The Dream House (part 3)

I reached out to the seller's agent, and sent e-mails to our bank, because in Covid times you can’t even look at a house if you don’t have a pre-approval letter from your financial institution. Then back to our remodel with my parents. It was all going so well! My parents brought their airstream trailer over and the giant, rusty dump truck full of scaffolding, sawzalls, nail guns and the works for tools. My dad and I made all of the supply runs and we picked up those used windows C had found. When we first saw them, we couldn’t even tell if they were nice, because they were so thickly covered in dirt and dust. But once we got them home and sprayed off, we could see that they were actually brand new and had never been installed. Score!

Another amazing and unexpected find was something I just needed my mom’s fresh and artistic eye to spot. I had been pondering a way to upgrade our rock ring fire pit. I wanted it to be able to have a table top of some sort, because we rarely used it for fires, and now that most of our socializing is done outdoors, maybe it would make it a more comfortable sitting and eating space when family was visiting. Even though this idea wasn’t really a priority, my mom looked at their cabin for more rocks or bricks for me, and she tried to help figure out the best way to help me make this happen. (I had been inspired by the brick fire ring at their cabin, and the tabletop that my dad had made for it.) She brought me several nice rocks when they came over to remodel the room. We arranged the new rocks with the old ones, and after a quick peek around my yard, she came back to me and said, “Ruthie, what about this?!” She was pointing at a large black pot that I was using to grow a few plants. “Yes!! That’s it!!” It was actually a cauldron that my Grammy had given me around when we had first bought our house. So we emptied it of plants and hosed it off and rolled it over to the fire ring!! Perfect! I haven’t found the table top yet, but right away we started having evening fires, and it is just the most wonderful, witchy fire pit I can imagine! Many good spells will be cast there.

We had a great time. We all did construction during the day, with breaks for good food, splashing in “Blubby” the pandemic bag pool with the kids, and lots of playing with Beau James, the doggie. In the evenings, we drank wine and ate more good food and made fires and s’mores, cast happy spells and sang happy songs around the cauldron fires. 

During the second week of remodeling, I figured out a plan to see the house in Port Ludlow. It was officially on the market as a “hot home”. Offers would be reviewed in less than a week. I figured that we might as well get ourselves out there to see the house before it was gone, so we made an appointment with the seller's agent to see the house. Sadly, S and her family would be away for the day so we wouldn’t get to see them. Her parents, lived just behind them in the same driveway, so S insisted that we go visit them and see the dahlia garden. We invited C’s parents to come see the house with us and they agreed.

That Sunday morning, we got up early and caught a ferry from Edmonds. The sun was out, and there was hardly a cloud in the sky. The salty air refreshed our lungs, and like most times that we go out to the peninsula or the San Juan Islands, we exclaimed, “Why don’t we do this more often?!” It is just so beautiful. We turned on to the driveway, and there looking out over the water was the sweet house. Right behind it and in front of S and her husband M's house, was a sailboat with a giant sign that read DUMP TRUMP. We chuckled, because we figured that they were ‘subtly’ doing what they could to let their future neighbors know who they would be living next to. 

It looked like a LOT of people were interested in this particular house. Several other agents were there, and there was a showing right before ours, and we heard that it was booked all weekend. When we got our chance to look around, I went inside the front door and really couldn’t see any of it, because THAT VIEW! I had to have my mother-in-law take a close look at the details, because when you are blasted with that much beauty, things become a little bit surreal.

It was just stunning. The open kitchen/dining/living room looked right out over the sound and to the east. The main floor bedroom and the upstairs bedroom had the same unbelievable view. The house had an adorable spiral staircase and a Harry Potter closet under the stairs that my kids wanted to move into right then and there. It had a very nice enclosed garage that looked like it would be an amazing art studio and project area. Oh, and apple trees and a garden and a tree house. A home with a VIEW! It was a dream that I had never even thought to entertain, because it seemed so unattainable. To even allow myself to imagine living there gave me a new sense of love for my own human experience. For what could be my life!!

After we looked around, we walked up the driveway to have a visit with, S’s parents. We chatted with them for an hour or so about the neighborhood, gardening and the fact that S's kids, (who are almost exactly our kids ages), were organized with other kids in the area as a school pod so that the parents could work. Then Maggie loaded me up with bouquets of gorgeous dahlias and apples from the trees and we went to Fort Flagler to spend the rest of that bluebird day picnicking on the beach with our kids and Cam’s parents. It was lovely. 

Then we went back home to Seattle. Our little house was just as dear and welcoming and still in the middle of a big (for us) construction project. We settled back in and I was pretty much completely convinced that there was no way we would be able to get that house, because with all the interest, there was sure to be a ‘bidding war’, and that was just not for us, no matter how amazing the opportunity might be.