The Carved Block: Sawatch Sanctuary

Summit of Tabeguache Peak; looking north at Mt. Antero

I bought a house!

Teller Street is a 1955 3 bed, 2 bath home built in the Italianate and Romanesque Revival style with Salida brick. It has two stories, two nicely finished bathrooms, a ton of trees and shade, a big backyard and side yard, and a shed in the back (gear storage and future cat sanctuary).

After months of touring Salida’s stale and overpriced listings, the market was feeling grim. But one morning I was on the summit of La Plata peak and flipped my phone off Airplane Mode, as I sometimes do on summits. I saw that Raf had texted me a listing – from the thumbnail on my phone, I immediately recognized it as a home I had walked by many times and loved. I had even considered writing to the owners and seeing if they might consider selling (I hesitated because I had tried that unsuccessfully for another place). Needless to say, I hopped on the listing right away, toured it at 3pm, and had an offer in by 7pm.

Raf and I are both loving Salida – me leading the charge on the mountain front and her on the river front – and we’re super excited to make it our long-term home! I enjoy living biking distance from the grocery store, world-class mountain bike trails, and events downtown like local theater performances, comedy, and free concerts at Riverside Park. The town is full of good people and feels like it has a promising future. Our new home is conveniently just four blocks from our current place, which gives us a sense of the neighborhood and will make the move easy.

Salida proper is definitely less rural than where I had anticipated ending up, but it’s ideal! I did tour some spots outside of town, but many of the really cool rural properties in the area suffer from major insurance hurdles and water challenges. Our future Lost Coast cabin can be the rural one!

The previous owners were writers who ran the Colorado Central Magazine and lived in the home since 1989. The first owner, who built the house in 1955, must have already had some nostalgia for the Salida architectural styles of the early 1900s and a little bit of money.

Overall, I feel very grateful that the right property came on the market at the right time and at an accessible price. The housing market is obviously absurdly expensive, both nationally and in Colorado, and I would definitely not consider $625k to be affordable in normal terms. It is reachable to me only because I have meticulously squirreled away money over the years, and have a job I love that pays me fairly. Salida has experienced a notable correction over the last year, and the list price for Teller St likely reflects this. All things considered, I think I got a good deal! I bought at 60% of the median price per square foot and negotiated a $25k reduction in the purchase price to pay for a roof replacement.

There is deep injustice baked into current home prices, and it’s definitely frustrating to have to spend so much, even while getting a good deal (for the times). It is super super lame that the Federal Reserve made money artificially cheap, inflated our currency, drove up home values, and front-loaded a decade of typical appreciation into a span of three years, creating a ton of winners and losers in the process. This amounts to theft from the future and from the young, an incentive to own rather than to work. But that knowledge does not enhance my life moving forward, and it seems unlikely that this deep rift in society over housing and assets can be resolved fairly without a massive increase in wages, which can't come soon enough. At a certain point, bitterness stops being a reaction and starts being a choice.

Homeownership feels right to me because we love our lives in Salida, we love this particular house, and I want more space and stability. I strongly value having close access to high mountain recreation, and I want to live with Raf and many cats at Teller Street. More than an investment, it is a home!

People keep asking me “what’s your vision for the place?” Mainly, a handful of aesthetic updates and some bigger projects.

Soon after I move in, I am going to have the roof replaced. But the fun projects are inside, including some flooring and ceiling updates and a major kitchen remodel. In the living room, dining room, office, guest bedroom, and second-floor landing, I’m having the ¾” Douglas Fir subfloor finished. In the kitchen, bathroom, and entryway (tested positive for asbestos), I'm going to set black stone tiles. I'll paint all the walls a fresh matte white, and then do colors on the ceilings: Raf and I have been looking at mountain colors like ochre, rust / firebrick, dark green, and slate blue.

In the kitchen, I'll strip out all the old appliances and cabinets, replace with new stainless steel appliances (already bought on the cheap! a condo owner didn't want any of the appliances that came with the place), and then get a fresh set of cabinets and granite countertops!

There are some unfortunate tile ceilings throughout the house, including an office-style drop ceiling in the kitchen (asbestos free!) and a custom wood frame + large tile ceiling in the guest bedroom. After peeking above the tiles to see what demons might be hiding up there, I want to tear both of those out and gain a couple feet of room back. If the plaster ceiling is cracked, I’ll hang drywall.

The yard already has a few awesome junipers, both large and small, but I plan to add two more in the front yard – one on either side of the front entryway – to give a little separation between the porch and the street. I want to finish the backyard shed into a space that can be divided between gear storage, foster cat zone, and chicken coop.

It's all exciting and a little crazy, but I'm just glad to have established ourselves in the Rocky Mountains for the indefinite future!

Fall has arrived in the high country!

Snowy morning on Shavano. Inversion visible in the San Luis Valley.

Looking West towards Mt. Aetna

Cronin Peak (left) and Mt. Antero (right)

Summit of Mt. White; looking southeast at Salida

Summit of Mt. White; looking south at Shavano and Tabeguache

The many roads on Mt. Antero

Summit of Cronin Peak; looking northeast at Mts. Antero and Princeton

Rocky alpine basin below Cronin Peak

Summit of Quandary Peak; looking west towards Leadville and the mighty Sawatch

Summit of Quandary Peak; looking south at Mts. Democrat, Cameron, Lincoln, and Bross (i.e., the "Decalibron"). I had just hiked the Decalibron earlier that morning in miserable cold and windy conditions, so I decided I needed Quandary to warm up and get my jollies.