Features: The Ultimate Philadelphia Dream House: I Love It, It’s Perfect, Now Change It

 With the kitchen set up, the power and cable working, the boys happily jamming on guitars, and a fully functional family room and dining room and groovy brown den and TVs, everything began to seem right. I coaxed John to haunt the Bryn Mawr Hospital Thrift Shop with me, and he seemed to actually enjoy buying candlesticks and a little Italianate chest. He doesn’t really like gardening, but he dug the holes for some hydrangeas I bought, and started watering them regularly. In turn, I started watching more reality TV with him and became a huge fan of the excellent show The Surreal Life. I’m trying to play the drums when he, Tyler and Dylan rock out on the weekends. And after two months in the house, when we started having dinner outside on the patio every night, the house became more beautiful still.

There was that problem with missing shutters in the front of the house, though, so one night we walked outside in the dark, with the front porch light on, and discussed which windows should have shutters, engaging in some gentle debate about a certain large living room window. There on the shadowy front lawn, all the beauty of the old trees around us and the mossy brick patio, and the chandeliers twinkling in the windows, I thought about how much I treasure John and the boys and every day we have together and how the shutters matter not one bit. We already have our dream house. And the townhouse with the exploding bike closet was our dream house, even when the sofas were covered in puke. Especially then.

“I love you, we don’t have to get those shutters,” I said.

“If you want the shutters, we can get them,” he said.

But I had already forgotten about the shutters as I held his hand.

E-mail: adkorman@phillymag.com