House Number One (That Got Away)

Hey all! How is your week going so far? Mine was going pretty well until I discovered a snake in the garage. I'd let our cat Mishka out there to relax (she thinks it's her own personal sweat lodge) and when I went back to get her, I found her batting around a snake which was coiled up and returning the love. At first, I screamed which is totally lame but that said, I'm always glad to see that I can scream in urgent situations as in my nightmares I never can. In my nightmares I always just run around mute, "letting the flies in" as my Grandmother would have said.

I kept yelling for Mishka to come away from the snake but she wouldn't so I had to run over and swoop her up with the snake just inches away. I ran into the house and plopped her down and ran to find boots. I'm a skirt girl and well, I'm not about to go doing snake battle with bare legs. By the time that I actually found boots and got back into the garage, the snake had slithered under something. So there he remains....wherever there is. That said, it's been an excellent excuse for not doing that big pile of laundry as our laundry room is out in the far corner of the garage /cat sweat lodge /snake pit of doom.

I don't mind snakes in general. I mean, I don't bother them if they don't bother me. One time, I was sitting in the grass, languidly weeding under a bush when a large black racer snake slithered right up beside me and just sat there (wait...do snakes sit?) as if to say, "Nice Sssssspring day, isssssssn't it?" I remember jumping up in a way that I never knew that my legs could move. We ended up naming the snake and he'd come through from time to time to sun in the grass. It was an excellent excuse for no more weeding until a neighbor decided to come onto the front lawn and kill him with a big rock while we were gone one day. Rest in peace, Cecil.

As you can probably tell, I'll gladly use visits by snake as fodder for procrastination. I am the worst when it comes to procrastinating. If the life of a human or animal isn't at stake, man alive but I'm so good at putting things off. It's one of my less-than-redeeming qualities. Which brings me to comments! Thank you so much for all of your great comments on my posts. I read each one and never stop getting excited when I see one pop up in my reader. I always take them to heart. I laugh at the funny ones. And furrow my brow at the sad ones. I really, really REALLY love reading your comments! That said, I totally suck at answering comments. I do well when people email me directly from the blog but as for individually answering comments, I am the world's worst and I apologize for that. Just know that I love them and I read them and that I'm stoked to get them! I'm going to try to work on that as soon as I'm out of the weeds of this backlogged life. If you've ever said that I totally suck for not answering comments, well...you'd be right. But do know that I love them and you. (Unless you're one of the people who have left ugly comments and then, I wish you into the snake pit / cat sweat lodge for all eternity! )

Oh! So now on to houses! I had promised that I'd share some of the houses that we considered on the search. The day after we got a call from our agent about the folks wanting to buy our house, we went and saw this home. Well, we couldn't get in but it was vacant so we crawled all over that thing. I wanted this house soooo badly. This was before we realized how urgent the market is here and that it was already being bought out from under us. Anyway, here is house number one which we call "The White House on The Hill".

Sigh, y'all. 

Don't you just love those bushes? It was so gracious looking up there on the top of that hill. I kept screaming "It's my Graceland! It's my Graceland!" as I was running in circles all around it - and trust me, I am not a runner. Mr. Kitsch remained calm and cool which I always hate because if I'm frenzied, I like everyone to be frenzied. He admits now that "everything about that house felt right".

Here is a shot from the front porch.  
And here is the cute little porch. Isn't the ironwork sweet? That's a planter there to the left. 

I just loved the mint trim and how the brick sometimes looked white.. but sometimes pink.



It still had the starburst doorbell which I rang and rang shouting, "It sounds like a mansion!" 

Here you can see the big back patio:



..with Nutone intercom system. 

The house was all original on the inside. Here you can see the kitchen: 


You can just barely see the slate foyer tile there in the background.

Here is the big Den that looked out onto the patio:

I love the big window seat, fireplace and bookshelves. And you can see the intercom system there in the kitchen that connects to the one on the patio. I could just see me out there on the back veranda shrieking "More sweet tea!" to the Mister in the kitchen. And he wouldn't care because the cuteness of our house would make him docile. 

I can also imagine sitting in that big front window and looking over that huge green lawn. And the kitties too. That was one cool thing about the house - all of the major windows looked out across the front lawn, even the kitchen. 

Here is the Dining Room with view to the back yard. 

We couldn't get photos of the bathrooms but it wasn't from lack of trying. The Mister jumped up and down with the camera but couldn't get them. He did say that they were original tile though.  Same thing with the bedrooms but I'm sure they were perfect. This house was totally original. I'm talking never-been-molested-by-the-nineteen-eighties like so many period houses here have been. 
I think we'll always remember the house as "the one that got away". Since we were only on day one of our search, we didn't know it yet but now we really mourn that house. To make matters worse, it only went for $155,000 which would have been a great price. I'm talking waaaay cheap for this town. 
On the flip side, it was pretty close to the interstate retaining wall - not right up against it but close enough to mention. When we were on the back patio, we could hear the traffic. I'd already decided that the noise wouldn't stop us though as when we were in the front yard, we couldn't even hear it, and I know that inside of the house would have been the same. And I'd used my usual "We'll just pretend like it's the ocean that we hear!" that I bring out when a house is near the interstate's roar. To make himself feel better, Mr. Kitsch is still using the "We would have gotten lung cancer from the car emissions" but admittedly, he has pangs of sadness from missing out on this one. 
So, there you have it. The White House On The Hill. My unattained Graceland. Come back next time when I show you the next house that never was. 
Until next time, x's and o's, Eartha