A big house on Elm Street just looks crowded on its postage-stamp lot. 30 Elm is two stories with a detached garage, the front yard a barren, weedy strip that only contributes to its halfway abandoned look. The backyard is wrapped in a six foot privacy fence, weathered grey boards splintery and bug-chewed, but glimpses through the gaps reveal an uncanny verdant paradise blooming with flowers and manicured hedges.
The front door opens into a narrow hallway that shares half its width with the staircase. An archway leads into the living room, where a shallow bay window overlooks the tragic front street. The hallway extends back to the kitchen, where a short run of counters and cupboards form an L shape rather than a proper work triangle. There are too many exits from the kitchen; a side door opens to a stubby covered walkway connected to the garage, right beside the door to basement stairs set beneath the main steps; another door heads out back to a cinderblock patio, shabby and cracked like ancient cobblestones in the lush paradise visible through nicotine-stained windows; another archway leads into the dining room, which in turn has another arch that opens back up to the living room. Upstairs, the hallway runs across the width of the house instead of lengthwise. Two small bedrooms, one of which has been converted to an office, flank a cramped little bathroom on one side of the hall, while the master suite with its cramped little bathroom occupies the other.
It's all in need of work, twenty-odd years of neglect caked on like layers of peeling paint. The walls are dirty, wood floors are scratched, ceilings are brownish, tilework is chipped, glass is stained like tea water, furniture is missized and mismatched, but every day it looks a little better than it did before.