The Museum and The Wind Farm
Hi there. I'd really love to write a very long and involved post tonight. But I started my day with an early alarm in my head. That is, I was alarmed that my head felt like it had a pulsating stone in it that grew and shrank with each beat of my heart. Namely, I have a migraine. Foo. I've turned my screen brightness down to near nil so we'll see how this goes.
A few days ago, I saw a property on the webs that was nearly perfect on paper. The home was larger than I was hoping for (3 beds, 2 baths), but it's on 8 acres, has two wells, a large water tank, a view, pretty decently in our price range... It was a bit over an hour from Chris's work, which isn't ideal but we're just about resigned to him having a long-ass commute.
We arranged with Melissa to see it today. Then this morning I was looking at new properties that have popped up on the app. There was one in Campo (another pretty far off place) that looked... not quite as good but certainly worth seeing. Surprisingly, they were having an open house today before we were set to see the other property, so we arranged to meet there an hour prior.
The drive to 2531 Lake Shore Dr in Campo is pretty innocuous. It's straight east on 8 and then some twists and turns off the highway through a teeny and cute little possibly downtown section. It's tough to tell what the center of town is because, well... it's tiny. Similar to the town I grew up in, the center of town was basically a street that went through a slightly denser portion of housing and a liquor store/malt shop/pizza stand (nice combo).
There was this one amazing feature on the way...
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| Yeah, that's totally a pirate ship in someone's yard |
The home in question is basically a cabin. We arrived a bit before Melissa who was unexpectedly showing twice the number of properties today but had an electric vehicle that was running out of charge. The first thing we noticed was that it was ... quiet! There were plenty of neighbors, so we're not sure why this was possible, but literally all I heard was birds and wind, which is perfect and just what we want.
The realtor and owner of the property (same guy) came out of the cabin as we leaned against our car. He started talking us up about the property so we wandered over. (He seems really cool.)
He said the cabin had been built by some guy who dealt in lumber or construction or was a builder. I honestly don't remember but if we end up with this property, I hope I listen better at the time. The home was nice enough from the front. A plain but nice yard bisected by a concrete walkway to a not too remarkable wood porch. It was remarkable that it existed but not so much in terms of its beauty. A wood trellis adorned the front of the walk with no flowers on or near it, which is fine. I always figure it is nicer to let people buying a home decide what they want in that sort of situation. That and, although I like trellises (trellii? trellea?), they always seem awkward to me just popping up in a place with nothing to make one needed, like a hedge or something.
The cabin itself is kind of a yucky peach color with apricot trim. It sounds nice when I say it, but... somehow the color just made it look dirty to me. No matter. House color is easily changed and also not a big deal like wood rot would be.
The inside is all wood. You remember what I was recently saying about hating wood on walls? Well, I'm going to have to amend myself. Yes, I still find it a bit odd and often oppressive feeling. But this cabin ... I have to say, it does it well.
Melissa caught us just inside looking at the fireplace. We've always wanted a fireplace, but were convinced it would be too big a project to take on ourselves while building our earthship, so this is just nice.
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| This one has cool vents below the hearth with fans or something |
You know what else we've (ok, I've) always wanted? A loft. Guess what this cabin has?
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| The stairs are quite steep and the dog would surely have a hard time with them |
The kitchen is minuscule. But we can't have everything!
Beyond this there's a 3/4 bathroom and a room and a half that is probably a bedroom but could have multiple purposes.
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| I really love built-in shelving |
The wall paper or whatever that is in the half room really must leave. I think it shows some sort of pastoral or country-ish scene and... no. But hey, I'm glad it made someone happy at one point.
As expected, the loft is lofty and led (though I think I missed taking a picture of it) to an interesting shelf where the eave is. I am certain that two cats would swiftly make it theirs and we would forever be having cat hair bombs falling on our heads down below.
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| Omg. Loft! |
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| Beautiful lofty rafters |
I want to be clear; both Chris and I think this cabin is great. It's small, and wouldn't hold all our shit, but it feels nice. The floor which seems to be some kind of laminate tile would have to go eventually, but it's really lovely. However, the big wonderfulness of this property comes when you go out the back door.
On the bad side, this land is way less than even 1 acre. On the plus side, it has gorgeous 300+ year old trees (oak, I think), and big big boulders throughout that create a little haven away from all the neighbors. The current owner had a large deck built onto the back of the house which he smartly didn't particularly paint or do anything with leaving the decision up to the new owners. (Stain may be our friend if we end up here.)
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| Can I live on the boulders? |
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| How amazing is that deck? |
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| I'm not sure what this platform is for other than a base for the gazebo that will eventually have a hot tub set in it... |
The current owner mentioned as how they'd had the tree (or maybe all the trees) professionally trimmed fairly recently, which is a relief because that costs a lot; and having a big lovely tree join you in bed without consent is at least as bad as having a human join you in bed without consent, though the consequences are different.
But the boulders and the deck are only part of what makes the back of this home remarkable. The rest? Well, apparently the first person who built this home (the builder, or lumber slinger or whatever) had a wife who had a doll collection. And this guy basically built a miniature, though human scale, old west down town in the backyard for the dolls! You can literally go into these small, one room buildings and... idk, store stuff, make a workshop, rent them out... whatever you want. It's like my favorite things about old timey museums (like Strawberry Banke, or the Shelburne Museum) combined with my favorite miniaturization buildings from mini golf courses. And this guy had taken an old deck and cut it up to make walkways through the yard to all the tiny structures because it gets muddy when it rains! It's really unbelievably cool.
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| This one looks rather like a general store |
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| And the inside is itsy bitsy |
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| This is the side of the "clock" shop and the front of one that looks like a church |
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| Inside the toy shop |
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| Inside the church, which is clearly a dance studio |
These little spaces are... frankly adorable. And most of them are large enough to be some of the additional space we have been wanting; a workshop for Chris, a home office for me, maybe an art studio for me... And we could probably put beds in them when people come to visit. They wouldn't make a complete guest house, but it's something to think about. Frankly, they'd all make good places for homeless folks to get some safe rest, although there are few people without homes in the country and Chris and I have an aversion to having people around.
Behind all of this is what the owner calls the Carriage House. It's split into two sides, one masquerading as a bedroom and the other is maybe storage or a workshop atm.
I'd be a much bigger fan of knocking down the center wall and making a nice big dance studio, but that's just me. Besides, Chris really does need a bigger workshop than one of those tiny buildings can provide.
The owner told us a harrowing tale of a guy he'd hired to do some or other work for him, then fired him and generally glared at him when he was going to sue one of his neighbors for her dog biting him when he was being an arse to her. Apparently, dude-non-grata then reported current owner to the city/county for the deck he'd had built off the carriage house because it wasn't up to code. So he had to take the planks off the deck. It's funny that the rest of the structure is still there. Turns out that the footing needs to be different and the supports need to be thicker.
Chris really likes this property. Do you know how I could tell? His eyebrow moved 1 millimeter northward on the left side. Oh, and he told me. Even after knowing each other since 2006, I can tell you that I'm unsure I would have noticed if he hadn't told me. Though I will say that a migraine does get in the way.
The owner showed Chris the attic of the Carriage House while I did such useful things and figured out how I felt about the property and did it look nice? Melissa did much more useful things like look for wood rot and evidence of whatever yuck things destroy a property deal. We also found this tiny statue by the carriage house.
I wandered around the property a bit more. I found this shed...
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| It houses many spiders |
There are a few faux park benches around the back yard. This one is in front of the rocks in front of the "toy shop."
And the deck wraps around the side of the house where a small shed lives to house a washer and propane powered dryer.
So here's the thing. Both Chris and I really like this property. And it has a lot of good things about it that we like. It's also nearly nothing like the property we'd imagined we would end up with. And it's hard for me to wrap my head around changing our thought process. Oh, we believe we could (permitting deities being well satisfied with us) add an earthship-like addition to the front of this home and that would take care of our deep desire for the earthship feel. But I never expected us to want a place so close to other people. And it's a far drive from Chris's work. And we probably can't have a well so we'd surely have to pay for water. And it's absolutely not 5 acres. There is actually an additional lot owned by the current owner's mother that's for sale. And we'd adore having it (it's just land), but we can't afford it. In fact, we can barely afford this place.
But too... we have so many possibilities with this property. And it's already livable, and we like it, and it feels nice!
Anyhoo, we were late for our showing over at 39373 Opalocka Rd in Boulevard. The drive over with Melissa was nice as we got to ask her more in depth questions about a property up in Escondido we were interested in but was showing signs of being a lemon. She edified us on why the inexpensive land would probably cost a shit-ton of money to update before even considering building and sadly, what she said made a ton of sense. She also told us knew things about the Summit Crest property that we'd nixed before for reasons such as having to build a new road and deal with coastal shrub mitigation and gnatcatcher protected birds. Chris had recently been waxing about it and she promptly, though without knowledge, quelled that renewed interest with descriptions of ridiculous new laws and multitudinous red tape through which to wade.
39373 Opalocka Rd is behind a locked gate. Luckily we had the code. But as much as a locked gate keeps solicitors away, it's rather a pain to live behind. We drove up the dirt driveway onto the vast 8 acres.
The home is situated on a flat bit where the land on one side goes up and the other goes down. Across the way you can see one of the great wind turbine farms along the hillside. We actually like that view. It appeals to my regularity and geometric yen.
In fact, it was hella windy. I held my hat securely on my head and yet still lost it at one point. The home is relatively an L with the I being the home and the _ being the garage.
I hated it.
I don't know how to explain this. This property literally has nearly everything we want. There's lots of land. It has an existing home that would allow us to live while we build. It has cleared flat land where we could build and the southerly direction has a view. It's not got issues with the fire department. The neighbors are visible but not close. There are two wells. It has a huge water tank already. It's more or less affordable by us. It was big and open and the owner said they might offer a reflooring credit... I hated it.
The only thing I can say is that the land and home had a character so sterile that I wanted to run away. Actually, the book on the entertainment center with Trump's face on it made me want to run away, but the lack of character didn't improve matters.
I hated the wood stove.
The hated the way the kids rooms were gaudy and yet looked like no one had every loved them.
Despite the large amount of natural light and a blessed large amount of space, I hated the master bedroom too.
The kitchen had plenty of space, there was a really large room for the washer and dryer. There was a great place for the dining table. The bathrooms were quite reasonable... I just hated it.
I had us walk up the hill a bit hoping that I'd see the best thing ever and know that it was meant to be the spot of our earthship. Silently lamenting the agent's warning to watch out for snakes, we all scaled the sandy rise.
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| I don't think the Chevy comes with it |
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