Tuesday, November 04, 2008

Snakes On The Carpet

There is a bonus to house hunting right now.

I get to see the fall colors on display in the various neighborhoods.

Aren't these two trees just awesome?

So bright and colorful against the rainy clouds of Mt. Olympus.

I have a little story to tell about when I was growing up in a place where we rarely got much in the way of rain showers. A "shower" was always something that happened in a place where there were handles on the wall, and the water temperature could be adjusted at will.

Now where I grew up was next to the beach, and we spent a lot of time down at the beach swimming and playing in the sand. Such fun, but not so much fun when that same sand got tracked through the house on the way to the bathroom shower.

My dad, being a clever man, realized that it would be much better if we could shower off outside. So he built a small shower in our garage. Because it was just to shower off beach sand, he decided he would build it as cheaply as possible. The tiles were acquired for free if I remember right, tiles of every color of the rainbow, a mis-matched collection that we artlessly called the Mexican tiles.

(We lived near Mexico, and knew that in Mexico, interior design sensibilities bows to financial sensibilities. There it doesn't matter what it looks like, as long as it works.)

Sometimes we would have guests and they always thought our "Mexican" shower was a hoot. I think we were the only family on the block that had a shower that made people laugh.

But....

Apparently we weren't the only family in the world with a Mexican Shower though.

Get a load of this!

This was the shower INSIDE the "Snakes On The Carpet" house.

I couldn't help but wonder if they had somehow heard about the shower in our garage!

Isn't it just GREAT?

So happy, so fun....so funny.

Lord knows that house needed a bright spot.

Take a look at the "family" room:

Aaaaagggghhhhhh....

Mommy, I'm scared! There are SNAKES on the carpet! I don't wanna go down there to play.

Oh come on. Be brave.
Up close, don't you actually LOVE the fall colors that are found in this carpet?
Seriously....it has orange in it.
And all of you know how much we like the color orange!
*****
(You can see how this house looked on line. You can see that this room was actually the "Farmily Room Down." Makes sense to me. A room that is a cross between a farm room and a family room, and it is definitely down. )
*****
Bernie LOVED this house. I HATED this house.
It did have killer good views. But the front door was over that crazy ugly carport! The downstairs was a separate rental unit, and B. is convinced that we could enclose the garage, redo the inside of the house and it would give us great views in two directions.
I say you would still have to hike up an awful lot of steps up to get to the house.
And so it goes.)

8 comments:

Lovella ♥ said...

Pass the computer to Bernie .. .
Bernie. . No . .keep looking.
I agree it has a few "nice" features .. .but that kitchen would need to be gutted. A dishwasher beside the stove will not work. . .and the cabinets seemed awfully dark . . and the snake room is hideous. . . and the shower, while it does bring back nostalgic memories for Jill, it is hideous .. .hideous, I tell you.
It reminds me of the Seinfeld show where Kramer takes a liking to cigars and when he realizes it .. .he says he is hideous .. .many times. ..
Sorry . . . .

Lovella ♥ said...

Pass the computer to Bernie .. .
Bernie. . No . .keep looking.
I agree it has a few "nice" features .. .but that kitchen would need to be gutted. A dishwasher beside the stove will not work. . .and the cabinets seemed awfully dark . . and the snake room is hideous. . . and the shower, while it does bring back nostalgic memories for Jill, it is hideous .. .hideous, I tell you.
It reminds me of the Seinfeld show where Kramer takes a liking to cigars and when he realizes it .. .he says he is hideous .. .many times. ..
Sorry . . . .

Anonymous said...

You mean that you didn't just drool over that range and dishwasher sticking out there like that? Actually, as dated as this house is (in and out), it does have a lot of potential. If you could negotiate that price down lower, you'd have enough for a major redo (yet, there are steps...).

That "farmily room down" reminds me of the family room in our first house - a fixer-upper (it was all we could afford then, but we had DIY-ers and home builders in our immediate families). That first family room had black barnwood paneling, shredded black & white wallpaper, multi-hued green shag carpeting, and a brown-wood ceiling fixture that someone stole from an old farmhouse. We weren't anywhere near a beach, but when we pulled up the carpeting, there was a good inch of sand on the floor!!

We made a killing when we sold that house four years later after all of our improvements.

Unknown said...

I guess I'm more with Bernie on this one. I actually like the house, but then a lot of that is nostalgia. It looks so much like late sixties and early seventies. I agree that it is not for anyone who goes for today's styles. I'm just a little stuck in the past and have so much problems finding the old styles...but they are coming back...

Marie said...

I agree with you, Jill --- keep looking!!

Anonymous said...

Oh dear jill....keep looking! Kathy

Julie said...

I echo Lovella, who is already echoing .. smile!
You need to keep looking ...the mountain view you can have any time you drive by the house! You don't have to live IN the house !!
Unless you can afford to gut and start over ... I say .. run, don't walk back out the front door !!
I never liked the 60's style of home decor so no nostalgic memories for me !!!

Sara at Come Away With Me said...

Hmmmmm, will I think you made the right decision - nix on that house! And, why would a company even MAKE such an ugly carpet? I've never seen anything like it.