this afternoon we took a long second look at a house on the 1800 block of monroe street nw, and the details didn’t look so good upon closer examination.

it had been recently renovated, but the finishing just wasn’t where we’d have liked it to be — and if what we could see gave us pause, we were pretty nervous about what was hidden behind the drywall.

this is the third place that looked at where all the original character was gutted during a recent renovation and replaced (seemingly) by whatever home depot had on special that week.

our real estate agent calls it a “gaithersburg remodel” — gutting a District home and treating it as if it was just another townhouse in the suburbs — which would be funny if we weren’t absolutely weeping inside at the loss.

so, after this round of bad real estate karma we’ve started coming a bit unglued — enough that we actually ventured over to capitol hill to check out a place (400 block of 6th Street NE) that just came on the market there.

it was stunning and had everything that the last couple of places in mount pleasant have lacked — original woodwork, original layouts, period decor.

to make matters worse, it was in our price range, had big beautiful bedrooms, was in the absolute best part of capitol hill, and was surrounded by excellent elementary and middle schools.

we thought long and hard about putting an offer on it — even though we haven’t seriously been considering moving to capitol hill.

but during the drive home to mount pleasant — along the tree lined streets, around the zoo, past our favorite restaurants and playgrounds — we realized we just couldn’t do it.

our neighborhood is just too awesome to be replaced by even a spectacular home somewhere else.

we’re not ready to give up on mount pleasant — not yet.