Real Estate highs and lows
The Spanish Custom House is having open house every day leading up to the auction. Today they had two women in antebellum dresses and parasols hanging around the house. We walked over with the dogs and poked around – a dream house for sure. Everyone walked in with curiosity and walked out with the dream of what they would do if they had this house.
Later, I went to look at a house for sale down the bayou with a friend. Same situation as with my house, it was built in 1929 (younger than the LaLa) and has been in the same family forever. Now they have all died and the children are trying to sell it. We then went next door because they also own that house where they grew up – a beautiful white house with a gallery all the way around on both bottom and top floor. The ship captains house I called it forever, and she said it was built like a boat and used to have to huge palm trees in front that looked like stove pipes. She said there were five kids raised in the house and there was always a sixth kid from somewhere living with them. A house full.
I thought of when we are dead and gone and our child is left with our house. What will it mean to her? Real estate or home?
Then we went over to look at another house for sale and it was so charming, so New Orleans, a tree lined street with charming cottages and lovely cottage gardens. The joy of seeing a house you could live in fills you with hope. There was a swing on the front porch. I remember the swings I looked at for the LaLa’s porch and how they never quite worked because you would either be facing one of my neighbor’s house or the other instead of the bayou.
I came back to the LaLa – still in love with it and the bayou – but hopeful that one day the mortgage that is attached to it feels less like a ball and chain and more like the investment it was supposed to be.