Sunday, January 29, 2012
Getting Real
This may be one of the few things I've never admitted on here before, but I'm kind of weirdly obsessed with real estate. When I was a kid, I always tried to get my hands on copies of Architectural Digest while my friends were sneaking copies of comic books or later porn. I would flip through them over and over and imagine the great clerestory my kitchen would have when I got old enough to have my own place. My parents even bought me some of those little paperbacks that are filled with floor plans for houses. I picked out three or four favorites, with my main criteria being lots of square footage and rooms with exotic names I had never heard before, like "media room" or "sex bunker." On one birthday I even got a computer program so I could design my own houses, but it ended up being really complicated and I don't think I ever got much further than slapping a window in a wall. It was a hell of a window, though, I'll tell you that.
I mention all of this solely because I went up to my friends' new house in Evanston last night for dinner and I am feeling a wicked case of real estate envy. Four bedrooms, four baths, a gorgeous open kitchen, and two of the biggest walk-in closets you have ever seen. Coffered ceiling in the dining room and crown molding everywhere. There's even a laundry chute. Can you tell I'm getting a little turned on right now? It was all I could do to stop myself from climbing back in through a window and setting up a squatter's colony in the fully finished basement. If I'd had a toothbrush and a change of clothes with me, it probably would have happened.
This may be one of the few things I've never admitted on here before, but I'm kind of weirdly obsessed with real estate. When I was a kid, I always tried to get my hands on copies of Architectural Digest while my friends were sneaking copies of comic books or later porn. I would flip through them over and over and imagine the great clerestory my kitchen would have when I got old enough to have my own place. My parents even bought me some of those little paperbacks that are filled with floor plans for houses. I picked out three or four favorites, with my main criteria being lots of square footage and rooms with exotic names I had never heard before, like "media room" or "sex bunker." On one birthday I even got a computer program so I could design my own houses, but it ended up being really complicated and I don't think I ever got much further than slapping a window in a wall. It was a hell of a window, though, I'll tell you that.
I mention all of this solely because I went up to my friends' new house in Evanston last night for dinner and I am feeling a wicked case of real estate envy. Four bedrooms, four baths, a gorgeous open kitchen, and two of the biggest walk-in closets you have ever seen. Coffered ceiling in the dining room and crown molding everywhere. There's even a laundry chute. Can you tell I'm getting a little turned on right now? It was all I could do to stop myself from climbing back in through a window and setting up a squatter's colony in the fully finished basement. If I'd had a toothbrush and a change of clothes with me, it probably would have happened.
