And this is what it means to fall in love.

This week, my mother and I went house hunting.

We're only vaguely in the market for a house, only because she's tired of apartment life and the market looks good for it right now. We don't have very much money set aside for a down payment, so our options are pretty limited.

The first few places the relator took us to see were between 700 and 1000 square feet. The first was a dreadful, cramped sort of place. It looked miserable. The walls were a shade of dark brown that was caught between offensive and boring. The kitchen was decorated, and I use this term loosely, with yellowed floral wallpaper that should be criminalized and banned. The three bedrooms were barely the size of walk in closets, and the yard was hardly large enough to turn around in.

The second was a duplex with two levels of cramped bedroom, cramped kitchen, and a front room that wasn't sure if it wanted to be a living room or a hallway. These two levels were connected by a staircase that I immediately nicknamed Suicide Steps because the only way I could see someone attempting to scale it in Michigan winter was if they were either incredibly stupid, drunk, suicidal, or a combination of the three. The wood of the staircase wasn't even finished, and my skin tingles just thinking about the potential splinters.

The third house reeked of wet dog. The carpets were all torn up and needed replacing, but even if they hadn't been I would've wanted to replace them anyway. They were that sort of industrial grade, hard and dense carpets that are most commonly seen in schools and doctor's offices. I don't even consider that sort of thing real carpet. It's a floor texturizer, because god knows it doesn't do much else. The hallways were narrow enough that I felt claustrophobic, and there was a washer and dryer sitting in the middle of the kitchen. The bedrooms were larger than the first house, but not by enough to matter.

Finally, we stopped at the fourth and final house of the day.

It was a 70-some year old house. When this house was built, my grandparents were still in diapers. I had maintained a moderate level of cynicism all day, and I expected to hold steady at this last place as well. After all, it was cold out and every house we shivered through was more miserable than the last. I wanted to just tell my mom we were fine at our apartment and to give up this pipe dream.

Then we stepped inside.

I don't believe in love at first sight when it comes to people, but here I found myself warming up to this house in a matter of minutes.

The living room was painted a comforting shade of olive green. At about eye level, there were a series of diamond-shaped mirrors mounted on the wall. The mirrors were spaced apart a few inches and were made of tinted glass so that the reflections weren't too distracting, and I felt it gave the room a sense of sophistication and allure.

We walked on.

The first floor had two bedrooms, not large but not too small either. One was blue, and from what little remained of the previous occupant, I could tell it belonged to a teenage boy. The other was a peach color and had a ceiling fan. When we opened the closet in the blue bedroom, we discovered it led into the peach bedroom. It was a very narrow closet so I was the only one who could fit through it, but once I ducked in one end and out the other, I was smiling. I felt like a child again, and this house felt so very magical to me.

The kitchen was something my mother loved. It was done in earthy tones, all browns and dark greens, with wood cabinets and spiraling ceiling fan. Just behind it was a small pantry that almost looked it was lost in time. The unpainted wood walls and shelves held up by spiraling metal arms reminded me of those historical documentaries I used to idly watch as a child, and it thrilled and delighted me. I could imagine filling that pantry with our food.

Behind the pantry was the laundry room, which was empty but spacious. While mom discussed repurposing it as a dining room with the realtor, I ventured on.

I discovered this small, narrow stairwell that ran behind the pantry. It was child-sized, barely big enough for me to climb up without stooping over. At the top of the stairs was the second floor, which turned out to be just one bedroom. It ran the entire length of the house, though it was narrower due to the slope of the roof. I was beside myself with joy. There were so many things to discover, so many things to see! I had never been in a house so unique before, a house with such personality. The closet door slid through the wall when I opened it, and I learned that to shut the door to the stairs I had to open the closet. In my heart, this room was already mine and I couldn't stop thinking of all the things I could do with it.

This is not to say the house wasn't tragically flawed. Or how else would it be selling for so little?

It's in complete disrepair. The roof has to be reshingled. The shed is a lost cause. We would have to put a new door on it and redo the roof. The doors in the house all have to be replaced as well, and the bathroom needs a new toilet and tub. Everything except the living room and kitchen needs a fresh coat of paint. The hardwood floors have to be cleaned and refinished. The windows have to be replaced. The upstairs needs more work still. The heating in the house is so old that it uses radiators still. There's no central air.

But I can't help that I'm so, utterly in love. I've never lived in anything but cookie cutter houses and apartments. It feels like a dream to me. It's going to be so much money and work, but I've been calling my friends to see who's willing to help. I feel like it would be worth it in the end. All the trouble and pain it'll be do restore this house to something resembling order. It'll be worth it. It's a labor of love.

I look at that house and I don't see a seventy year old building at the end of its days. I see a house that must have once been so very beautiful, that I want to make beautiful again.

There's so much there.

I want it to take peoples' breaths away for another seventy years to come.

Any of you want to help? ♥