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[house] tour and I turned to Jim and I said, ‘Jim, can we buy this house?’ He felt the same excitement I did. And so we made a deal [with the seller] and shook hands in the garden.”
CHECKING ALL THE BOXES “The first thing that struck us was how unique it is for being in the center of a small city,” Ilene says of their first impressions of the house. “Clean, modern, spacious. Jim says that the second he walked in he fell in love with the modern design, the location, the great light and the natural wood trim. He couldn’t believe it had everything on our list plus so many [other] things: A gallery for my art, a studio in the house for me to make glass art, a huge screened-in porch with a fireplace, a big generator that gives us peace of mind during storms. We literally saw nothing in our home search that matched the beautiful, natural, outdoor space with a modern, eco-friendly interior that was just perfect for living with art.” Ilene says falling in love with their house at first sight was also, in a way, their first love for any house. “We always lived in apartments and condos,” she says. “This is the first home we ever purchased.” What they bought was a 10-room house – plus three bathrooms on three floors – with five porches (front porch, mudroom, the screened-in back porch with fireplace and dining room porch with grill). “On the bottom level we have a walk-out porch that we are enclosing later this year and putting in a hot tub and Zen garden.” The house, and community living, offered up a series of mostly good surprises. “We found we were crazy about having all of this shared outdoor space, pizza oven, bees, orchard,” Ilene adds. “Having never gardened before, suddenly we are planting apricot trees, putting in an herb garden for the compound to enjoy, growing and eating our own vegetables. I discovered the joy of making fairy gardens using miniature Japanese trees. These little container garden worlds have become a real source of fascination and wonder for both the compound and neighborhood children who like to come over and play with them.” 62
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durhammag.com
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May 2017