of an appropriate height for people of S's height, but sadly head smacking for us taller folk. Then we went upstairs and inspected the bathroom. One thing I've learned from looking at houses built in the 1950's is that people used to be smaller. Or they were really attached to the idea of brushing their teeth while sitting on the toilet. I'm not sure which it is because I didn't live in the fifties.

I'm also hoping for a home with double sinks because S likes to loom around the bathroom when I'm trying to brush my teeth and suddenly swoop in when I need to spit. She claims that its happenstance, but I think it's fair to say that it's an aggressive campaign devised to keep me from using the bathroom. Eventually she'll have the full run of the place, which is what women want. At least according to this great Mel Gibson movie I saw years ago.