Carla showed me two houses the same afternoon I saw the wonderful house in Monay (if you missed it, here is a link to the Facebook post on Auntie Awesome’s Page). The first house we saw that day, was in a nice neighbourhood on the south side of the river. It was very large and had some interesting architectural details, beautiful hardwood floors and lots of light. It had two big terraces upstairs with nice views.
But there was no yard except a tiny patch of grass at the front, which was not securely fenced in for the cats. You had to climb a flight of stairs to get to the living areas. Avoiding hauling groceries up stairs is one of my reasons for thinking about moving.
Inside, it looked like nothing had been done to the place since about 1980. Many of the rooms were covered in old, shiny wallpaper. The kitchen was dated.
The bathrooms had brown or avocado green fixtures. Even at the lowest point of 1970’s era decor, when our second house had wall to wall chocolate brown carpeting and ‘Harvest Gold’ appliances, we never sunk as low as coloured bathroom fixtures.
That house looked like the place that bad interior decorators go when they die, having to exist in an eternity of brown and green toilets.
Next – and what a Next – we went to see the house that I had originally contacted Carla about.
The first thing that attracted me was the location. It is just off Padre Aguirre, the same street that John and I lived on when we came to Cuenca, but seven blocks directly north. This house is not in Centro, but it’s a straight shot down Padre Aguirre to get there. Maybe a fifteen minute walk. Really, you get the best of both worlds – a quiet neighbourhood and street, but quick access to all the action in Centro.
On the downside, the last four blocks as you return from Centro involve a very steep climb. This is what it is to live in a mountain city. Oh well, it would be good exercise! Yeah, feel the pain, booyah!
Or, more realistically for this old babe, there are always taxis.
The house is the second one from the corner on a short, quiet street. The front yard is enclosed by iron railings.
The cats could get through there, but the house has other, enclosed, side and back yards. The front yard boasts a mature lemon tree, and some tall bamboo, which turns out to have been planted by my gardener, Leo. Thereby hangs a tale about which, more in the next post.
The driveway leads to a large garage with a red terracotta tile floor. The ceiling of the garage is wood beamed.
A door at the back leads to a laundry area and then into the kitchen. So easy for groceries.
There is a front porch all along the front of the house, with a half wall with planters.
The wooden front door has coloured glass on each side, which I’m not crazy about. Again, circa 1975. But that’s okay, because through that front door is a stunning house. This one, unlike the house in Monay, is stunning both upstairs and down. Well, only to be expected I guess when even the garage has a wood beamed ceiling.
To the left of the entrance is a reasonably sized room with a big window which could be used for a study or TV room. Or, a ground floor bedroom.
To the right of the entrance, the wow factor increases exponentially.
The hardwood floors and wood beamed, two story high vaulted ceiling of the living room gleam in the light coming from the floor to ceiling window at one end.
The living room gives onto the dining room through a wide arch. The high wood ceiling and wood floors continue there.
The dining room area ends at a glass wall with a patio door opening onto a side garden.
Walking towards the patio doors in the dining room – wait, stop, what’s this now? Oh look. Beside the dining room is an interior sunroom with a full glass ceiling, stone planters waiting for more plants, and a painted mural backdrop. A window at the end also looks out to the garden.
But wait, there’s more.
Okay, full disclosure. I laughed out loud when I saw the beehive-shaped mountainous water feature more or less squatting in one corner of the sunroom, ending in what could actually be a small fish pond. Compared to the tasteful slate and bamboo water feature in the Monay house, this one looks like the Mini Me of Splash Mountain at Disney World ran away to Cuenca and decided to stay.
Still – it is a water feature.
We proceeded on from the dining room to the kitchen.
It’s on the small side and noticeably lacking in marble or granite countertops. But I love that it has an enormous window over the sink, also looking out to that garden.
I’ll take a small, bright kitchen with arborite countertops (provided they are clean and in reasonably good condition), over a big, badly lit kitchen with granite countertops, any day of the week. Besides, the cupboards, although not fancy, at least looked like they had been installed in this millennium.
The kitchen gave onto the laundry room. It had lots of shelves and cupboards. They were kind of beaten up, but still functional.
Beyond that, there was yet another utility room that ran the length of the house. This one was clearly meant to assist heavy duty jobs, as it had two cement tubs.
The top one I think is meant to be a laundry tub. The lower one would be easy to get mops and pails in and out of.
This room had the door to the garage.
Most of the area was covered by a glass ceiling. This means not only light but a place to hang clotheslines from the handy hooks at each end, where the laundry could dry, sheltered from the rain.
The door at the far end of this room gives on to a covered space for four propane tanks, which would heat water and run my gas oven and dryer. I really was happy to see this. Where I live now, the propane tanks, for some inscrutable stupid reason, not only sit outside, their small cupboard is under the level of the lawn. So they are constantly sitting in water.
In addition, I only have two tanks. One is dedicated to the oven and dryer and the other to hot water. They do not run out at the same time. I live in dread of my hot water disappearing because the tanks do not have gauges on them and I have to guess at when I need to have them replaced with full tanks.
In the house John and I lived in when we arrived here, there were four tanks, each of which ran everything. So when two ran out, you could switch on the other two and run them while you waited for the propane guy to come. This house has the same system.
I know that doesn’t sound like a big deal, but you try standing in the shower when the water suddenly goes cold before you’ve rinsed off your most sensitive bits. Or, be in the middle of cooking lasagna when the propane runs out.
The house in Monay had the ‘two tanks sunken below the water line’ model for propane. That’s the arrangement for the Monay house, below.
At the far end, this area opened onto the great outdoors, with stairs leading up to the garden. Here is the exterior view of that area, from the backyard.
I could leave the door from the kitchen open and the cats would be able to come and go as they pleased, hopefully without letting in too much cold air to the upstairs, when I would be sleeping. Unlike my current apartment, where the back door to the garden is at the end of a long hall, which acts as a wind tunnel straight to my bedroom.
Back to the big secondary laundry/utility room. There was a full bathroom back in that area as well, clearly meant for the maid, as it was pretty run down and shabby.
In the back of my mind though, I was thinking long term, and aging in place. Earlier, I mentioned in passing the small room inside the front door. It could be a ground floor bedroom. The plumbing already being in place back here, it has the potential to be renovated into a nice ground floor bathroom in my old age.
Back to the inside of the house. The wooden stairs went off to the left from the front hall. There was a basic powder room under and behind the stairs.
Half way up, the stairs curved around. Off that landing was an intriguing arrangement of French doors with light streaming through them.
This turned out to be the entrance to a large room over the garage with a partially wood beamed, vaulted ceiling. There were triangular windows on either end. It could be a fourth bedroom, a TV room, a craft room – endless possibilities. It had built in cupboards and drawers at one end. Ugly, but useful.
If you folded back all the French doors, you got a really interesting look at the unusual architecture of this house. The stairs continue up to what looked like a landing with a railing fencing it off, showing a view of the vaulted cathedral ceiling in the living room and dining room downstairs.
The landing turned out to be a large wood ceilinged sitting area, facing a small fireplace.
You could look over the railing for a nice view of the ground floor.
If you turned to the right, there was a glass wall with a door leading to a big outdoor terrace/balcony. Again, may I just say, “Wow”.
There are no mountains on display in the view from the terrace, but it is still a nice vista over the rooftops.
So yes, I am sticking with my ‘wow’.
I wished that the terrace had a covered area. The overhang was only about two feet. Although it was beautifully faced with wood.
Returning to the inside, we continued down a hallway which opened up to yet another bonus space on the right, and a bedroom on the left. The bedroom was pretty standard – about 12 by 10 feet maybe, with built in closets and drawers. The outside window showed only the wall of the next house.
But it also had a second window looking into the interior hallway and getting light from the big windows in this next bonus room.
I had to swallow hard when I saw that this bonus room had not only a built in desk, but a built in unit with about ten narrow drawers, each about three inches deep. (Left side of the photo, under the interior window.) My darling John was a model railroader who loved the intricate work of building small model engines, railcars, buildings for his enormous HO layout, trees, scenery, you name it. He had this same style of unit for forty or more years in Canada. It held the tiny tools and parts he needed for his hobby. He would have stopped right there and said “We’re taking this house.”
This room was all windows and it had a door to the backyard.
How could this be, you ask. Aren’t we on the second floor of this house now? Yes, kind reader, you are right, we are. But the garden of this house starts on the ground floor and climbs up level with the second storey.
Here’s a view of the exterior of the house from the side garden, showing the window and door in that bonus room.
And by the way, that door at ground level is right beside the kitchen window. It leads to yet another room. That is the only entrance. You can’t reach it without going outside. Perhaps the maid’s bedroom? Or a room for a teenager who wants to be able to come and go clandestinely?
There are stone steps taking you on this little journey up to the back garden with built up, cement fronted flowerbeds along the wall, all the way up. At the end of which is a peach tree, for Tiberius to climb.
And since we’re on the subject of the garden, it was very overgrown. But you could still make out calla lilies, those red tropical flowers that have the big yellow pistol, and some kind of blue flower. The cats can be out there, because it is all walled. In warm, aged, red brick and stone. Yum. I can already see my iron and wood hanging planters there.
And look, around the corner heading for the stairs back down to the laundry area, another tree for Tiberius to climb. Augusta wouldn’t lower herself to his level.
There is also an old iron swing set, painted white. And a white metal arch with a bench under it, crying out for white jasmine to grow up and over it. Or maybe wisteria. Can you do wisteria here? Damned if I know, but I’m supergood at visualizing it over that garden arch.
And lastly while I’m describing the the garden, there is an outdoor grill built in right outside the dining room door on the ground floor level.
Back to the inside, upstairs. Continuing down the hall past the bedroom with the interior window, we come to the shared guest bathroom. Here is another place where the Monay house wins.
The bathroom is fine, but I don’t care much for the shiny tile. The shower cabinet is small, and if I must live with a shower cabinet, I prefer square to semi-circular, as square gives more room to move about. The sink does not come with any countertop and there is no medicine cabinet over the sink. Just a big mirror. But there is a window, so that’s good.
Next to the shared guest bathroom is the last guest bedroom. Small, with built in cabinets and no view from the window. Still, bigger than the one in the Monay house.
Before we get to the master suite, we come to one last bonus area. This is a sort of cutaway area on the same wall as what I’ve taken to calling the hobby room in honour of John.
It too has a large window overlooking the garden. Kind of wish they had put the guest room there – better view. Or extended the master bedroom across that whole wall. But I am picturing my long desk there.
Incidentally, the view from that window shows the only covered area outdoors. A small patio right outside the door leading to the hobby room.
The master bedroom is not huge. Maybe 12 by 15 feet?
Its large window looks out on the garden.
The bad news is, it also faces the neighbours, so there will have to be window coverings, or perhaps my funky green screen will go there.
It too has built in cupboards.
The master ensuite bathroom has the same shiny tile and lack of counter and cupboard space as the guest bathroom. What it lacks in that though, it makes up for by having a big skylight. And a bathtub.
Yay! A small bathtub, but still, a bathtub. Whether I could use it or not, depends on how hot the water gets. There was a perfectly lovely bathtub in our first house here, but the water never got hotter than ‘very warm’. By the time the tub was half full, the water had cooled to room temperature.
Still, the possibility is exciting.
The house was listed for $850 a month, not including water, electricity or internet. You would probably agree that it is superior to the Monay house. Much more light, much more space, a much better upstairs and a better location. However, for some reason, that night I couldn’t stop thinking about the Monay house. I was entranced with the two fireplaces, the discreet, elegant water feature and the decor downstairs I guess. And the avocado tree. Any tree is good, especially a mature fruit bearing tree, But given the choice, I’d so much rather have a giant avocado tree than a lemon tree.
As described in the Facebook post, I put in a low offer on the Monay house that night. But the next morning, as soon as I woke up, I knew that had been the wrong choice. This house (which shall hereafter be known as the Padre Aguirre house), had everything I wanted – architectural interest, a location near Centro, lots of space, a walled garden and above all, lots of light. Even a fireplace (small), a bathtub (small) and a water feature (enormous). I felt only relief when I saw that the ill-advised offer I had made on the Monay house was not accepted. I immediately told Carla to put in an offer on this house for $750, including water and electricity. To my delight and surprise, she came back almost right away, to say that they had agreed to rent the house for $750, but not including utilities. I was sure I’d have to pay $800.
We had a deal!
Well, as it turned out, not exactly. Thus began a weeks long saga full of ambush, attempted fraud, family drama and cliffhangers worthy of a telenovela.
More next time.
You must be logged in to post a comment.