u/BirdHistorical3498

For me, the line “In the end, my decision to listen to the Eagles likely saved my life“ alone proves the man’s not wrappped too tight.

Buyer: Bit of a left- field ask here, but bear with me. You know Amazon Warehouses?

Estate Agents: ofcourse

Buyer: And are you familiar with the Stalag system?

Estate Agent: Soviet or German?

Buyer: Mmmm …. Let’s go with German.

Estate Agent: ok, on the count of three, let’s say the name of our favourite Nazi Stalg. Ready? 1, 2, 3

Both: Stalag Luft III

Buyer: It’s a classic! So, as you’ve probably guessed I’m looking for something that’s a cross between an Amazon Warehouse and Stalag Luft III. In Essex.

Estate Agent: You’re in luck, Mein Herr! I take it you dislike people?

Buyer: Intensely. Though I find the ambient noise of a nearby industrial park immensely soothing. Es nimmt mir die Wut.

Estate Agent: Ich verstehe Sie. I’m looking at you and I‘m thinking ‘This is a healthy young man, a man of hearty appetites and healthy habits who may, on occasion, require the use of a ‘room’

Buyer: ….. Tell me more about this ‘room’

Estate Agent: Its small, largely due to the soundproofing you understand. Steel doors as standard. Adjacent to a private bathroom and a bedroom that could, with the addition of metal shutters and more soundproofing, be easily be repurposed as a… personal space.

Buyer: …. for my …. hobbies.

Estate Agent: Genau

Buyer: you know Mr… I’m sorry, what was your name again?

Estate Agent: Ricardo Clement

Buyer: I think this is the beginning of a beautiful friendship.

Buyer: I have very specific house in mind…. many estate agents have been tasked to find this house, yet none have succeeded. Will you, sir, bring me the object of my desire?

Estate Agent: I’m thinking, from your mode of address sir, that you are very much in the market for an Olde house?

Buyer: Gadzooks Sir! a palpable hit upon the truth! And Olde House indeed, yet, with the bearing and semblance of a Whale.

Estate Agent: A whale Sire? Within or without?

Buyer: Within. Great Beams o’er hanging each chamber. And low. ‘

Estate Agent: ‘Low so one shalt crack one’s head upon the jousts?’

Buyer: ‘Nay, nay! Low so as to impose upon the mind the dream of being within Great Whale. Each chamber must hang o’er us those hearty ribs. I wish to feel devoured by this beast.

Estate Agent: And for the game chambers my Lord?

Buyer: ‘The game chambers must be festooned with stars, many fixed stars pointing their fearful gaze down. And no light from sun nor moon shall enter.

Estate: Sire, we have just such a dwelling, a dwelling blent of the leviathans maw, lit with unsmiling stars… plus, Marbel™️flooring throughout

Buyer: Marbel™️? The flooring of Kings? Let us make haste!

Owner: I‘ve come to you because Ive been told you’re the best when it comes to working with very thick, slightly green tinted glass

Designer: (smiles modestly) They don’t call me Mr 1990’s for nothing

Owner: Any experience with thick, slightly tinted green glass staircases? Because I want a LOT of them

Designer: Want to throw in a death mezzanine in there too?

Owner: Now we’re cooking on gas!

Designer: So, I can see you’re going for a Sims 3 vibe. But at the moment it’s all a bit too cohesive…. 

Owner: I’m never letting go of the 6 foot fibreglass Minion!

Designer: And I would never ask you to. That’s the kind of thing you build a house around! No, I mean, let’s go for something I call ‘The Irritant Factor,’

Owner: Surely TIF I’d out of my price range!

Designer: You’d be surprised… does your wife like stuff from Dunhelm? TK Maxx?

Owner: …Spooky….how did you know that?

Desinger: This isn’t my first TIF rodeo. Do you have a lot of old furniture that used to belong to your parents after they divorced? 

Owner: I have a couple of IKEA chairs, a spoon collection, some indifferent watercolours and a grandfather clock? Oh! And a Parker Knoll chair…

Designer: So, we’ll need to mix all that stuff up with the more contemporary stuff in a really annoying way. How do you feel about toughened glass shelves placed in inconvenient places? Cow skins? Thin teak-look veneer? Chandeliers?

Owner: LOVE em!

Designer: Do you want to know your neighbours? Or are you happy just to spy directly into their bedrooms from your massive green tinted toughened glass windows?

Owner: The latter. And we don’t care about vexatious planning permission complaints or being shunned by the street WhatsApp group either.

Designer: OK then (Crosses to green tinged window, whips out a sharpie, writes)

Cₒₗd + Cₙₑw

TIF = ────────────── × Hₙ )

Gₜ

Owner: what does that mean?

Designer: C_old = cheap old stuff, C_new = cheap new stuff, G_t = toughened glass, and H_n = neighbourhood hatred

Owner: ?

Designer: It means were solidly in TIF town baby!

Owner: (points to equation) And that will wash off, yeah?

Designer …… sure…..

Owner: You know those decorating games on your I pad? The ones with implausible luxurious rooms, objay darts, and a million vases? You start decorating, then realise your inventory only has bog standard cream and white so everything ends up those colours? And you hope it somehow works because you really really need the points because you’re on a losing streak?

Decorator….Yes?

Owner: That. That’s the look I want.

Decorator: Ok…... Im thinking we might have to lose some of the vases and plates and-

Owner: No.

Decorator: No?

Owner: No. The whole house should be a showroom for my vases and plates. I also want wallpaper with giant vases on it. To match the massive framed pictures I have of vases.

Decorator: And cream and peach? We’re committed to that palate?

Owner: Cream and peach make the vases and plates pop.

Decorator: In that case, needlessly enormous and perilously low light fittings are essential. Nothing keeps the eye on low level objay darts like a perilously low light fitting.

Owner: Goddam, they said you were the best…. And they were right!

Decorator: (smiles proudly) Well, not to toot my own horn, but I DID come second on several ReDecor challenges

you’re being given the opportunity to compete it’s restoration.

… with a gym?