Gardening in High Heels

cultivate a beautiful life

House Hunters Drinking Game

I came home Tuesday night and I didn’t feel like training for the marathon, so I decided to turn on House Hunters on Netflix for background noise in the house. And I immediately sat my ass down and live-tweeted a drinking game. It just naturally lends itself to a drinking game. So many buzz words. So many ridiculous budgets. So many unreasonable expectations!

So I give you the House Hunters Drinking Game!

Watching people complain about houses you can't afford on House Hunters sucks. Turn it into a drinking game instead!

Take a drink when someone mentions or says…

  • Curb appeal
  • Open concept / open floor plan
  • Counter / cabinet space
  • Granite counter tops (or lackthereof)
  • Character / charm
  • Space for entertaining
  • Vaulted ceilings
  • “I don’t like the carpet.”
  • “Backsplash.”
  • “This closet isn’t big enough!”
  • “I’m disappointed in….”
  • “These ceilings aren’t high enough.” / “The ceilings are just too low.”
  • “It’s too small.”
  • “En suite.”
  • “I always get what I want.” / “S/he gets what s/he wants.”

Take two drinks when…

  • You see double sinks
  • The hunters get into a shower stall together

Chug when…

  • Someone loses their temper with their house hunting partner, i.e.: You can just *paint* it!!
  • Someone has an $1+ million budget

Assign a drink when…

  • Someone harps on an unreasonable expectation, i.e.: I need a 17′ x 17′ bedroom.
  • Someone mentions the budget (either over or under)
  • Someone talks about the renovations they’ll have to do

If you aren’t hammered halfway through an episode, you’re doing it wrong.

Side note: I found a fun House Hunters Drinking Game on BuzzFeed after I wrote this whole damn thing. I didn’t do too bad I guess. Also, the only time I ended up looking up a property after watching an episode was when a couple bought a firehouse. Luckily for me, they started a blog called A Fire Pole in the Dining Room. And I am in love.

What else would you add to the House Hunters Drinking Game?

**This is not sponsored/mentioned/in any way affiliated with House Hunters or HGTV nor do I condone excessive or irresponsible drinking.

Dating in the Real Estate World

It’s no secret I’m on the hunt for a new place (when something is happening in my life, it’s all I talk about; I’m a broken record that way). And my goodness, if finding a new place to live isn’t like dating, then I don’t know what it is. It takes a special listing to get the girl and Pittsburgh, lots of you are doing it wrong.

Dating and real estate don't sound like they'd be similar, but you'd be surprised as the similarities between apartment hunting and dating profiles.

First, let’s talk about your picture. If you want me to click on your listing, you best have a least one picture that isn’t blurry and was taken in the last year. And it better be a real photo of you, not the same standard “model apartment” shots that your 10 other listings have.

Oh yeah, why do you feel the need to spam us with your other listings? Can’t you just say, “Call Stephanie and ask about our other availabilities”? It seems to me that it’s harder to write 10 different listings, but whatever. It’s like Tom Haverford and his 26 profiles, only distinguishable by middle initial.

Now how about that listing title. “Charming and quiet” tells me nothing. A much more appealing headline would be, “Charming 1 bedroom apartment in quiet neighborhood.” Much better. If I feel like you’ll satisfy what I’m looking for with just a quick snapshot of what you offer, I’m much more likely to click on your listing. Who knows, I may even schedule a showing. Crazy!

Once you get into the listing, then the fun really gets going.

If you type in all caps, I’m out. I don’t want a landlord who yells at me. Ditto Every Word Being Capitalized. If you can’t figure out the English language in a grammatically correct fashion, I don’t know if we have any chance at communicating on a meaningful level.

Now, I understand, you don’t want to give it all away up front, but a little info is nice. What’s included in the rent? Do I get a parking spot? How about pets? These are standard questions that would make this process go a lot more smoothly and help you weed out the unnecessary applicants. Why waste your time showing an apartment if the girl has a cat and your building is deathly allergic to felines of any kind?

And you better not be fibbing about your square footage. What a disappointment that can turn out to be.

How’s your luck when it comes to dating in the real estate world?

 

7/100 — #100DaysBlogging

Baseball Riots and Vertigo

I’m giving myself a pass on yesterday’s #100DaysBlogging post, so today is counting for days 4 and 5. I had every intention to write this, but then I came home and feel asleep on the couch. Give me a break, I was in the ER, okay?

I was sitting on the ER bed and my dad was to my left. Every time I moved my head to look at him, it felt like my vision was trailing behind and would catch up after a few seconds. He said it reminded him of the “glowing puck.”

Apparently in the 90s, Fox had a contract with the NHL to include glowing electrodes in the puck that would “make it easier” for home viewers to see the puck because it glowed.

It was called FoxTrax. I wish they were punnier with the name and somehow worked in “trot” instead of “trax.”

Other things I learned yesterday:

  • There were three major league baseball games that ended in riots.
    • 10 Cent Beer Night at a Cleveland Indians game — can you imagine where that went wrong? Nope, me neither.
    • Disco Demolition Night — because who wouldn’t think that blowing up a box of disco records would do irreparable damage to the field?
    • Washington Senators’ final game at RFK Stadium. Fans were angered and the impending move to Texas and stormed the field looking for souvenirs. Oh and the security staff had already walked out — I know when I’m mad about something, my first reaction is to cause mayhem, too.
  • The 70s were a weird time for baseball.
  • I have vertigo. And not the Hitchcock movie.
4-5/100 — #100DaysBlogging

5 stages of putting together IKEA furniture

I have spent the better part of the summer putting together IKEA furniture and the process is the same no matter what. It’s long and painful and never really gets any easier the more you do it.  It’s almost like the Five Stages of Grief, but with more crying and throwing things.

Putting together IKEA furniture sucks! Five stages everyone goes through when they're putting together IKEA furniture | Gardening In High Heels

Excitement

Yeah, alright, I have new furniture! I’ll refresh my look and it’ll be so affordable. I may even do one of those Apartment Therapy IKEA hacks. And I got this fun organizer, and these plates, and a funky Euro print, too, and it was all in one place. One-stop home furnishings shopping. I love this place and I’m never leaving. I’m so urban and hip, I can’t stand myself.

Disbelief

Wait a minute, that cost how much?? But I just got some dog-butt hooks and a night stand! Also how do these Swedish people transport this stuff? Are they ridiculously strong and carry it home on their backs? Because this defintely isn’t fitting in my car and aren’t European cars even smaller?

Frustration

Why do I have 50 little screws and only 10 holes? Do I have to make my own? Am I being punked? This can’t be right, can it??

And what’s this diagram showing me? Not to climb on the bookshelf? No kidding! How about I also don’t take my new desk lamp into the bath with me.

I give up. I’m going to lay here like Sadness until Joy drags my away by my foot because I am done and this is stupid and I’m stupid because I can’t figure out why this little line drawing looks so happy and I just want to jump into a bath with my desk lamp plugged in.

Acceptance

Fine. I’ll keep building because it’s better than figuring out how to get it back to the store half-built. Also, I don’t want to go to the 7th circle of hell ever again. So I’ll just stay right here. Pouting.

Begrudging Relief

It is done. Someone get me a coffee the size of my head and follow it up with a stiff drink. I need to forget that experience ever happened. I am never doing that again. Oooh mail’s here, look at the new catalog! I want this..and this..

—

I swear, if you want to get married to someone, put together IKEA furniture first. If you successfully build it will all the parts and don’t want to rip each others’ head off, congrats. You should get married. You could also probably raise kids together as well or at least care for a very large dog.

I think I’m going to lay off the IKEA furniture for a while.

What’s your IKEA experience been like recently? Any fun stories?

If I Had a Super Power

I’m not one to cut corners, but if I had to, I’d totally use superpowers to cut down on some tasks that I’m not a fan of.  I guess you could say that my superpower would be to make errands and stupid-but-necessary tasks to do themselves.  Get ready for the second-t0-last day of Blogger, May I, if I had a super power…

If I had a super power...

If I had a super power…

  • All coupons would cut and sort themselves
  • The garbage would walk itself out on Tuesday night
  • Traffic would part before my car
  • My charging cables would all be in easy reach
  • My craft supplies would organize themselves (I actually kind of like organizing, but only if I have furniture in my office, which I don’t right now.)
  • Bills would put themselves into the bill binder
  • Blog images would edit and alt-text themselves
  • Meal plans would make themselves (but I’ll have to get better with this because I signed up for Emily Levenson’s Project:Food Budget so I kind of don’t have a choice – so let’s do it together and make it less painful!)
  • Weeds would pick themselves from the roots and fling themselves from my garden

What would your super power be?

 


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