House hunting in Providence

Upon our return to Dick and Dorothy's house in southeastern Massachusetts, we began looking for a house in earnest.

Our realtor, Seth Price, patient as a saint, quickly came to understand what it was we were looking for -- probably sooner than we did -- and before long we had visited more than a half dozen properties in or near the downtown of Providence during our first few days in the area. One place in particular, an octagon shaped house just a stone's throw from the enormous gothic state armory, struck as a real possibility the first minute we saw it. Aside from the overall shape the condo was very nicely appointed and had a gorgeous outdoor common area for late afternoon get-togethers, but the absence of any real storage space and the odd-shape of the rooms -- it's an octagon remember? -- were the deciding factors and we decided no.

It wasn't long before we had pretty much exhausted Seth's list of available downtown condos that fit into our budget and so we started branching outward from the city center. At the same time we continued our search through craigslist online.

After looking at several properties in the neighborhoods surrounding Providence, and even spending a Sunday testing the Open House theory of home buying -- not highly recommended -- we found a wonderful place in Cranston, a surburb of Providence. Although the condo was basically a turnkey place needing no overhaul or upgrading, it was on the high side and again we passed.

Moreover, we realized that living out in the surburbs really no longer appealed to us, and continued our search for a place with a bit more of a community feel to it, more urban I suppose. Perhaps our months in Florence and Paris in particular had more of a lasting influence on us than we realized.

We found ourselves at something of an impasse, not sure where we were going to look next, when we came across a place online at Craiglist near downtown that sounded quite nice; solid, sound and leafy neighborhood, just a stone's throw from downtown. We called Seth to see if he could arrange a time for us to get in.

He said no problem. "Oh, and by the way I've got another place you might want to see."