Friday, December 10, 2010

No Certainty

I remember before I got married I asked myself how I could be sure that this was the right thing to do. I heard no peal of trumpets or little voice in my ear, and it is the same now, many years later, as we prepare to buy our first house.
Today we went back to look at the place in Lake Forest, the one we couldn't see because it was dark and the electricity had been turned off. We were sure that we really liked the shape of the place, the complex it was in, its relative closeness to Irvine, for a place that was not in town.
The owner and her friend were in there painting and cleaning, and by the light of their portable lantern (a large, bright one), I saw that the living room/kitchen area was really quite small. The fixtures were somewhat old and shabby, including the stove, the toilets, the tubs (though one of the tubs was a very large, deep one). The sinks were small, and there was no storage area in the two full bathrooms. The kitchen was small and plain.
There is a fireplace, which seems to have been stuccoed over and decorated with hand-painted leaves, rather amateurishly, but not in an unattractive way, more like primitive art. There is no walk in closet in the bedroom, like the very large one we have now.
I realized we would have to get a t.v. that we can hang on the wall because there is nowhere to put the big old cabinet style tv we have now. But on the other hand, there were big windows, filling the place with light, even in the waning hours of the day.
I also looked at two places in Tustin, near 17th St. They are much older, and old-fashioned in design in comparison to the Lake Forest Place. But they are considerably bigger--nearly 1500 sq ft to the 1260 sq ft of the LF place. And there were two walk in closets. But the garage was poky, perhaps not big enough for even one car. They are also in very good repair, with new fixtures and a far bigger kitchen, which has a lot of storage and a patio with a flourishing tree full of oranges.
When I had to make up my mind, I couldn't. There was too much traffic to go back down and take R to see the Tustin place, since he hadn't gone with us to see that.
He will go see it with the realtor without me tomorrow morning.
Making up one's mind is difficult.

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