Well, we went and saw The Farm.  And it was amazing.  The land was astonishingly beautiful, a hilltop covered with grapevines and blueberry bushes, a holler running fat with tapped maple trees and underbrush thick with wasps and birds and little rodenty things.  Nellie made a friend of Roscoe, the neighbor’s big Akita, and I wanted to move into the barn, which was airy and clean and spacious.

The house, however, was another matter.

Don’t get me wrong – there was nothing WRONG about it.  An old farmhouse, kept up rather nicely, refinished wood floors, lots of original molding, original features (summer kitchen!) coupled with some really lovely (if out-of-period) additions.  But it felt weird.  And how lame is that, that for me, I guess it all boils down to feng-shui.  But I walked into that house and felt uncomfortable.  I toured the whole house, trying to imagine our things, our lives there.  And I just felt itchy.

The front door opens on the dining room, which is also one of the entrances to the greenhouse (dear lord, a greenhouse!) and the in-law apartment and the stairway up to the bedrooms.  Beyond the dining room is the kitchen, which leads to the living room.

The second floor was crammed with bedrooms and bathrooms, just as we knew it would be, no surprises there.  And the attic had some serious potential for offices or a big old master bedroom at some future renovation-y time in our lives.

But the first floor.  The living floor.  It felt inside out, somehow, disjointed and odd.  Distinctly uncomfortable.

And, in New Hampshire especially, spending time indoors is pretty much what one does.  I mean, it’s not like I’m going to be getting a huge amount of enjoyment out of the beautiful grounds in February.

And the nearest town is not a town that feels particularly welcoming.  It’s a depressed milltown, and it shows.  Its school has fallen rather dramatically in rankings lately, and it just doesn’t seem like a great place to drop in, have coffee, and meet some new friends.

So we are not placing a bid.  Despite the seller having dropped the price by a huge amount just a couple of days ago.  We may still go back to this house, because there is an awful lot of it that is just perfect.  (Greenhouse.  Barn.  Summer kitchen.  Maple stand.  Grape vines.  40 acres of woodland. Well-regarded private high school in town.)  We may still end up bidding, but we will not be doing it right now, and we may not end up doing it ever.

Which feels sad, but also like the right thing to do.

*sniff*

Ah well.  The house hunting adventure has officially begun!