Homing Devised

The B&W header image for this post is one of my photos from this summer, heavily edited. The abandoned church sits in Eloy, a nearby ghost town not quite dead enough for ghosts yet, though some of its buildings would argue the point. The unedited version included a whole lot more of the chain-link fencing and a web of overhead electrical wires, among other things. I loved the lines of the old stucco chapel. I’m less crazy about the reminders of modern suburban decay.

I originally planned to eradicate the rest of the chain link. Then I decided what’s left of it kind of works. Well, that and my hands are giving me a stink-eye at the idea of spending another 2-3 hours on this photo. Chain link is a beast to clean up without destroying the image.

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Goliath the Pothos is settled into his new spot atop the refurbished stepstool. I trimmed him back a bit; the cuttings are in jars of water to root, sitting on windowsills in the kitchen and living room. Meanwhile, all the moringa seeds are cozily nestled inside a couple of plastic freezer bags, inside my desk drawer until they sprout and I can plant them.

The folk-art painting (above) is a Hil Eldridge original. (G made the floating frame.) It’s still my all-time favorite of Hil’s works. (She no longer blogs, though she and her talented family are active on FB. You can buy prints and other merch at her store.) We have four of her paintings hanging throughout the house.

G promised he’d repaint the frames gray or black, since we now have white walls (vs. the light gray of the tin box where we used to live). He’s got a lot of projects underway at the moment, all of which are higher priority. It’ll get done sooner or later.

And the chair you can just see at the lower right corner? It’s original mid-century, in near perfect condition.

We do love vintage.

Incidentally – after the whiff of reference to G’s genetic procrastination, a call-back to the compass rose he finally hung on the front of the house. He now uses it as a reference point when telling people how to find our house, with the yard-sale stuff he flips. “We’re in the house with the compass on the wall by the front door.” I stifled the urge to laugh out loud when he bragged about it to me.

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Our office Christmas party was Saturday. G and I always enjoy the parties with this company. It isn’t like any other place I’ve worked. Half the time we hug first, say hello second. While there were probably close to 100 of us there, it didn’t feel like a crowd.

I get a respectable bonus every year from work, and every year I split with G. I couldn’t do what I do if G didn’t do everything he does, and far as I’m concerned he earned it as much as I did. He didn’t get half this time, because my entire “half” is going to pay bills. I dropped him off at Home Depot this afternoon. He entered with a nice fat Visa gift card in his pocket, which was his part of the bonus this year. (The rest will be on my next paycheck.) He also had cash in his pocket, but the gift card is his “mad money.” I love being able to share with him every year.

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Other than the multi-day outage from the killer storm this summer, our power is usually pretty stable. We soldiered through a pretty hefty rainstorm last weekend and the electricity didn’t blink once.

Apparently, electrical outages have taken up delayed reactions. The past few days we’ve had weird short-term blips – once, maybe twice a day, lasting a few seconds, just enough to reset all our electric clocks and the Internet setup. This morning, however, it was a little more insistent. Starting at 5:30am, our neighborhood was blinking on and off like Christmas lights, every five minutes or so. The electricity wouldn’t stay up long enough for our Internet router to cycle on, so the day was a wash for work. I handed things over to my partners in crime, took a vacation day, and left the house for a few hours. It’s not crazy cold here but with no power and no Internet, we figured we might as well run some errands.

I’ll spare you the whole Keystone-Cop-esque retrospective on the day. Let’s just say I’m glad to be home and glad the power – and the Internet – are back up again.

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It’s been a while since I posted house porn. I’m still watching the market. Until I retire – when I win the lottery or collect Social Security, whichever comes first – it’s merely window-shopping.

Housing prices in the Midwest have jumped since last year. No surprise, and thankfully not to the same insane degree as in Arizona. This mansion in Centerville, Iowa is within the general area we’re hoping to move. Our preferences range slightly west of Centerville. It’s obviously off our radar regardless, because it’s a two-story house.

I’m still boggled at what you can get in the Midwest for the money. It could use some TLC in a few areas. She looks like she’s livable, though.

The above beauty is 3500sf, with five bedrooms and three baths. While I’m not a huge fan of Georgian columns, the craftsman details inside hit all the right notes.

Which is not to say I don’t appreciate her exterior. You know that bank of downstairs windows means a sun room, dahling. And the second-story wraparound ballustrade is icing on the cake.

A kitchen update is usually welcome in an older home. Here, the 80s-era cabinets and cheap laminate countertip are out of sync with the grandeur of the rest of the home. If I were buying this place, at minimum I’d stain the wood to mimic an antique patina, add period-replica hardware, and replace the craptacular countertops. I’m not in love with the flooring, either, but triage dictates addressing the worst issues first.

I do appreciate the window over the sink, however, and the presence of a dishwasher, outdated or not.

The irony is, they sprung for stainless wall ovens, leaving the fridge and dishwasher basic white. Meanwhile, the countertop range (in the corner in the first kitchen pictures) is black. I guess there’s a cockeyed sort of consistency if nothing matches.

I have zero complaints, however, about the original woodwork, other than how much time it’ll take to Murphy’s-Oil-Soap the living daylights out of everything. The workmanship is spectacular in these old Craftsmans. The accumulated grime, not so much. (You can see it on the floor and the baseboard.)

This staircase embodies both what I adore about Craftsman houses and why I can’t own one. The detailing is magnificent. Rip away the pink carpet and hopefully there are treads to match the bannister and wainscoting. Yet no matter how gorgeous, I can’t do stairs.

Le sigh.

The price point is ridiculously low as compared to the crackerboxes you find in the Phoenix metro area for half a mil and up. Asking for the mansion in southern Iowa is $170K, which includes her half-acre lot. I suspect she’s got enough downstairs spaces we could live there and rehab the upstairs a little at a time, using it only when the kids come to visit. If I had unlimited funds I might buy the place on principle, because it’s easy to see her potential.

The listing is here, and includes several more photos.