Wednesday, August 6, 2008

Hausfrau

I grew up in a cooperative subdivision - cooperative as in friendly, but also as in co-op. All the families kicked in some money to buy an orchard and house plans and building supplies, and then donated a whole lotta their own labour to build a community. Of maybe three different houses repeated over and over, none of them glam.

My dad solved the perennial storage problem in ours by putting an 8'x10' piece of board across one end of a basement area otherwise partitioned off by curtains and finishing it with blackboard paint. I drew chalk houses on that thing for hours at a time, and they were all glam, even the treehouses.

I've never lost that obsession for interesting places to keep my stuff, and perhaps that explains why even now I yearn for a new home... a new old one, that is, with a fireplace and a window seat and a big porch from which to admire a different cute house across the street.

All of which is to say that when not writing, online viewing of real estate listings is a wonderful place to pass the time, and maybe even sort of productive! if I move some day. Criminy. Maybe I'll have to, just to justify all the hours I spend on MLS.

1 comment:

Karen said...

Oho...I've been there! Love me some good real estate browsing. Especially when it involves a small but unbearably cute house on a Gulf Island between Victoria and Vancouver. Bonus points if I can actually imagine affording it!