Our house won't be on the market yet for another month, but we went to our first semi-serious open houses today (coinciding also with the Ladera Heights/Windsor Hills garden show).

The first one was one I'd had my eye on for a while. Despite a slightly daunting amount of fixer-upper-ness, it's huge (yet simultaneously with many small rooms) and the style is one we like. Inevitably, Dr. Pookie fell in love with it. It's now showing as 'pending' and it wasn't this morning, so we'll probably have to deal with the fact that someone else will be living in our house.

The second one was the opposite of fixer-upper. It is in fact so strongly fixed-up, that it seems hard for me to imagine moving in and making it my own. Everything is already perfectly in place -- displace one note and there would be diminishment. It's eco-friendly to the max, but my favorite detail were the two small piles of books on a shelf. One of Jim Blaylock, and the other of Tim Powers. We should get to know these people and make them give us a dinner party in their beautiful backyard while they still own it.