buying things for a house we don't own.

there's a serious dearth of houses in TFMA at the moment. the past two weeks have been the start of what promises to be an excellent if not chaotic holiday season. and mercury is in retrograde. so we're holding off on our initial loan paper work (which is actually finished and sitting on our kitchen table) and the house hunt is on a bit of a hiatus. not to say that i haven't checked my real estate bookmarks three times this week, just that when i do, i can't seem to get excited.

that being said, there is a mysterious house on the Hill, that has a Better Homes & Gardens Realty sign out front. i just can't find any information about it online. and frankly, i'm okay with that. we'll deal with it in january.

in the meantime, i bought a table today.



a long, glorious norweigan relic of times gone by. with a set of six chairs that don't match the table but are close enough. and that offer a weekend project in recovering their seats. and while it works great in our dining room now, i can't help but imagine the host-greatness that i'll achieve once it fills in our "some day" dining room.

so here's to cheap finds and future dinner party dreams. i have plenty of seating, so you're all invited.

congratulations are in order

congratulations zara bode and stefan amidon, on the acceptance of your intial offer on what is, without a doubt, the best house on the market in turners falls.*

*for superstition's sake, i knocked on all the pieces of wood in my living room before i posted this.


i love this house. i can't stand how much i love this house. when zara and stefan surprised matthew and i two weeks ago, in the middle of a crazy wednesday evening of running errands, visiting my folks and trying to get our weekly budget done before midnight, with a visit right after they had seen this house i could only hope we'd see this day. i didn't think it would come this quickly though.

when i first saw the listing for this house, i was iffy. the exterior isn't what i had in mind for matthew and i at all. initially i thought it was a little too sweet, a little too cottage-y. no sir. it has just the right amount of quirkiness to make me love it.

these pictures really don't do it justice.


those excellent doors lead you into the next photo, which is a phenomenal sunroom. SO. MUCH. LIGHT. i hear that z & s want to use this as an office/reading room. i couldn't agree with the sentiment more.

one of the only awkward moments is this weird cabinet next to the fireplace. zara and i had an EXTENSIVE conversation about this space, revolving around changing out the firebox and destroying those sconces. there's a weekend worthy project here with a big pay-off. exactly the sort of thing i want to be able to tackle in a house. that cabinet should probably go too. it would be worth it to pony up the cash and have a real craftsman come in and build matching bookshelves on either side of the mantle.

the rest of the photos in the listing don't convey the perfection of this house for a small family. the bathroom upstairs has another week/weekend-ish project that involves ripping out a dated shower stall. but the rest of the bathroom is perfect! a linen closest, a huge window, tasteful clean tile and access to the pipes and whatnot through a semi-secret door that will give a child an afternoon of narnia inspired fun. the bedrooms aren't huge but there are three and the woodwork throughout looked flawless. (zara remember what i said about painting any of it.) there's a perfect pantry, a big deep sink, a water-closet right off the kitchen . . . i could really go on and on about this house.

full disclosure moment. having zara and stefan house hunting in the same pool of houses as matthew and i had the potential to be terrible. wouldn't it be awful to find a house that both of us fell in love with? what if we were blinded by real estate lust and couldn't overcome our need for sun rooms and water closests? thankfully, we're better than that. and matthew nixed my dreams of this house, because of its proximity to sheffield elementary school. so if its not right for us, i'm thrilled that it was right for z & s.

so congratulations on your first offer being accepted! here's to inspections, quick and painless, and an easy signing before christmas.

seven / ten

i figured, how hard can it be to make a list of ten reasons we want to buy a house. how hard is that? honestly?

actually hard.

i asked matthew to make me a list of his reasons, for this blog and without my input (which is kind of a big deal, because we do next to everything together). while he leapt at the challenge, he only came up with seven. i made it ten but some of them might be a bit questionable. dear reader, i leave that to you to judge. here they are, in no particular order of importance.

matthew's list
1. wealth in solid form - i want to invest in land because i believe that property is a good first sign of wealth
2. privacy - i don't like sharing my space
3. my rules - no being dictated to by landlords ! (puppies?)
4. exciting project - an endless list of fun improvements to make with alex
5. in part because you (alex) want it so badly, i want to see you happy [GUSH]
6. space - need it! (storage space that is)
7. i vote in town meeting so it be nice to pay property taxes

alexander's list
1. dog
2. paying off a debt rather than giving $$$ to a landlord for an indeterminate amount of time
3. space: for guests, storage, more plants
4. projects in home
5. gardening!
6. a more firmly rooted place in the community
7. personal dream of owning an older home
8. starts a new chapter in the life of the owner
9. increases personal wealth which eventually leads to cafe ownership *
10. artistic safe space/hombodiness

* i understand that the idea of the majority of a persons wealth being tied up in their home is pretty much kaput at the moment, but there is some value historically to the status homeownership bestows on a person. and banks are more likely to lend to you once you show how responsible you are at paying a mortgage, amiright?

some clarification:
we have wanted a dog for just about as long as we've been together (seven years strong) and everywhere we've lived, we haven't been able to have one. our buddy, romeo the cat is a great substitute for the time being but nothing beats a four footed friend you can take for walks and who will lick your face. so whenever we talk about buying a house, getting a dog is a big part of that. like as soon as we have the keys we're going to dakin. so there's that.

i'm also an avid houseplant gardener but have mediocre light in our current apartment. this was one of the reasons i loved 253 silver street so much. that porch would have let me have a jungle of indoor foliage.


so what makes a reason valid for wanting to own a home? how do we know we're doing this for the "right reasons"? any thoughts you, dear reader, might have on the subject, would be greatly appreciated. and i promise, there will be another potential house posting very soon.

253 silver street, greenfield ma

if you asked me if i have a dream house, right this minute, 253 silver street would be my answer. this house has been on the market for some time, i'm sure i remember seeing it over the summer of 2010. i think at that point it was priced quite a bit higher and i dismissed it as a dream that could never come true. now, my dream house is apparently under deposit.

i've been thinking about starting this blog for about a week now. i knew that this would be the first house i wrote about because it is such a freaking gem. having driven by the lot obsessively for most this summer, i can say it looks too good to be true. i should take a minute to admit something. i am an internet real estate junkie. i used to do it with apartments when we lived in brooklyn, because the apartment we lived in was such a joke. i'd troll my dream neighborhoods and look at all the great spaces i'd never be able to rent. it helped me refine my tastes and gave me a feeling for pricing and basic real estate terms. i hoped once matthew and i got married, we'd be ready to buy a house. well, we're married and itchin' for a place to put down roots. i know matthew is too. hence, househunting. but until now we haven't been serious enough to actually visit any properties (i worried that going to see a house i loved would make it so much harder, since we weren't ready to buy). our lease ends in just about eight months.

let's buy a house.

sadly, it won't be 253 silver street. i guess this is a lesson in being too cautious, or just bad luck. i've checked the status on like, a weekly basis, for the past couple months. it hits so many sweet spots for me - just a great fantasy. the fact that it is in greenfield, not turners falls (where we're 99% sure we want to live but greenfield has some great options in the old house market, so it's hard to ignore) was a black mark for sure. but tonight i went to cohn & company's website and there it was staring me in the face. under deposit.

253 silver street, greenfield ma


welcome home.

there are a second set of the same three windows, behind the photographer.
and those stairs! check out the full listing for another, even better view.

the porch, which looks fantastic from the outside, seems a little dark. but i had faith.

simple and clean, without the wallpaper of course.

and the perfect backyard.

i liked silver street because for what looks like such a small house from the street, she really packs a punch with her details. the yard it manageable and fantastically landscaped. the grey has the right amount of distinction and modernity to resonate with me, the red door is like the dot on a 'i'. it seals the deal.

i can't really stress how into that living room with the fire place and built-out stairs i am. the kitchen is probably the reason i never took 253 to a serious-enough-to-visit place. it seems like there's a nice amount of flow in the space, but matthew would never go for it. not enough room for big production meals. which i am ever thankful for and appreciative of. so, we'll have a big kitchen. that pantry almost makes you think twice about it though, right?

the bedrooms are probably pretty small. the horizontally paneled room would clearly be an office (most likely, matthew's) and one of the bedroom's would work as a second for myself. i'm a big proponent of not having a palatial master bedroom (i don't love the idea of a sitting area where i sleep), so the size didn't really bother me. the floors look great, all the wood work does really throughout. there seemed to be only a little bit of work taking down wallpaper, but of course, not having looked at the place in person you can never know what secrets are being kept.

i'm glad someone wants 253 silver street. i'm sure their paperwork will go through and they'll live a long happy life with that amazing staircase and the magic outdoor spaces on this corner lot. but maybe it won't and in i can sell matthew on that kitchen after all.