House Updates

To tell the truth, there haven't been that many house updates since we moved in in December. I am not discouraged, though.

Yesterday, I saw a high-school-aged boy coming up our front steps and automatically assumed who it was: let's call him Matt*. Matt's the boy who used to live here. He was stopping by for the pictures Bob had found while cleaning closets when we first moved in. I've mentioned it before, but I was amazed at how gracious this kid is! (I've communicated with him via Facebook once or twice, re: the pictures.) Caroline met him, and then Lily, the Great Dane lumbered down the stairs. She is usually annoyingly friendly/curious/protective when someone comes to the door, but she glanced at him and just headed on into the kitchen (the opposite direction of the front door). I told Bob that it seemed like she just knew he was a good guy.

*Not his real name.

Anyway, enough about Matt's goodness. He glanced around and mentioned that it looked pretty much the same ... yep, we've not done much yet! I asked him about the spot over the fireplace; there was clearly a huge frame over the fireplace. It had been painted around more than once, and I have been assuming it was a mirror. He said, yes, it was a mirror, and he thought his dad still had it and was planning to sell it. Under normal circumstances, I'd be annoyed, because the mirror looked like it had been built-in, so it should stay with the house! I know these things; I'm a realtor! But... this family lost their house to foreclosure, had a $14,000 federal tax lien on the house, which we discovered when we had title work done, and recently, I discovered the sheriff had delivered a court summons (rubber-banded to our front door) for Matt's dad, due to failure to pay according to a credit card settlement.

The reason I can't get over Matt's "goodness" is that it seems to me he could be really bitter about all this. I'm sure their life has changed a lot in the last year; they lost their house, they can't pay their bills, they're getting sued by a credit card company... and Matt's wondering if I've met the neighbors yet, because they're so nice! Seriously, I'm impressed. Anyway, I told him I'd check with Bob, but we might be interested in buying the mirror from his dad. He told me it came from a bar in Chicago. I'm liking the sound of this more and more... we could maybe help them out a little, and end up with a cool (huge) mirror with a neat history. I've also realized that the mirror was not original to the house, and there's no reason to have expected it to stay with the house. All that to say that I emailed Matt this morning and told him we'd like to at least see the mirror, or a picture of it.

Bob and I hung the porch swing this morning. We've brought it with us from our first house, and we love it dearly. Caroline and I sat in it this morning and watched cars go by.

This is depressing. I really thought I had at least a couple of things to mention in this list of things we've done to the house, but nope. Nothing. Maybe we can change that soon. I'm itching to spend some time at Home Depot soon, looking at paint colors.

Oops-- I've got a baby waking up.