House hunters

We're going to go to a couple of open houses today for some houses that are on the market. We are not really looking, but always looking if you know what I mean. We know this house we live in won't be our last house and we have strong ideas about what we want our last house to provide. So we go looking around and comparing and gathering information on the market (which will be outdated in 10 or 15 years when we finally do sell this house).

We love the house we live in, but it's not a great "final" house. Too many stairs, too inaccessible, only a single garage, laundry in the basement. But practicalities aside, it's a great house and one we have loved in spite of its flaws. It's a Cape Cod which means it has no eaves and the siding nearly touches the ground. That means all rain goes directly to the foundation and it's impossible to bank up the dirt around it because of the low, low siding. It also means you're standing in the rain when you're fumbling with the lock with arms full of groceries. No front porch. No covered porch.

It does have lovely lines, beautiful flow, charming arches and simple yet weighty woodwork. It creaks to remind you that it's old and that you're not the first pair of feet walking across its wood floors. There's not a square corner or plumb wall in the house, and yet it still stands and is finished with all of that settling nonsense. The neighborhood is treed and cozy and full of many, many different styles of houses so it's not boring or simple to walk around. There is always something new to see that you hadn't noticed before.

But we know we probably won't end up here. As boring as it sounds, we want a brick ranch house with living space and utilities all on the same level. We want it to have a basement but we don't want to have to do the laundry down there. We'd like a bathroom in the master bedroom (what a concept!) and an attached double garage. We want a shady back yard that is fenced, preferably privacy fence. It doesn't need to be huge but must accommodate a couple of pugs and the occasional visiting grand-dog. We'd like the kitchen to be large and perhaps open to the dining and maybe a bar or an island separating the two. We probably don't want something that will require more than paint and elbow grease, because we've done the remodeling, gut job route and it's tiring and expensive. We know we could do it but we don't really want to.

So we go to open houses and dream about the day we'll find our final house. Low maintenance, simple, big enough to accept visiting family and small enough to manage on a day to day basis. We're a long ways off, but I guess it says something for our lives that we dream of our future together and enjoy the process of getting there.