Humpty Dumpty

Well that was exciting! We went looking at houses with an agent - a terribly nice guy called Michael Fausett, with a strong Arkansas drawl and an astonishing resemblance to the Confederate general George Pickett (at least as portrayed in Gettysburg).

However, while viewing the first place, we climbed the stairs to see the upper story (the front door led into a sort of half-assed mezzanine, with stairs up and down), and noted that one of the stairs felt pretty wobbly. Well, on the way down again, bingo! I broke it completely, and fell all the way through, down into the lower floor's understairs cupboard, about 12 feet in all.

Fortunately the space was empty, and there were no exigent nails or splinters: and I landed on my feet intially before falling on my arse, so no serious damage was done - I've scraped and bruised the undersides of my upper arms (trying to slow my fall by bracing them on the risers), and banged my calves and bum with a few bruises as well, but nothing broken. Quite a shock - tho I think Cat and Michael were more shocked than I was :)

Nevertheless, after a few minutes recovering, I got up & we got on with the house-hunting - I was a bit surprised at myself, truth to tell: I 'm usually such a wimp about pain, but this didnt hurt too much and, unlike when you trip and fall, or have a slip, it didnt' shake my inner self-confidence, that essential understanding that you know how to cope with the world (which I found does get shaken up when you have a fall usually) ... perhaps just because it was so outlandish and weird, and it's not something that is going to happen every day. Michael has gone off to check with his boss about liability, having never heard of it happening before (not that I'm planning to sue or anything, but it's wise for him to know in case it ever recurs I guess).

Well the houses were all fairly interesting. I think we have it down to 3 contenders, of the bunch we saw today:

The Broken-stairs house, $130k on a quiet cul de sac. Great private yard, needs repairs (haha), and the add-on back room needs to be completely replaced essentially (done quick&dirty), the whole place needs redecorating & the downstairs area prolly needs relaid floors. Still, it's very large, quiet, and relatively cheap

The Parapool house (no not really), $142; on another quiet cul de sac. Another big yard, again private, possibly some road noise (a main road is through the fence & the line of trees out back, but the trees seem to screen the noise fairly well). Allegedly 1760sqft, but I'm sure it's more - or the architect was a genius at using space, because the place has 3 big bedrooms, a smallish kitchen, a large dining room, and two large reception/lounge rooms. Move-in ready, and nicely done (the stone-flagged fireplace really appealed to Cat). My favourite, I think. Oh, single level, which is frankly getting to be a big deal - we both have creaky knees that will only get worse with time in honesty.

The Dennison house, $113K (and prolly will go lower, it's been on the market for months), on a very quiet street, much closer to the city centre and in a gentrifying/gentrified area. Old, 1930s or so, and needing a lot of refurbishment, but a lot of lovely touches, such as a wrap-around porch, high ceilings, a couple of large reception rooms, and an eat-in kitchen area, plus a huge and refitted bathroom. Upstairs the attic has been converted into a single big open room, light and airy and well done from the look of it. The yard out back is not huge, but includes a drive-on area for parking (down a little alley), and is pretty private and well-screened by lots of trees. This is far and away Cat's favourite, so far.

I can see that the Dennison house is the one with a lot of potential: any work and money put into it will appreciate greatly, and it's in an area destined to keep appreciating anyway. My doubts are over the (narrow, steep) stairway, and simply the amount of work it's going to involve: no major structural rebuilds, but a new kitchen, quite a few walls re-gibbed, possibly even a ceiling relined. Still, it may well make the most financial sense - I kinda yearn for somewhere I could move in & not bother about for once, but that isn't Cat's point of view (at least not yet - and I suspect even when she's working regularly, she will feel the same way).

Decisions, decisions! Anyway, my wrists are starting to ache now, time to go and rest a bit.