Just Right

We bought a country house. It’s not what you think, and I couldn’t be more surprised.

I have waxed rhapsodic about so many houses that I’m the buyer equivalent of the boy who cried wolf, if the wolf were a house.  

This house surfaced on Realtor.com, unspectacularly. I don’t know why I clicked on it. Maybe it was the bargain price, which was already low for the area, plus they had reduced it by $25,000. The listing photos showed a small yellow ranch, circa 1986, on a half-acre of nature run amok yard. There’s a shed and a chicken coop. It had vinyl siding and two layers of shingle roof that the building inspector would inform us had come to the end of its service life.

When I first met the house in person I entered through the galley kitchen. My first thought was this is manageable. Convenient but quiet location, a dead-end street five minutes from the Appalachian Trail in the tony/quaint town of Salisbury, and a ten minute stroll to Lake Wononscopomuc, the deepest freshwater lake in Connecticut. Apparently, Meryl Streep lives up the road, one street over, and yes, we will be hanging out all the time.

There was natural light, sliding doors to the back deck, and I felt a sense of calm, rather than the itch to knock out walls or raise the roofline. A coat of fresh paint on the walls, and maybe lose the satellite dish. Then, we’re good to go.

Time goes on, and life gets more complicated. Richer, more joyful, so this is in no way a complaint, but I am newly, very newly, longing for simplicity. Not a distraction, not a showplace, but a house that feels like an old friend, rather than a diva.

Manageable has never been my bailiwick, but already, it feels like home.