Tuesday, August 21, 2007

OT: old house dreams

Like many people who are into old houses I often dream about fancy buildings. All of them have been more or less derelict and the one last night was no exception. Of course it was weird as dreams can be.

I was somewhere in Africa and looking down some kind of hill towards two large houses that absolutely looked like they came directly out of 1900 Vienna's downtown. Heavily ornamented stucco facades with lots of exposed brick from failed stucco. Windows with hardly any paint left on them. The one to the left was even worse, the front yard was overgrown with 2m high shrubbery and the house looked empty, but the front door stood open and a black kid, about 10 or 12 years old went in as I watched. The one to the right had at least a recently mowed grass area in the front and the windows looked clean. This was my target, seemingly a hotel. I walked in and checked out the entire building, cellar to attic like I wanted to buy it. Some good bones like incredible herringbone parquet floors but also a lot of remuddling (cheap tile, wood paneling from the 70s,...). And all the time I kept being surprised all this looked so much like Vienna...

It was weird. In the beginning I felt like I was watching a TV documentary about some foreign country and the poverty there, and the next moment I was in there, checking out one of the houses.

It definitely wasn't the worst house I ever dreamed of though... several were already partially collapsed.

Just wanted to share that with any potential readers (if I actually have any ;-) )

2 comments:

Anna said...

Alright Ragnar, what would good old Freud say about that dream??? :) :)

Sounds like quite an interesting house, though ;)

Ragnar said...

To be honest I don't even want to know ;-)
His interpretations were a little narrow I'd say... and they're almost a century old. Anyway, let's not digress...

It WAS an interesting house. Similar to things I have seen in Budapest a few weeks ago. Hey, that reminds me of something... I could ask my GF if I can post some of the holiday photos she took. Quite some nice old-house street scenes and extremely similar to Vienna.