House?

This morning I went to look at a place to rent.

My S.O. sent me with his blessing. He says I have more experience with this and trusts my judgement.

Well, Ok. I have rented a lot of places, I guess. The last three places he's lived were the Mint Cookie, the condo up north (which was rented to us by a dear friend), and the house in south county (in which rooms were rented to us.)

Previous to which, he was in a house he and his former wife had bought.

So yeah, I guess it's up to me.

This particular property's listing has already been pulled down, and didn't have any pictures. It had good *numbers* though, fitting our current thresholds of "over 1000/under 1000". (Square feet/dollars a month.) It's also listed as "Fox Park."

Where the )(&)&(*^* is Fox Park? I'm glad you asked. I sure asked. I'd never heard of it. It's kind of between Lafayette square and South Grand. Basically, exit 44 at Jefferson going south, then head west. That's Fox Park.

It's charming, actually. Lots of those awesome brownstone buildings, and they all look nice and well-kept. Most of the streets do that "dead end" thing into Jefferson (kind of like in my current neighborhood.)

You know how to find Kukla's house? Find the greenery that looks like a hot mess. I'm next door.
Really, I should just keep this as a description. :D

I'm scoping out the street, tooling along slowly, and I see... well... it's either a Secret Garden, or the jungle ATE A HOUSE. Sunflowers were involved.

Turns out that it's a secret garden.

When I called my S.O. later, I was laughing. "That bad, huh?"
"Nope. This is good laughing."
"What? Why? What did you DO?!"
"I think I found the part of Lothlorien that lives in the heart of the city."
"YOU WHAT?"

So dig this:
The guy meets me, and he's a handsome fellow with a full head of wavy black and white hair. (not black hair speckled with white, mind you; he looks like a damn Marvel character.) He explains that he owns the building and the plot next door with the community garden. He offers to show me the whole thing, but I express interest in the downstairs only.
It's a four-family flat that was converted to a single-family home, and is now being made into a duplex. Each unit keeps a floor.
Yeah, all right. Let's go.
There's still a wee bit of work to go. For example, there's a doorway where a wall ought to be, so that the upstairs neighbors don't have access to my place. That's gotta go.
But the living room and dining room are huge and lovely. The living room has a gorgeous decorated fireplace (no idea if it's functional; don't care. It's stunning.) The dining room has two nice big windows. The kitchen is much larger than anticipated, larger than what I have now (possibly including the mudroom which... WHAT?) The bathroom has a claw foot tub in it.
And that's just one side.
Down the other side, there's the second entrance into the first "bedroom", which is really a mirror image of the living room, including that stunning fireplace. He's got it set up as an office.
The second room is what I'd probably call the bedroom. It has some architectural weirdness because of the front entryway, but it has a decent closet in it and plenty of room. Then there's the second bathroom (full bath, btw) with... yet another claw foot tub. (swoon.)
And there's all these weird closets. Like, every time I turn around there's a door, and it's a closet. They're all in strange spots, but my current house doesn't have any damn closets. I'm still a little starry-eyed over the closets.

In the back is the other bedroom, decently sized, and with its own sink.
*WITH ITS OWN SINK.*
In my head, I'm squeeing. It's not good to actually squee when negotiating with a landlord.
"Yeah, this used to be the kitchen when it was a four-family flat. That's the original sink there. I could take it out, if you didn't like it..."
"Oh, no no no, I wouldn't make you do that. You see, I... craft. A sink is good."
"Oh, great! I'm glad you like it! It works great!"

This guy works pretty hard to never use the word "Commune" but his original vision for the property was for a couple of families to live there and tend the garden next door. Like, owning the property in trust or something.
Told you: Lothlorien in the city.
He goes on to say that he kind of wants to turn it into an owned apartment kind of deal, like condos.
Intriguing.
Now, it's not in great shape. He obviously pulled up some sh*tty carpet or something and was trying to salvage the original wood floors. This is NOT going to work, and he knows it. He plans to throw down vinyl or laminate flooring in most of it. I grinned. "Oh, good. I hate carpet."
He grinned back at me, "Me, too. It's like you can SMELL the allergens in it."

Yeah, this might be our guy.

Most of the walls and ceilings have peeling paint. They're all going to have to get prepped and repainted. However, the molding around the doors? *all still wood*
Swoon again.
He explains that he has to get the work done first, then have "his guys" paint it, and I point out that my father is a retired contractor who specialized in painting; I could put a team together to paint it and save him some trouble. "And I genuinely CARE about that exposed wood and those fireplaces; I guarantee we won't paint over them."
He lit up. "Wow, we could totally do that. It would be ready faster, and I'd probably knock like, the first month's rent off for that."

*KITTY EARS UP*

He also loved the idea of us using our own appliances, which we would prefer anyway. He was delighted, in fact, saying that he could then move the existing fridge to the other unit and not have to come up with another stove.

It's much farther south and east than I had planned, but this guy is even willing to run a month to month deal (which is my favorite and preferred deal if possible.) The owner is eccentric in the RIGHT ways, and loves the idea that we might paint it in whimsical colors and patterns. (He mourned the fact that we'd have to paint over the dragonflies in the back bedroom. Dragonflies, you say? Darling, my dragonflies are SO much yummier than those poor deflated dears.)

This seriously might be our place.

The negatives are heavy though:
No A/C. Window units only, which are not there at this time. However, the owner wants to put in central A/c. The rent will likely reflect that once it's in, though.
No parking; all on-street. There is a garage with a leaky roof. However, if he fixes it perhaps something could be done about that. There may be a parking pad in back.