“You start at the very beginning,” Steph sang, still smiling before she opened her door. “Realistically, I’d probably start with the roof, but that’s just me. What do I know?”
“More than I do,” I said honestly. “Okay, so the roof does seem like a good place to start, but you get my point. Taking on a place like this and turning it into what it could be takes knowledge that I just don’t have.”
“That’s why you hire people who do,” Jeremiah said as we climbed out after Steph. “We haven’t even seen the inside yet, but I can guarantee it’s going to be dated as hell. You get a good interior designer to handle it, and they’ll have teams of people they’ve worked with to recommend for any structural issues. You wouldn’t really need to do much building here. There’s just some maintenance to be done while the interior is updated. This place has been standing for years, so you know it’s not going to fall in on you.”
“Sure, but then I’d have to manage a whole team of people from the city,” I said. “It’s not like I could be out here every day.”
“You actually wouldn’t have to do much other than to tell the decorator what you like and sign the checks,” Steph said. “I have a friend who had her interior totally redone a few months ago, and she loves the results. Basically, all she did was meet with the designer a few times, review her ideas, and pay her to do her thing. She said it was the easiest process ever. I could get a recommendation from her for you.”
A woman wearing a white pantsuit and carrying a tablet in her hand walked out to greet us, and Steph and Jeremiah introduced me to Lacey, the realtor. She motioned to the behemoth of a house behind her, stopping us before we went inside.
“I should warn you that it’s not much to look at right now. Like we discussed on the phone, it needs a complete overhaul and quite a bit of maintenance. The previous owner passed away four years ago, and this place has been empty since.”
Jeremiah got right to business. “How about the plumbing and electrical?”
“Everything works, but it’s going to need to pass compliance regulations. Apart from that, you could definitely factor in the cost of installing systems to make it more efficient and to bring it up to date. Green, this place is not.”
I nodded slowly, taking in all the information she gave us. She started leading us inside and through the house. As I looked around the spacious rooms with the clusters of windows and the practical layout, something happened to me that had never happened before.
It was like I saw what the place could be. I envisioned it perfectly, and even weirder than that, I could really see myself in it. I had no idea how to get from here to what I was envisioning, but that was why interior designers existed, just like Jer and Steph had said.
I’m going to go for it, I realized as she led us through a stately old kitchen. I’m going to buy this house and make it my home away from home. My haven from the high-rolling life I’m suddenly living.
And then, one day, when I was starting to think about having a family of my own, maybe I would even move in there for good.