Retro Acres is Up for Grabs

You’re looking for new digs on Salt Lake’s East bench, right?  Don’t worry, we’re outside of the neighbor-vs.-neighbor would-be historic district, which I simply call the “Disputed Zone.”  So you can tear the whole thing down and build your mini-mansion in style!

(*sob*)

Retro Acres is officially for sale.  Future buyer, I hope you appreciate the levels of deep cleaning I had to do for the open house we had a week and a half ago.

Let’s just say that I’m not the most dedicated housekeeper.

Let’s just say that my decorating style could charitably be described as “casual.”

Let’s just say that since the six-week deep clean-a-thon, the first thing most people say when entering the house is “Whoa.”

And I somehow didn’t take pictures of my own perfectly clean bedroom and master bathroom?!?

Jeffrey didn’t think it was right that all the house-for-sale pictures I took had no people, so he sneaked the camera away, and did some sample shots with Eleanor as a model.

Yeah, the one on the bathroom shows off the timeless “paper on the floor” school of interior design.

I’m really, really going to miss this house.  Setting aside the 50+ decades of Grandma memories (she lived on her own in the house until she was 99) and the fact that this is where Brian officially proposed marriage to me, this is what’s incredible about this house:

3300 square feet, 4 bedrooms, 2 3/4 bath

A lot that catches the curve of the street, so we have an enormous backyard and front yard — big enough for multiple families to pitch tents for backyard campouts.

Three living rooms.  We’ve never had an official purpose for the one in the basement.  I call it the Place Where Random Furniture Goes to Die.

But what’s really killer is the location.

Walking distance to the elementary school, the preschool, the library (the LIBRARY!), the grocery store, the park, and a funky collection of cute restaurants, gift boutiques, etc.

5-minute drive away from the zoo, This is the Place Heritage Park, Red Butte Gardens, the art-house movie theater, the best gelato place in town, the Natural History Museum of Utah . . . and BRIAN’S JOB.  He could WALK to work whenever the need arose.

10-minute drive away from the University of Utah (which included Tanner Dance, where Eleanor and William took classes), the Utah Museum of Art, various attending university-related amenities, and The King’s English (the only decent indie bookstore in town).

By luck, circumstance, and the seemingly boundless generosity of my in-laws, we managed to land ourselves in an incredible house in one of the most coveted neighborhoods in Salt Lake.  It’s been really, really hard to give this up.  I’m getting mopey just writing this post; in fact, it’s the reason I’ve been avoiding blogging for the past several weeks.  This is healthy, writing about something you hate, right?

When I found out that Brian’s job offer at the University of Utah fell through (oh, yes.  They named a salary figure.  We thought it was a done deal) I spent multiple occasions sobbing for 2+ hours.  Like, wailing-style sobbing.  Looking for a new house wound me up so tight that I developed insomnia . . . which lead to more wailing.

That was all back in March, and life goes on.  Brian and I spend time making lists of What We Won’t Miss About Utah, and that helps.  You know what?  It’s going to be okay.  Losing Retro Acres is tough.

But I’m tougher.