The News That Isn’t News: Seattle

Just in case you’re one of the few people who haven’t heard the news straight from myself (or in caterwauling updates on Facebook): we are moving to Seattle this summer.

I’ve been reluctant to blog about it, mainly because writing it gives it something of a permanent status that I wasn’t ready to admit to.  But I’m over that now.  Mainly because we’ve found a place to live.  The official closing is tomorrow, so I guess there’s no more denying our future.

May I introduce you to Shoreline House?

Please refrain from pointing out the oddity of purchasing a New England Colonial-style house in the Pacific Northwest.  The point is: I have totally fallen in love with this place, and criticizing it just gets my dander up.

And if there’s anything you don’t want to hear about going up, it’s a dander.

(Possibly also mortgage rates.)

We googled the sellers as soon as we found out who they were: why were they selling?  Turns out the husband is a Presbyterian minister who got transferred to a church in California.  He and his wife also had four kids, which explains why the house is so kid-friendly: hooks and shelves in all the closets, hooks on a mudroom nook in the kitchen (I guess hooks are at a premium when 60% of your family can’t operate a clotheshanger), a giant playfort and tree swings in the backyard, and best of all: eight bedrooms, four bathrooms.

Yeah, eight.  The house was listed at six bedrooms, but the sellers were worried that eight would scare buyers away.  One of the bedrooms has been converted into an office (with a set of double French doors instead of a regular door), so I guess it’s really seven bedrooms.  But still!  SEVEN!

The funny thing is that I was so exhausted when I first toured the house (owing to stress-induced insomnia, etc.) that I didn’t even see the pink and purple rooms.  I left the house thinking that there were only six bedrooms.  It was only through comparing my snapshots with the ones on the realty website that we realized there were more.

Each of our kids can have their own room, and there will still be two left over for play, crafts, and best of all, guests.

There’s actually one more bedroom like the one shown just above, but I don’t have a picture of it.  The image on the real estate site shows it with a giant stuffed toy moose on a bed, and William keeps talking about how he wants to play with it when he arrives.  We’ve given him a smaller toy moose to make up for it.

William also says he still wants to share a room with Jeffrey, and Brian and I are all about encouraging that impulse (if there’s anyone who could benefit from the socializing effects of a roommate, it’s Jeffrey) so there may be even more space to play around with.

Of course, there are downsides to this house.  It isn’t in the city (we were priced out of Seattle proper), it has a very long private drive that we share with three other homes (kind of a hike to the mailbox) and there’s some weirdness going on with the heating system (only half of the upstairs rooms get heat, so we’ll have to fix that).

The addition of walk in closets lead to the creation of this odd little nook of a room in the master bedroom:

(I do admire the seller’s choice in paint color.)

(How will fit a piano and an organ into this room?  Stay tuned . . .)

(See that?  Gas range!  Gas range!)

But I am well pleased with what we’ve found.  Best of all: there’s room for guests.  SO: plan your cheap vacation to Seattle now!  We’re only a 20 minute drive from downtown, and a 5-minute drive from the beach.

You know you wanna visit.