House #29: welcome to the suburbs

It was a very nice little house. Old and stone. Sunny with shutters. A concatenation of three houses, it seems. Lots of grass. Farms surrounding. And western light on the cocktail table. So far so good.

Inside, everything was nice too. Nice kitchen,

nice living room:

And four nice bedrooms, if very small:

There was also a larger master bedroom, and a huge unfinished space that used to be the attached barn, but which now communicates with the house.

And of course lots of yardspace.

It's a very nice house. There's nothing wrong with it. Except that it feels somehow, despite its obvious age, probably 150 years old at least, very suburban to me. This is the American dream, with the green grass and the pool, everything very modern inside and nicely packaged in new wood panelling and new tile flooring.

And I don't want the American dream. Sarah and I are constantly adjusting what we are actually seeking, and we're definitely zooming in on it. And one of the many essential criteria is a quality of magic about a house, spirit, charm. And this house, while very practical and nice, just didn't have it. It was all too normalized inside and out, very exposed with nary a place to hide, the mysteries of its past scoured out and panelled over. Too bad.

I think John is starting to realize that we're looking for more than just the physical aspects that define a house. And the way he's reacting is by turning up the pressure a little bit, and not in necessarily nice ways. It's the same thing "S" did, which is essentially to try to convince us that what we want either isn't possible or reasonable. Which I think is bullshit. Sell me the house I want, don't sell me the house I don't want. Anyway, his attitude is getting stronger as the day goes on. Let's see what the next house has to offer....