9:17 a.m. - 2002-03-13
The Inner Secrets of Hickory Hill
My writing muse seems to have taken a quick jaunt to Tahiti, probably with some hunky Hemingway-wanna-be. I can understand why I am no longer of interest to her - we are in the throes of negotiations on yet another house, and whenever this happens I am unfit for communication with muses of any kind. I spent a whole day in the studio yesterday staring into space and mumbling "Hickory Hill....Hickory Hill..." like a Transcendental Meditation mantra.
Yes, we are going to put in a bid on the Hickory Hill house! After days of hemming and hawing about whether it would be a good house for us (well, it is VERY 1960's!! And all those SUV's in the neighborhood sort of got to me, since I drive a 1988 Toyota Corolla with a "Free Tibet" sticker on it) we decided to go and just have a look at the inside. Surprisingly, it's not quite the cosmetic nightmare we expected!
The first thing that struck me about this house is that it is humungous. Really, seriously, humungous. At one point I couldn't figure out how to get from the upstairs to the kitchen! This is not usually a good sign for me! As Bruce pointed out, each of the cats could have their own room.It would certainly solve the Athena/Tylenol problem.
The living room is like a bowling alley, with a strange old-lady-type chandelier at one end that's at a perfect height for Bruce to get socked right in the eye. The room is not just big enough to swing a cat, it's big enough to swing several hundred cats!
And it has lime green carpeting, with barf stains!!
The kitchen has some promise. The cabinets need a paint job but aren't hideously ugly. The ceiling tiles need to be replaced. The floor has yucky linoleum tile, but it is at least not chipped up. It has enough room to swing maybe two or three cats, and opens onto a small dining room area, which opens onto a strange, huge, wood paneled, recreation/patio/put-your-feet-up-and-pretend-you're-at-a-ski-lodge-type room. It has big glass windows and a couple of glass doors that look out onto the outrageously beautifully overgrown backyard.
There are stairs from this room that lead up to a small storage room and a large bedroom with bright, screaming, red carpeting and a full bathroom. See why I got lost? Are you still with me? And we haven't even gotten to the bedrooms on the first floor or the little wierd library type room!! It just goes on and on!
Oooh, and now for my favorite part - the bathrooms. I have such a bath-taking obsession that they are one of the first things I look at in a house!
I am happy to report that Hickory Hill has three bathrooms, and two of them are truly fabulous. The first floor one has carpeting which pulls right up to reveal - ceramic floor tile!! And even though it's 60's, it's tasteful 60's, with little tiny tiles in various shades of blue! And the bathtub is clean, with no strange rust stains!!
The upstairs bath is white ceramic tile, very clean, just the facts, no frills. The only bizarre thing is the toilet, which is strangely squatty and close to the ground. It is like no toilet I have ever seen in my life. Even David, our agent, is flummuxed by it. It's like a toilet for a deformed troll.
So we are putting in a bid. I have gotten beyond the point of getting emotional about these houses and I definately am not too emotional about this one. On one hand I think it would be fabulous to have all that room but on the other hand I'm not sure I can live in a house I get lost in, Bruce and I might never see eachother, and how the hell will we heat the place!
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