TWO BEDROOMS, WALK-IN CLOSETS, TWO FULL BATHS, DINING/BREAKFAST NOOK, LAUNDRY ROOM, PANTRY/UTILITY CLOSET, MODERATE-SIZED BALCONY w/ ADDITIONAL STORAGE CLOSET, FRONT DOOR w/ PEEP HOLE, GREAT NEIGHBORS, SORT OF CLOSE TO SCHOOLS, OPTICAL ILLUSIONS AROUND EVERY CORNER. LIVING AT ITS BEST…AND WORST!
After ten years and one defunct president, it looks like my wife and I will soon be moving on to greener pastures…but not without lugging with us the mortgage of a 600sq/ft condo posing as an 800sq/ft one. But, hey, you do with what you have to work with, right? Itâs not a perfect world, after all. And itâs for certain not a perfect housing market.
However, Iâm fairly certain that my wife and I have a leg up on the renting competition out there because who else can offer prospective renters the opportunity to live in their very own Wonder of the World?
My wife and I both grew up in Park Ridge and wanted to stay relatively close to there when we moved out together. But, just starting out on our own, we had very little money, and our mortgage loan approval in the Park Ridge area got us little more than a closet with a stove and toilet to live in, and in the surrounding towns got us slightly more living space but higher crime rates. So, our realtor widened our search radius and brought us out to our current place of residence in Lake in the Hills.
The condo, although small, was a virtual paradise by comparison to what we were coming off looking at (think the word âquartersâ and you might be close), and the area seemed safe and pleasant with room to grow, green baby trees, and a nature preserve nearby. Just the fact that it had grass outside was enough to compel us say, âWeâll take it.â
It was shortly after we moved in that I began to sense something ânot rightâ or âoff kilter,â which turned out to be the more accurate word, about our new home…of sorts.
When I was a kid, aunt and uncle had a cottage near the Wisconsin Dells, so my parents and I spent a great deal of time up there during the summers. Although we didnât go there very often, one of my favorite attractions in the Dells was the Wonder Spot. The Wonder Spot was a spooky little shack tucked back in the woods (think The Deer Hunter) with big lore and little mystery when you got down to it. Strange things were claimed to happen there that they blamed on the âpeculiar magnetismâ of the area that caused water to run uphill or things to hang on angles when really it was just a structure built on an angle and designed to look level, creating one heck of a fun and dizzying optical illusion on visitors.
Our condo is much like this place. And Iâm not kidding.
Water doesnât run uphill but things do âhangâ on angles, among the other anomalies that Iâve been scratching my head over for years. Here are some examples. See if you make sense of them:
The wood grain of our floor runs under our area rug in one direction and comes out in three other directions on the other sides.
The edge of our couch and the edge of our coffee table appear perfectly parallel, looking from one side. Looking from the other side, they run away from each other in a V shape.
The width of one of our windows takes up almost the width of the entire wall itâs on, leaving no room on the sides for a tieback hook. So, in the summer when we open the window, we pull the bottom of the curtain up and hang it over the rod. The hanging fold of the curtain is level (Iâve used a level to make sure). The curtain hangs smooth over the rod. But the curtainâs hem (seen through the curtain) is on an angle.
We donât have central air (which is hellish if you have ever lived without it through a very hot summer), so we keep the doors and windows open as much as we can in summer to let a breeze in. Our condo always keeps yesterdayâs weather. If itâs hot outside yesterday and cool outside today, it remains hot in our condo today.
And the list goes on…
