On House Hunting

“Oh hey deerrrr!”

We started our hunt the weekend after Thanksgiving. The house on Goatsbeard Lane was the first one we looked at. When we pulled up, there were two deer in the yard. Lisa and Kim, the real estate agents, welcomed us, saying, “we paid them to be here.”

A word on Lisa and Kim. Whidbey Island is full of characters and these two are no exception. I mean that it in the best way possible. They are fucking amazing. Lisa is pure and genuine, a kind soul. She spent some of her childhood in Japan while her father was in the military and told me how during typhoon season they’d batten up the hatches, play board games by candlelight and eat hotdogs. She had a cat that liked to be bathed. Like in the bathtub. This cat would also lay on its back to let her pet bird nibble its whiskers. I am sad that this cat has passed away from natural causes and that I did not get to meet this cat. Meanwhile, Kim is no bullshit. She likes to gamble and drink tequila, and she will point everything out that’s wrong with a house from the moment you walk in. This is helpful. You want to be aware of a place’s faults before you get too excited. She is spunky and small and she does not take no for an answer. Together they are a well-balanced wonder team.

We left Goatsbeard, saying “It needs A LOT” of work. And so, we looked at A LOT of other houses, I think about 20, maybe 30. We looked at a seven room inn in Coupeville (up more north on Whidbey) and briefly contemplated leaving everything and becoming innkeepers. We looked at a cabin with docks and considered becoming boat people. We looked at run down farms built in the 1800s with caved-in roofs and rusted tractors, and we did NOT think about becoming farmers. There were old houses that needed structural renovations, and refurbished houses that were renovated in the wrong way.

All this looking confirmed that Goatsbeard was the one. It was on a massive 10 acres, had access to the community beach, and “good bones”—the work it needed work wasn’t structural. And there was that feeling of possibility. I knew it was my house when I found All Things Bright and Beautiful in a bedroom closet, and because of the smell—wet and beachy and devoid of humans. Empty, unused for years, uncooked in, unloved. Ready for a crowd that never came. The owner had left for California, leaving expired licenses, expired Kahlua, postcards from his wife, and paintings from his daughter all behind.

He didn’t seem to want to sell it. And it must have been difficult for him to let it all go. But I still wonder why he didn’t bother to sort through everything. Although the house had no other offers, he kept battling ours and when we’d get close to an agreement, he’d try and change a term. Suffice it to say, we battled for two months. There were many times we thought it was over. It was painful and frustrating and maddening and not really worth going into. But then one day, Goatsbeard was finally ours.