Capitol Hill House Hunters

image uploaded by abbeychristine on Flickr

I fell in love with the District during my first visit to Eastern Market, but when my husband and I decided to settle down, we told our real estate agent that we wanted to look at condos closer to the downtown core. After weeks of looking at small, uninhabitable condos our agent suggested we look at a house on the Hill, but before she could show us a house on 11th Street, it was under contract.

We continued our search on the Hill, but we quickly learned that the competitive market of 2005, among other things, was making it nearly impossible to afford Hill homes, which were “offered at” reasonable prices, but quickly escalated out of our price range once under contract.

It was an open house that brought us to the three-bedroom, three-bath house on the Northeast edge of Capitol Hill where we now reside. We accepted that it was our house because we signed the contract with the winning bid. At the height of the market, we bid on and settled for a house we could barely remember. After we moved in a few months later, we continued going to open houses. We knew that we were committed to our worn down house, but we longed for something more polished than what waited for us at home.

Between unpacking and stripping wallpaper, my husband and I would walk to Eastern Market and stop at open houses along the way—houses that looked appealing from the outside occasionally offered inspiration for us inside. Soon, we would make a habit of visiting at least two or three open houses each month—as to not give ourselves away to the real estate agents who surely knew an interested buyer from habitual open house window shoppers—and  pointed out things we liked to one another. “I like the look of the white woodwork against the soft, blue-green walls,” or, “I love that tile on the fire place surround.” And occasionally “Oh, look, a pot-filler!”

Then we started experimenting with what we could do to improve our own house. We painted tired woodwork and bland bathrooms, restaged bedrooms and eventually set out to remodel our kitchen (complete with a pot-filler)—our biggest and most time-consuming project to date. Suddenly we were so busy updating our own home that we stopped going to open houses.

And then the house on 11th Street that piqued our interest went back on the market. I waited all week for Sunday’s open house. I was anxious to see the house that brought us to the Hill. When I walked through the door shortly after 1 pm, I was surprisingly underwhelmed. The house wasn’t at all what I imagined it would be. The kitchen was small and not nearly as functional as our newly remodeled kitchen. And the master bedroom? It looked smaller than even our smallest bedroom. I soon realized that in our four years on the Hill, we had made our house a home we wanted to live in and enjoy.

And while the 11th Street house was less than desirable, we have continued our habit of visiting open houses, like the great place on 10th Street that had a family room that looked more like an Embassy Row living room, and the fabulous three-story house with the big kitchen and third story master suite. Only this time we are looking for ideas that we can use when it is time to remodel our master bathroom.