A-hunting We Will Go: Part 2

When last we left our intrepid protagonist, he was making his way through the desert, tired, thirsty, and probably in need of a bathroom. If not for the courageous fellowship of a local guide, he might have given himself up to fate and allowed the turkey vultures to feast on his carcass. He was on a quest for the elusive Adobe Abode, as famed as El Dorado, the Seven Cities of Gold, or the Fountain of Youth sought by hardy explorers before him. In the last chapter, we heard him exclaim, "This house is too small," and, "This house is too big." Alas, he was losing hope of ever exulting, "This house is just right!"

Oops. Um, I seem to have mixed up my story genres a bit. Sorry about that.

As I was trying to say, neither my realtor nor I was very optimistic, but when we saw the condo for the first time, we were on the verge of impressed. It is hidden from a busy thoroughfare by a high (about 6.5' tall) red, rock wall. In fact, I had driven by it a few times in my years in Las Cruces and never knew of its existence. The various service technicians I've had visit said the same thing. (Why, then, do I see so many vehicles pull in by mistake and immediately leave? Are they looking for someplace even less obvious?)

It is a two-story, white stucco building with rust-red roof tiles and New-Mexico-mountains-at-sunset stucco accents. If you've ever seen a NM mountain at sunset, you know what color I mean (though perhaps a little more faded and a little less watermelon). The parking lot takes up almost all of the front of the property, but there are some trees and shrubs along the side, so it is very well displayed.

Fortunately, we saw the number for my unit on the front of the building, by the stairs, so we didn't have to look far. We ascended, and Carol obtained the key from the lock box hanging from the railing near the top of the (curved) stairs. We stepped onto a veranda and saw two doors. For lack of further clues telling us which was the sought-after unit, we tried the first door, and the key worked.

We entered into the kitchen. Facing us was a huge, side-by-side refrigerator/freezer. It is taller than I am, and one could fit entire bodies in it (if one were to remove the shelves first). Wowzers! To the right was a "nook" with a table and chairs and four arched windows (almost floor to ceiling), separated from the main part of the kitchen by a peninsula. "Is that real granite on the countertops?" we wondered. (Yes, it is.) The stove, too, is huge, with six, gas burners. There was a wine rack instead of one cabinet, and wine glasses hanging underneath. (I've always wanted something like that, ever since I first saw the bar at H.A. Winston's restaurant. Now I just need to develop a taste for wine.) Inside the pantry was the owners' microwave oven -- no cluttering the counters here! The granite is gray, black, and pink. The walls between the upper and lower cabinets are covered with large, shiny, black tiles, like obsidian. The appliances (there's a dishwasher, too, in the peninsula) are stainless steel. The walls were white. The floors (depending on your location and light exposure) are whitish-grayish-pinkish wood laminate (very hard-wearing yet not as expensive as the real thing). The cabinets are pickled, so they, too, are pinkish. It was a well put-together and well-presented kitchen.

Through an archway to the left is the living room. It has two double-hung windows side-by-side in the same casement, looking out at the Organ Mountains. The walls (all white here, too) have large expanses, perfect for the previous owners' large, abstract paintings of Agave and other desert plants. Just past the living room was... "Hey, is that the second door we saw outside?" and "Wait a minute, is this all one place?"

Yes, indeedy-do, I'm starting to get excited.

Uh-oh, first problem: I banged my head on the doorway to the office/study. Well, keep in mind that this house was built in 1901, and people were much shorter then. Plus, the standard building codes probably weren't as strict as now.

If you'll excuse me interrupting my own narrative for a side story, it turns out that, in addition to being about 6'3" high (okay, exactly 6'3" high) the doorway is very off kilter. When the door is closed, it's even more obvious; one side is a full inch lower than the other. The guest bathroom even has one wall an inch shorter than the wall opposite. In fact, no wall is plumb; no floor is level; no corner is square. That's what one gets when one buys a house built in 1901: a structure with "character".

Back to the office/study, which has a window identical to the living room, as well as a single window on the adjoining wall. Here, I noticed that each room has a ceiling fan. (Now what do I do with the two I bought on sale last year?) A door off of the office/study opens to the laundry room (probably a converted walk-in closet) with stacked, front-loading washer & dryer, water heater, and built-in wire shelving.

Leaving the office/study to return to the living room, the second door (French style, opening onto the outdoor fireplace) is to the right, and a short walk to the left leads to the guest bathroom. I didn't particularly care for the cameo-pink pedestal sink, toilet, and tub, and they don't quite go with the floor-to-ceiling, aged-white tiles (some with Southwest figures on them) and rust-colored grout, but, again, it's so well done, that I left it as is. (Plus, I don't have the money to do an entire bathroom refitting.) Other than the short wall mentioned earlier, the other bit of oddness here is that the door handle is quite a bit higher than average, so if you come to visit, be sure to duck your head through the doorway while reaching up for the doorknob.

The door to the bedroom is next. Almost immediately inside it (30" max.) is another archway. Opposite you is wall-to-wall closet doors (two large closets which, if not for the chimney of the downstairs neighbor's fireplace, would connect). The floor has a border of the laminate wood encompassing an oatmeal-colored shag carpet -- not a rug; it is most definitely tacked down. Look up, and see a vaulted ceiling. Look left, and see... a third door to the veranda! Through this door, you can see the wheelchair elevator. (Yes, this place has its own elevator!) Look right, and see... the circuit panel, the only pimple on the otherwise pristine walls. I have yet to think of a way to arrange my wall hangings to cover it yet not appear awkward.

Wait a minute. Where's Carol? While I was busy imagining my furniture here, she managed to find the master bath. The entrance to it was just between the bedroom door and archway. It has very nice wooden cabinets (style matching the kitchen but with a natural finish) and granite counter, a shower stall large enough for four (or six) people, and floor to ceiling, again well-done tiles, but icky-pink. Oh, and the ceiling.... Well, it's not that the ceiling is low; it's that the floor is high. One must go up two steps to enter the bathroom: my own little slice of Fawlty Towers. (I'd like to see John Cleese try to navigate these doorways.)

I found out later from neighbors ("Is it still pink?") that the first owner, the one who renovated the place, although a hobby-gourmet chef who left me with a fabulous kitchen, had an abominable love of pink. All the walls, even the moldings, were a horrid, Pepto-Bismol pink. The second owner's wife was an interior decorator who made everything white. Although I was sick and tired of white (after five years in an all-white Las Cruces apartment, a year in an all-white Alabama apartment, and, before that, more years than I care to admit in a masking-tape-white residence hall), it was so much more purchasable than an pink condo.

The veranda, which I have mentioned several times before, runs from the arched windows on the north wall of the kitchen, along the entire east side of the condo, and the entire south side, ending at the bedroom door and elevator. Much of the south side is only about four feet wide, and it's even narrower than that on the north, but the east side (where the mountain view and the fireplace are) is about twelve feet wide. I have planters for flowers and fruits/vegetables judiciously placed along the iron railing and up against the walls.

I think I'll leave the telling of the light switches to nothing and the missing switches (hmm, my own little slice of the Winchester House, too) for another time. In fact, all the things that went wrong since I moved in deserve their own blog entry. I want this post to sound so appealing that you'll want to visit me. (Hey, I have a hide-a-bed now....)