Seeing Orange: Functional Adults Aren't Scared of a Weird Paint Job

If Husband hadn’t already been sold on the barn-like appearance of the house I found on Zillow, he was sold when he saw how old it was. He has a noted fondness for old things. The older, the better. He gets really excited when we see, for example, rusty farm equipment somewhere. He likes things more the older they get. If you think about it, it’s a rare and excellent quality in a spouse.

So we headed off to the open house. Excitingly, Sassy was in town so she could come with us to look at it, which was wonderful since she has fantastic taste in all things. As we pulled up outside the house, we saw a young couple moving in across the street and the woman had on a shirt from our own dear Alma Mater University, so I was pleased already.

Before we got out of the car, I cautioned Husband: “If we like it, don’t show too much excitement. We have to stay cool or it could drive up the price.”

Husband, with a suspicious look that seemed misplaced: “Yes, I AGREE we should stay calm.”

I gave him the side-eye and we all went in.

And, dear reader, it was so great. It was 50% bigger than the house we had put an offer in. There were high ceilings with awesome beams.

It had TWO AND HALF bathrooms. It had a back yard with grass and a deck.

And I may have lost my cool a bit. I think I was beaming. Our realtor had to do damage control later when their realtors called her and said, “I think your client really liked it!”

Now, of course, it wasn’t all one-hundred-percent perfect. In fact, a person with lesser vision (and a person who hadn't spent two months of funemployment watching HGTV look easy) might have been scared off by, say, the orange kitchen:

… or an insane wood stove thing:

…. or a bathroom with a strangely angled toilet:

...or another one with insane tile:

No, those didn’t deter me.  Because I had decided this house was going to be ours. And when I get resolved on something, that’s when I come the closest to being a functional adult. Which was a good thing, since we were fixing to become homeowners - which is the third most mature thing I can think of (after parents and elected officials).

Sassy liked it too.  Husband liked it too (because it had a two-car garage he could fill with rusty car parts).

All we had to do was make the offer, get it accepted, and close.

(Yeah, I know, you see it coming too.)