Great Moments in Maine Real Estate

Shopping for houses in Maine is a total scene, man.

Sorry, I lapsed into hipster mode there for a minute. But I stand by the sentiment. If you hit up Realtor dot com and poke around you can find all sorts of wonderful things, in the true sense of the word “wonder.” You wonder what gets into people’s heads. Maybe the hats with the flaps we all wear in Maine are cutting off the air to our brains, and leading to all kinds of metal disturbances, like buying ceiling fans for every room in a house just outside the Arctic Circle.

Here’s a recent, generous helping of some of Maine’s great moments in real estate:

Many Mainers don’t read no good. They see a flyer from Home Depot that touts Kitchens and Baths, and decide that it’s a single entity.  Or perhaps they’ve been watching any one of the seventeen hundred botoxed hosts on home and garden television telling them to take down all the walls in their home to achieve an open plan. Sooner or later, the bathroom walls inevitably become the last frontier to conquer. Now, it’s possible that they’re only storing a toilet in the kitchen temporarily, but I wouldn’t bet on it. People in Maine get shit done, and in every room of the house, too.

These fine folks have installed their own personal convenience store in their foyer. The realtor touted it in the description, so I assume this sounds like a good idea for a substantial portion of the local populace. Of course it’s a long time since I’ve attended school. It’s possible that they’ve updated the food pyramid in the intervening years. Perhaps the layers are now: fructose, sucrose, glucose, Sweet ‘n Low, and xanthan gum. An attentive mother would make sure her brood got enough of each, for as long as they can fit through that door, anyway.

Ah! Cleaving by candlelight. That’s romance. As the eye wanders, it eventually rests on a deli slicer on the shelf below. These fine folks are hell bent on two-dimensional meat. Perhaps I’m just a nervous Nellie, but if I was the realtor taking this picture, I’d hesitate before heading down that dim hallway with the extension cord on the floor, and no plaster left on the walls. There might be a an electric bone saw back there.

The tarpaulin walls are fantastic, of course. But it’s close to decorating genius to add the blue tarp bedspread to the ensemble. I assume the denizens hired someone like Martha Stewart to pick everything out, but only had a Harbor Freight gift card for a budget. The delicate sheer curtains set off the exposed rock wool ceiling nicely, but it’s the rhino turd pillow on the bed that really completes the room.

A purple room? Check. Bats? Check. Skulls? Check. Cactuses? Sure, why not. This is what happens when you don’t buy your daughter a pony, people.

 

There’s so much concentrated awesome in this room I don’t know where to begin. Shockingly, it’s in a trailer park. Whoda thunkit? I’m not sure what kind of ceremony this joint is set up for, but after you put on the fright mask on the left, crank up the King Crimson record to jackhammer volume on those JBL speakers, and pay your obeisance to the gods of African fauna and WWF grappling, a guy can really get some quilting done.

I do believe the piano has lingered in this stairwell too long, and its woodgrain is attempting a chameleonic transubstantiation to adapt to its surroundings. The dog has been afraid to move since Nixon’s first term, but he’s probably OK. The owners are no doubt saving up to get a dog with three heads to properly guard the landing, but he’ll do in the interim.