Dear list,
After a year and a half of apartment living, I have put a deposit on a
house. The next task is to convince a bank that it should lend me money
despite my being in the process of becoming maritally disadvantaged, so to
speak. Actuaries in NY decide that divorced men are bad risks. I will
save the details of that particular gripe for alt.whine.
I searched for a garage with a house attached, but in the end had to
settle for a house with just a single car garage. Bummer :-(. I did a
pretty good job of rationalizing that--the house needs so much work I
won't have time for another project for a while, and maybe in a year or
two the garage can be extended.
Then, after having my offer accepted, I measured the garage--it is 26' 9"
long. So I could put Kermit the bugeye at the front corner and have space
for a middle size car behind. I am beginning to lust after an MGB, or
maybe an Alpine like the one I used to have, and either of those would fit
behind Kermie with nearly 3 feet to spare. Kermie will be exceedingly
happy to have survived the division of assets, I think, and pleased to
have dry concrete beneath his wheels.
Oh, and the house has a good-sized dry basement down a short flight of
stairs from the garage. That is so convenient that the basement can serve
as auxiliary workspace for the garage, and hold a lot of things that
usually take up space in the garage--like the compressor, the bead blast
cabinet I hope to get some day soon, a workbench, parts shelves, etc. Oh,
and the lawnmower, and trimmer, and all that stuff. In the end, I may
have about as much space as I had in a 20x20 two car garage, and a heck of
a lot better basement for woodworking. Hmmmmm... :-)
And then, this house is cheap. Relatively speaking, anyway. Houses with
big garages cost many kilobucks more, so I wouldn't be able to afford
anything to go in the garage. If I can live with the tacky old carpet for
a while, I might have enough in a few months to follow Scott's excellent
advice and buy a $5000 MGB or Alpine someone else has created by doing
$6000 worth of work to a $1500 MGB or Alpine.
I'm feeling better and better. And to think I will never again hear the
guy downstairs blowing his nose in the morning... that really disorients
me; I feel I am fogged in somewhere in a crummy apartment in Maine.
Anyway, my cup runneth over. It is only a modest ranch house, but it has
possibilities. Please, bank, have mercy. I won't get divorced again, I
promise.
Ray Gibbons Dept. of Molecular Physiology & Biophysics
Univ. of Vermont College of Medicine, Burlington, VT
gibbons@northpole.med.uvm.edu (802) 656-8910
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