The Treehouse

Baleen and I shed a tear at our level-headedness yesterday. In the circuitous way that the internet allows, a search to see how much the apartments two doors down from us were selling for led to a 3-bedroom, 2 bathroom house just off the Dipsea Steps listed at $699,000. Our kids can grow up in a treehouse, she said.   

What the realtor told us is what we expected, that it's a unique place requring unique owners who aren't afraid of a tough resell. There's no guaranteed parking, just three usually available public spots at the end of Cascade Way, then 35 public steps up the Dipsea Trail and 35 more private ones to your house. Which means that with our current rate on deliveries from Amazon Prime, we'd have to buy our UPS man a keg of Fat Tire each Christmas, forgetting for a moment all the groceries, furniture and strollers that we'd have to lug up and down those stairs.

He also told us something we didn't expect, that it was redone beautfilly on the inside with a brand new kitchen, hardwood floors throughout and updated bathrooms. That, and that it was currently in escrow in a $650k short sale, 3 years after it last turned over for a cool million. We talked about offering $660k and renting it out for a year or two, forgetting again what it would be like to haul a few toddlers and groceriers up those stairs, or what we'd do about a 90 minute commute for Baleen or if we'd even want it then, which led to the level-headed conclusion that we're staying exactly where we are for now.