So once I’d decided that I wanted to buy a home in Rogers Park (I fully support efforts to re-brand it as ‘The RP,’ by the way), I took a look at a few places. My criteria for a condo were that it had to be within five blocks of the lake; it had to be located in a small building, it must be spacious, preferably with a formal dining room, it must have parking and it should be close to an el stop, and a minimum of one bar and one good restaurant.
We went and looked at a condo that was converted in the seventies and was up for sale. We fell in love with the exposed brick wall that ran down one side of the unit, the enormous living room with cute bay windows and the gigantic formal dining room. The downsides? The bay window looked out onto a desolate parking lot, that was a little too close to the el, the kitchen badly needed a big makeover, and the bathroom looked like it needed work, even to our untrained eyes.
The building was 100 years old, and full of great vintage details, but I was also worried about living with radiator heat. Would a box airconditioner be too noisy or ineffective? Would radiator heat affect the resale value?
The unit had some shared outdoor space, and I was happily imagining myself setting up my BBQ, when my husband pointed to the paint-splattered table that took up a large portion of the garden. We’d been told that it belonged to one of the other condo owners, who was an artist. “How do we know there isn’t some hippie who has lived in this building for 30 years and thinks he owns the back yard?” my husband said.
Of course, condo living is full of such risks, but looking at that big messy table, I got the same bad vibe ( no offense intended to hippies, who, as a group, have actually perfected the art of peaceful communal living – we just had this feeling we were about to encounter a cantankerous one).
Although I quite liked the idea of growing flowers alongside someone else’s dope plants and maybe sharing the fruits of our labors occasionally, I realized that I was the one who was guilty of thinking of the garden as my own, and that’s not a good way to start condo life.
With so many question marks about the place, we turned around and went home. But I still dream about that large dining room and the massive timber-framed mirror that I would have bought to prop artfully (I hope) against the wall.