By Sue Murphy
If you’re looking for a new house, your kindly real estate professional will ask you to make a wish list. How many bedrooms would you like? In which neighbor- hood would you like to live? What is your budget? Actually, unless you plan on winning the mega-million lottery, you’d better start there.
Your house is where you live your everyday life, so, if possible, it should include things that you absolutely, positively, must have. Each person’s deal-breaker list is different. If you are a Beverly Hills buyer, you might feel deprived if you don’t have a pool. If you’re moving into the Alaskan wilderness, you might be thrilled simply to have indoor plumbing. Or not. Some people would rather not have running
water or electricity at all. They prefer to live off the grid.
Me? I like a little grid. I’ve become quite attached to my central heating and air. I like to flip a switch and have lights come on. I enjoy microwaving a bag of pop- corn now and then.
On the other hand, I’m not one for hyper-gridding. I don’t need to control my window shades from a whole house remote control. I don’t wear one of those bracelets to tally my physical activity or deter- mine how well I slept because I’m always there with my body when those things happen. I don’t own one of those know-it-all devices that provide answers to questions you randomly hurl through the air, but that’s mostly because, quite frankly, they make me nervous. Whatever it is, I’ll look it up later.
Other people like all that high-level gridding. They want their house to be equipped with the latest and greatest, belled and whistled to the max. Not only that, they want to be able to operate all those techno-wonders from afar. With the help of appropri-ate phone apps, they can see who is ringing their doorbell while they are working out at the gym. They can change the set point on their thermostats while they’re at work. They can even see what’s in their refrigerator so they don’t buy eggs when they don’t really need them. (Actually, that app would come in handy. Over the holidays, I ended up with three jars of olives. I don’t even like olives.)
To see the interior of your refrigerator or not to see the interior of your refrigerator. That is the question. Or more precisely, how much grid do you really want?
If you go high grid, you can change the TV channel from your IPad. Medium grid, you’ll search the couch cushions for the remote control. On low grid, you’ll have to get up and change the channel using the buttons on the TV set (remember those?). No grid at all? No TV.
With high grid, you’ll be able to close your garage door from your lounge chair in Cancún. Medium grid means you’ll use the garage door opener button in your car. Low grid dwellers will have to get out of the car and lift the garage door handle. No grid livers won’t even have a car; they’ll walk.
Do you want a projection clock, a wind-up cuckoo, or a sundial? Will your home be lit with LED’s, candles, or will you just go to bed when the sun goes down? Do you want a five-burner gas stove, a flat top electric, or will you roast a pig on a spit in your front yard?
You might want to check your neighborhood covenants on that last one. Over the Mountain and off the grid? I suppose it could happen, but I wouldn’t count on it.
