Wide-eyed in Monmouth

Our search for a house began in the fall of 2000. As Shaw was contractually obligated to live within a certain distance from his new job, we drew a circle on a map and focused within. After hooking up with a realtor, I spent the next several weekends looking at houses even I couldn't help; fake beams, foil wallpaper, pretend-stone walls, medieval paneling - the residential equivalents of a faux convertible roof on a sedan. Shaw, not nearly as enamored of the thrill of the chase as I was, instructed me to narrow my choices to three and four and then he would come and look. After yet another weekend spent in vain, I told him there weren't three or four and that he needed to come with me. So, one November day we set off on our search together.

The realtor showed us one place Shaw liked, while I felt the rooms were better suited to Weebles. What about that blue one you showed me a few weeks ago? I asked. It was slightly more than our budget - I was shocked, too - but at least it represented what I had in mind. She called, it was still available, so off we went.

On my second visit it just felt right. Shaw, who had a tough time seeing past the floral tiles in the foyer, gingham curtains, endless carpeting and, my personal favorite, the deer head over the fireplace with a coordinating gun rack made from the hooves, looked around, then at me, and in an incredibly skeptical voice said "Really?!?" "Trust me," I replied. He did, we bargained and before you could say "insolvent" we had bought a house.

After closing in January, we proudly told friends and family that it was in move-in condition, two words that would prove to have all the veracity of Bush's "Mission Accomplished." We immediately painted every room, ripped up the carpeting and re-finished the floors, installed new lighting, doors and railings - all within the first six weeks. Over the next seven years, we also re-made one bathroom, put in new landscaping, a sprinkler system, new roof and siding (courtesy of a hurricane-induced tree across the back of the house), re-did the driveway, had new windows put in, and just to keep things interesting, installed an in-ground pool which required a retaining wall, patio and fence. "Didn't you say the house was in move-in condition when you bought it?" my mother would jokingly ask on occasion. "Sure it was," I'd reply, "for other people."