The sweet symphony of hammer and nail...

Today I am working in a construction zone.

Today, they have begun siding my house.

I am delirious with glee over clean white vinyl. I mean, you guys, you just have no idea. I love my adorable little white cottage, I always have, but the woman who remodeled it and sold it to me was, well, less interested in doing things right than making them look nice. She cut corners where I would have made long term solutions part of the package, and the peeling exterior of my shabby little home is a testament to her and her poor attitude. But now, two men and a bevy of saws and hammers are outside, varnishing over her incompetence with low maintenance plastic glory. I am in love with home repair, particularly when my sweat is not required, only my cash. These men and their hammers are worth every penny.

Also on the home front (ha ha, pun!), Matt and I attended an open house at my little dream cottage yesterday. A heavy dose of reality is good when dealing with dreams and houses, as we certainly discovered. Yes, the bones of the house are as beautiful as I'd hoped. But, oh, my friends, my baby would need quite a bit of work. The ex-husband of the seller was in charge of the remodeling originally, and if his work is any indication of his marriage, I can see why they are divorced. He was much more ambitious than skilled, as evidenced by the tiles that peeled off the new shower like a bad sunburn, or the "modern" new sink that looked like he'd put it together with a tube of caulk and several hasty prayers. He ruined several rooms with bad carpet, including the stairway, where instead of laying the carpet OVER the stairs, he CUT INTO them, and ran the carpet in the grove, making it now impossible to remove unless we plan to entirely re-build the stairway. To be frank, this guy was a moron, and I'm glad he can no longer do this house any harm. But, of course, I do still like it. I still really like it. If this house and I were in sixth grade, I would secretly dream about it asking me to slow dance in the cafeteria. The bright side of all this repair gloom and doom is that the listing agent was very honest with us about the situation. The seller is out of money, and patience. She can't finish all the repairs, so they know the listing price is way too high, and they are willing to negotiate. And we don't mind that we'd get to work on this house, make it our own, fix what has been broken so that we can make a family there. We actually really like that. Just not at their price. So, we'll talk it over some more with our parents, we'll get appraisals and estimates, and continue to plug away at our own little single-person abodes, getting them ready for someone new to love. And maybe we'll buy that little dream cottage and maybe we won't, but mostly the important thing is that we're on a path. That feels good.