labor of love

Last summer, Kathy and I were sitting on lawn chairs on the sand in front of our Fire Island house, talking about how the stock market had just taken another dip.  The reason we were talking about it was because we were trying to figure out with some retirement funds.  Putting it into the stock market again didn't seem to make much sense.  As we mulled this over, a solution slowly came to us. 

We had also recently been thinking about how it didn't make much sense to continue to dump money into a vacation rental, even someplace we loved as much as Fire Island.  We had retirement money that we didn't want to put in the stock market.  Suddenly, it became clear.  Maybe, just maybe, we could buy a house on Fire Island. 

After some looking around, we found a perfect two-bedroom bungalow that would just barely fit our family.  When we talked to a real estate agent about it, he said that the house we found was fine, but there was something even better for us.  There was only one problem with it...

Do not adjust your screen.  The interior of the house is orange.  Completely orange.  Every wall of the main living space on the first floor, as well as up the stairs and a good portion of the second story. There is also orange carpet running up the stairs.  For good measure, they have thrown in several busts and cupids and statutes of centaurs.  I assure you, it's much worse in person than it is in this picture.

Remember back when I said I wanted to buy the house across the street, because it would be so fun to fix up and re-decorate?  I started to think maybe the orange was an asset.  When we realized we would not only have enough room in this house for our family, but also for friends, Kathy and I started to fall in love with he idea.  When we found out the house came with an entire set of orange china, we were sold.

We went through many ups and downs, from the time we put an offer in on the house last fall, until we closed a couple of weeks ago.  But now, at long last, the House of Orange is all ours.  I think it's time to go shopping for paint.