Despite being a large and colorful house, the Condo’s most prominent feature was a faint sense of irreality, such that no matter how soberly its inhabitants and visitors acted, it remained one of those places where the most incredible and outlandish extremes of the imagination reliably fell into place, desired or not. That being said, the colors were just unserious enough to ensure that it was the only remotely likeable house in the area, while skillfully dodging the criticism of the insufferably serious.
The building was split into three completely isolated but interwoven units, such that there was no possibility of interaction between the inhabitants of differing units, but those who did not live there could have no idea which windows belonged to which unit. The second unit was the one accessible by the front door, which led to a small foyer. There, the unit, which began on the second floor of the building, was masterfully connected by a wooden staircase, which unlike most, was carpeted only down the center, while the edges were left open for the attachment of balusters. This carpeting arrangement was repeated for the staircase leading from the second (main) floor to the third floor, which was comprised of only two bedrooms, one on each end of a thin hallway, and a small closet. The bedroom at the left end of the hallway was interestingly shaped, with a section of ceiling being sloped downward with the roof, reaching a somewhat low height (three or four feet) at a certain point. The other bedroom had two additional doors inside of it that led to unfurnished attic spaces. The larger of the attic spaces was accessible by a door that was directly across the room from the door to enter the bedroom itself. The other attic was accessible by a door on the leftmost wall (from the perspective of the door to enter the bedroom). The second unit did not have access to a basement.
The main floor, beginning at the top of the first staircase, began with a short, wide hallway. At one end of this hallway was a window overlooking the street, which was next to the staircase to the third floor. The other end of the hallway terminated at the intersection between the dining room (right) and living room (left). Between this end and the staircase from the foyer was the door to the master bedroom (on the side of the living room), and the door to the bathroom (on the side of the dining room). The section of hallway containing both the staircase down to the foyer and the staircase to the second (third) floor had a rather open side, because of all the staircases, while the other side was mostly a wall, with the exception of the aforementioned master bedroom door.
The other ends of both the living room and dining room led to the kitchen, which was a large, square room, with all cabinets and counters positioned along the walls, leaving the center empty. The system of doorless openings between the dining room, living room, and kitchen formed a loop, such that one could enter the dining room, then the kitchen, then the living room, and back into the dining room.
At the very back of the kitchen room was the farthest door of the unit, which opened into an enclosed staircase, different from the others, and without any windows. At the bottom of this staircase was a back door which opened into a sunken area of concrete beneath the level of the asphalt driveway, that led, with three or four concrete stairs, back up to the driveway. This door was the closest door to the back recesses of the driveway. This door, and the entire back and sides of the Condo, were not flowery as was the front. In fact, they were entirely blank and utilitarian. The side walls (with the exception of a somewhat nice door with a brick staircase visible from the front) were simply continuous yellow shingles, the same ones as the front, with the occasional window. The side and back windows, however, did not feature green trim as did the windows and doors of the front. The second unit’s back door was completely solid and white, with only a simple knob. Either the first or third unit did have access to a back porch, which was significantly elevated above the back driveway, but this porch had no access to exit the house; it was just a simple wooden porch with a view of the back of the house on the adjacent street. However, underneath this porch was a makeshift storage area with a wooden door, and the exterior of this area was trimmed with the same green color as the front of the condo. The front of the Condo was not really similar to that of any other house.
The front of the Condo also had an almost square concrete patio surrounded by brick masonry. The surrounding masonry included short pillars that extended slightly above the rest of the border, topped with a flat, square piece of concrete. There was a masonry path that led from the entrance to the patio from the sidewalk (which was an open section of the masonry border with two of the aforementioned short pillars on either side) to the few steps that then led up to the front door of the Condo (which led to the second unit). The steps themselves were made from masonry that matched the rest, made from slim orange-brown rocks, the gaps filled in with the same concrete.
The house that would soon become the Condo, as it turned out, was a very old building, as were the two men who resided in it. Murphy and Yhprum had lived in the house for the past few decades. They were properly old, in the sense that they had seen what their lives had been, and they had watched as the people who joined them when they were younger, and the ones who they had created, had become far too distant in one way or another to consider any longer. But by common luck, the old friends’ bodies and compatibility had withstood the test of time, until finally, even the (admittedly large) old house had become too much to manage.
And so, as the silent old friends discretely relocated to a smaller, more assisted place, the house became, at long last, entirely vacant and ripe for renovation. While the old men had seen to its maintainence in the beginning, by the time of its sale, the big house had become extremely unattractive; of absolutely no use to anybody except for its prior residents (it was useful to them for no reason except that it was where they were already living). Ultimately, this is a condition that every house will eventually fall into, where no amount of cleaning, patchwork upgrades, and marketing will be enough to make it useful; where a complete renovation is necessary. Yes, this is a shame for preservationism, but if this fact was not acknowledged, the world would quickly become full of unmaintained, almost dilapidated houses, and people who don’t want to live in them, leaving no room for anything else at all. This is a situation in which there can be a thouroughly good balance between both ends of the extreme. The other end of the extreme is equally unfavorable. When the house that would become the Condo fell into this state after the two old men finally departed, it had had quite a good run, as it was originally built in 1910, and the major renovation began a few years short of 100 years later.
The renovation turned the old dusty, beige, fading house into the almost-too-bright, optimistic three-unit Condo that would soon become the subject of meaningless, routine smalltalk between the existing residents of Connor Road and Main Street (the house could be seen from a small residential section of Main Street because the beginning side of Connor Road attached perpendicularly to Main Street, and the Condo was at a low house number of only 5). The renovation would see the house stripped down to the studs, so that the floors, walls, everything that could be seen, were replaced. At the same time, the entire main structure of the house would remain unchanged, such that the general shape of the house, the locations of exterior windows and doors, and most rooms, were the same as they were before the renovation. Some small structural and layout changes may have been made to the interior of the house, in order for it to be seperated into the three condo units, from its previous state as one vast, continuous residence.
When Murphy and Yhprum decided to sell their old house in 2007, their options for buyers were practically unlimited. Various individuals and companies put in their offers for the house without even looking at the inside of it, for anybody could have known that the only sensible course of action would be renovation. The question was not if, but who. The answer came in the middle of 2007, when a plain real estate company, as part of its normal day to day operations, made the highest final bid to the old men. They would have half of a million dollars in cash to keep them going for their final days. After the old men and the few belongings that were of importance to them were completely relocated from the Condo, the real estate company was tasked with finding a contractor to manage and ultimately complete the renovation work. This task was completed after a Friday-afternoon-when-everybody-just-wants-to-go-home-from-work session of “research” on local contractors, and a neither new, nor particularly old renovation company was selected. The renovation company was in the stage of its most normal and uninteresting operations, wherein the business had been established for a fair enough amount of time that all of its novelty, as well as any related excitement of its owners and employees, had worn off, but it was not nearly old enough to hold the pretentious status that old, well-established businesses often do, and nowhere near old enough for the owners and stalwart employees to consider retirement or what might otherwise be next.
The renovation began in late 2007, and was neither rushed nor finished too slowly. The main contractor hired a collection of equally uninteresting and middle-aged subcontractors to perform various specific aspects of the work. Over the course of the work, no corners were intentionally cut, and the work was done properly. At the same time, no interesting intentions existed for the contractor or any of the subcontractors. The only intention amongst all was to make the house into a livable and comfortable condo, without exceeding the allotted budget. For this reason, nothing particularly interesting was intentionally done by anybody during any phase of the renovation. However, there arose, as there always does, various limitations and problems during the renovation, which led to decisions made and actions taken by the contractor and subcontractors that differed from what would occur during a completely perfect and ideal project. For example, during the planning phase, interesting and unconventional layout choices (which may be evident in the previous descriptions of the Condo’s interior) had to be made, in order to create the three-unit condo that the real estate company desired, while keeping costs low by working with the existing structure and layout of the building. During the demolition phase (demolition only of parts that were to be renovated), it was discovered that certain random things inside the building would be too expensive to replace, even though it was desired, so the occasional interior door (or doorframe/knob) were left as part of the final Condo, perhaps shoddily repainted. During the actual installation of the new parts of the building, certain difficulties occurred since the framing and structure were so old and did not always comply with the new installations, so small inconsistencies and “resourceful” solutions were installed along with the new parts and shoddily covered up, and during the finishing touches, covered up even further. This phenomenon is where the flowery dark green trim (for the front) against dulled yellow siding, and the Condo’s questionable but masterful layout, and its uncommon staircase-carpet arrangement, and lovely front patio whose usefulness remained somewhat unclear (which was installed to fill the awkward space created by the crumbled remains of a concrete parking area in front of the original house), among other things, originated.
This phenomenon is also what made the Condo (and specifically, its second unit) the greatest, most extraordinary, most comfortable, most livable, most enjoyable, and most likeable house in the entire world.
After the renovation was completed in the spring of 2009, the Condo (which from now on will refer to only the second unit of the condo in question) would soon sit empty, anxiously but without worry, for some time while it awaited its new owners. And while the other units filled up with residents and furniture (both quite pretentious), the second unit filled up, more and more each day, first with the early morning flood of spring birdsong, which rivaled the flood of daytime April rain that brought its air into the fresh air that already filled the Condo (by way of its windows, accidentally left open by the last of the departing contractors). When April’s night fell, the sound of peepers led the lonely and young Condo into the dark recesses of the night, when the true waiting (for the next morning’s birds) began. Then, as the days, still increasing in length, became hotter and less rainy, the haphazard chorus of early spring’s birds became the reliable (and just as nice) songs of late spring’s, then summer’s birds. The rainy air that had filled the condo, sometimes broken by hopeful and demanding rays of surprisingly powerful evening sun, had turned into the summer breeze, which always prevented the Condo from becoming excessively hot and humid. The daytime summer sunlight itself was the most clear, white, and powerful force that gently lifted some molecules from the new oak floors (which it also rendered a bright shade of gold) and the new paint, into the Condo’s air. The summer’s evening sun brought a deeper shade of gold to the flooring, as its awkward angle bounced around the equally awkward layout of the Condo’s unfurnished interior. Then, as the maximum day length was reached for only a single day in the height of the summer, the air that filled the Condo became slightly more dry, and the shade of gold deeper still. Though the spirit of summer was still in the air for all that surrounded it, the Condo grew more and more concerned, and voicelessly asked the real estate company to start sharing this concern. But the Condo would not fall for this obvious entry point into a nonsensical emotional spiral, and was thouroughly fulfilled in knowing that what was right would eventually happen. It always did, and the Condo was certain of it.