House Viewing: Run-of-the-hill and Can O' Worms

Yes, I know the house names are getting a bit bizarre. You'll just have to cope, I'm afraid ;)

You wait weeks for a house viewing, and then two come along at once. I was feeling upbeat and optimistic about these houses, and hoping to put the memory of Boat House behind us. I know I'm a soppy bugger, but let's not worry about that just now.

And so it was that this afternoon Sven, Finn, Cassian, Lloyd and I set off to have a look at Run-of-the-hill. I've been stuck for a name for this all day, because despite being a lovely house in it's own way, there was just nothing remarkable about it - nothing at all. I thesaurused (now a word) 'unremarkable' and got 'run of the mill', and since it's a house in the typical local layout and style, which just happens to be on a bloody big hill, it seemed an appropriate pun.

Cassian looks all official and such.

As usual, I digress. The point is, there was just nothing remarkable about this place at all. This isn't such a bad thing in itself, when you think of some of the remarkable things we've seen on our house hunt. The wall of black mould at Mould Mansion. The shrooms at House of Why. Pretty much everything about Liberties Lodge. We've seen a lot of properties that frankly sucked, and this one didn't at all, but it also didn't have much in the way of potential and none of us particularly liked it, or felt anything about it all.

I think we could have coped, but it's on the market for pretty much the top of our (somewhat theoretical and subject to change) price range, and for that you'd like to think we'd, y'know, like to think about it, rather than being completely unable to form an opinion. Weird, but true.

After a sojourn for tea and bourbon biscuits, we went to look at Can O' Worms. This house was a squeeze for us, even on paper, but it was 60k cheaper than Run-of-the-hill and that can buy you a lot of compromise.

Not as much as this house requires though. The prize for the most optimistic estate agent patter I've heard in ages goes to the very nice lady who said "You could use these kitchen units", whilst neglecting to add "After you've disassembled them, hacked the dissolving plaster and rotting skirting boards off, remedied the damp, re-plastered, and then put the cupboards back." Perhaps she just has a talent for being succinct.

Finn is already a pro house-viewer

Anyway, the thought of what else we might find if we moved the cupboards, or tackled any of the other myriad suspect surfaces which abounded throughout, was just too daunting. We don't have the mad skillz necessary for what we could see was wrong, let alone what we couldn't, so we shall have to let this one pass us by too.

Le sigh. I often get this same feeling when I'm looking for something simple, like a pair of trousers for Finn which don't just look like tiny adult trousers*. In my head I'm looking for something terribly straight forward, which surely ought to be commonplace, and yet somehow, I just can't seem to find it anywhere. Houses seem to be similar, in that what we're after isn't something impossible, like a levitating castle with distinctly un-aerodynamic clothes drying apparatus**, although obviously that would be awesome too. Our future house must be here somewhere,  but I guess we just need to rifle far enough down the back of the sofa to find it.

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Ooo, can you tell I'm feeling slightly despondent? Here is something random to cheer both you, and I, up. Those awesome fellows at The Burrow housing co-op, who are also the awesome fellows behind the Naked Vegan Cooking blog, can also be seen being awesome on a Channel 4 documentary about naturism. Their general loveliness comes across beautifully, and if you feel so inclined, you can support their radical nudity by ethically investing in their co-op loanstock. Win all round.

There, I feel much better now :D

- Hannah


* I just want colourful, squishy trousers, but can only find tiny-adult ones with buttons and flies and mock pockets. I know, I'm fussy as well as soppy.
** This is the castle in question, for those who have never watched anime with Sven around.