Love at First Sight?

house
Originally uploaded by houseintheburg.

Did we know when we first saw this picture that this was IT? The one. The house.

I don't think we did. We knew the location was good, and the outside looked promising. But we were reticent. If you'd seen some of the houses I dragged us to, you'd be cynical too. Lots of properties look charming, adorable, perfect or at the least intriguing on the web, but...once you see them in real life, NO WAY. Sometimes you know at hello that it's a dud, sometimes it becomes clear once you see the inside, and sometimes there's just no sparks.

It's quite similar, in fact, to online personals. Which coincidentally, is how D. and I met. We liked the looks of each other's profiles, our first date went smoothly, but did we know then that we were destined to own real estate together? No, we didn't. What both of us recall most from that era was how easy and interesting our conversations were. Somehow through the magic of pheromones and subconscious imago projection, we managed to fall in love over the course of a few months.

Our romance with the House in the Burg is similarly slow. The inside - room after room of 10-foot ceilings - seemed comfortable but not the House of Our Dreams. Even as we jumped right in with an offer, we didn't know if our intentions were true. As we started to imagine our future there...and plan out the years of renovation, I think it was casting its spell on us. The inspection, like meeting each other's parents or friends, provided outside confirmation of our growing fondness for it. So here we are, in that early blush of hopefulness, waiting to close, move in, and make it our own.

If our relationship with this house is anything like our relationship with each other, then we are off to a good start.