Come Live Here: imaginary house tours
Have you ever wanted to live surrounded by wood? I mean a lot of wood? Now you can! It is right by Lake so you could get up in the morning, hop into the lake and have a quick swim; then feel a little itchy afterward. It is a nice lake. Though back in the bad old days of the 1950s/60s no one was allowed to swim in that lake. (Apparently they thought it wasn’t a good idea to swim around raw sewage. And these days they call people fragile snowflakes.) If you take a walk further down the lake you can watch the hydroplane races once a year. Or at least watch drunk people on their boats watching hydroplanes racing. Another fine lake tradition. But let’s cross the street and go back to the house. The home has multiple levels (4) and there are stairs and doors leading everywhere. I think what we have here is a house ideal for a French farce. Just get yourself a saucy maid and some sort of sexually repressed English person and you are set. There is a woodstove and a fireplace. A little something for everyone. I can attest that a woodstove is useful when the power goes out. Which it will. It is a windy part of the world and we like to have the power go out in the middle of winter. As a child there were a number of occasions when we would have to cook a meal on the woodstove. (We had ancient power lines where I lived and they went down more often than Colin Farrell.) I distinctly recall many cups of hot cocoa and not quite grilled cheese sandwiches. Now you can have the same experience with your own wood stove. Please note the stained glass windows. It seems that someone either took a course and got arty or they went and ransacked several churches circa 1974. I like stained glass but the glass in the bathroom looks like a folk mass is about to be put on. Where are the guitars and tambourines??? Where are the whole wheat hosts for communion? “Michael Rowed the Boat Ashore…Alllll-leeeeigh-looooooooooooooo-YAH…Michael Rowed the Boat Ashore….” Wave those Palm fronds!!! Bathing will never be the same ever again.
Let’s go into the kitchen. Some modern appliances (because nothing says 1997 like a stainless steel fridge.) mixed with a red stove. I would love to get an up close look at that stove. It looks like it might be a classic. There are so many dials and things on the back. Is it NASA era? Will it make tang? But then you get distracted because there appears to be a view out the kitchen. At least into the forest. Knowing that part of the neighborhood I am guessing the house is built into the side of a ravine or something. So you can go out onto the decks. (there are several) and do things like lean over and drop your hat or your drink and it sits there for several months until the cold and leaves claim it. Another part of the house has many many bookshelves and big windows. For some reason it reminds me of the old Elliott Bay Bookstore in Seattle. Those who have been there know that the place has a similar look to the house. Lots of wood and built-ins. So now you can make your own miniature Elliott Bay experience. Though I don’t know if the house comes with the squeaky floor boards. I realized years ago that Elliot Bay would be a difficult place to do any subtle assassination a la some spy movie as the damn floor boards would give you away quick. Maybe if you buy this home you can also fill it with some guy who is always in your way and practically camps out in one section and you wonder if he is a rumpled academic. But no he is just a guy who camps out right where you are trying to get at a book. Geez guy, do you follow me around? If you can’t afford the guy I am sure a cat will do. The cat will even camp out on the newspaper you are reading. Like I said there is a lot of wood going on. You can play out your log cabin little house on the side of a hill fantasy or something.
Now there is a room I am saving for last.
The bedroom.
A circular bed. They took Jennifer’s bed from WKRP and installed it just for the occasion. It totally changes the whole vibe of the place. Quirky wood house becomes a “hide-away” owned by a guy named Jeff or maybe Randy. It is sometime in the mid-70s and he has this vague job as an “Entrepreneur”. He invites you over to listen to Deep Purple, maybe the Doobie brothers. He puts on some weird incense that he says he picked up in the Orient. (who says the Orient? Oh yeah…Randy does.) He has opened up this bottle of wine that is vaguely Spanish.
“I dig things that are a little more…European.”
“um…okay.”
He talks a bit about this EST course he took and how it has really freed up his life. He decides to give you the grand tour and of course you end up in the bedroom and he has a blue light bulb or something in there so you feel like your Aunt Mildred did when she had cataracts. When he flicks this one switch Black Magic Woman starts playing and you are like, “Oh he can’t be for real.” But you are kind of into it because A. you have had a lot of wine and not a lot to eat. B. Okay so maybe the blue light makes Randy or Jeff or whatever his name is… maybe it is Jean yeah.. how about Jean. Jean sounds hotter than Randy. Randy works at Radioshack or something. Anyways Jean is beginning to look good. And he starts talking about how he is into genuine truth and he wants to offer you some genuine truth and you don’t say much because you wondering to yourself, “did I wear granny panties?” (Sometimes after drinking wine you can’t remember which pants you put on.) He says the truth of the matter is that you would look better without your shirt and that really two adults should get naked together and be cool. Yeah. That is his truth. Can’t argue with that kind of truth can you?
The next morning he makes you some coffee “Picked it up when I was in South America” (you think…wait I have seen that stuff at the hippie health food store) and then you need to get going because you can’t go to work the way you are. Plus you probably lost your pants somewhere. He talks about how you and him should get together for some fondue and fun. He is a vague man. Eventually over the years Jean becomes stuff of legend when you tell stories about him. Did he really exist? What about that round bed? No one is really sure.
Just under 600,000 and comes with a garage! What a find.
