I’m awfully sorry if you’ve had the misfortune of landing on my blog today—see, I’m trying to make myself write something every day, so there’s bound to be some garbage thrown the reader’s way occasionally, right? (I know what you’re thinking if you’ve read my other two blogs—if only “occasionally” was the right word.) Hmmm, what should today’s random topic be? How about—Oh I know—let’s talk about how great life would be if my husband and I sold our house, moved into an apartment and actually had fun on the weekends….or better yet, we’ll move in with my mother. We could save a pile of money if we did that. Then we could have even more fun! I remember the early years—we had zero, and I mean zeeeero money, but we lived in an apartment in San Diego and had our pick of fantastic beaches to park our fannies on. Sometimes we’d walk around Old Town or Seaport Village or La Jolla. We loved going to La Jolla—there was no riff-raff there, well, except us, of course—just nice beaches, gorgeous houses, and expensive shops. We couldn’t buy anything, but it was fun to look. We also used to go to the malls and walk around. I’d try on clothes I knew we’d never buy, but it was fun to see myself in new things.
Time passes, you make a little more money, you have children and it’s time to buy a house. Sure it’s exciting at first. You don’t have to hush your children any more for fear they’re bothering the neighbors in the apartment below. You can finally paint the walls any color you want without begging for permission. You don’t have the creepy feeling that someone with a master key can march right into your place when you’re gone. Yeah, it felt good at first—until we stopped being thrilled with what could be and looked around and saw what was. The neat house from the 1880’s needed a wee bit of work! Wonder why someone figured it would be OK to take out 18 feet of a load-bearing wall? Is that why the ceiling is sagging and the window above looks like it’s from a fun house? How about that wallpaper in the upstairs parlor—yeah, the one with the dark rectangles on the wall where pictures had hung for 50 years. How does a whole room of wallpaper fade? And that kitchen floor--when your 1940’s linoleum has a break in it that goes from one wall to the other, is nailing it down with roofing nails really an acceptable repair technique? Yeah, those are oak floors in the dining and living rooms, but they sure could stand to be refinished—I don’t think they're supposed to be bare wood. The list went on and on and on. Oh, and the siding—here come the memories—I’m starting to smell the burning paint....Wood siding—zillions of layers of paint—leaning on the top of a ladder with heat gun in one hand and scraper in the other--hour after hour….Where was the fun now, I ask you? Nowhere to be found at our old beater of a house!
Now here’s the crazy part. We eventually had a job-related move, so we put the house up for sale. It was one of the slowest markets in a loooong time, so we moved to the new area (house unsold) and rented a duplex. Then, and here’s the stupid part, once the house sold, we BOUGHT ANOTHER ONE! Granted, this one was many decades newer, made of brick, (no more heat guns), and was over all in good shape, but there was interior painting to do (aesthetics), and a bunch of ceramic tile to lay (our preference), and a big old deck to clean and stain. Two years later, another promotion prompted yet another move. This time the market was hot, hot, hot! We ran around like maniacs trying to find a place to live. Houses were rising in value, so we felt we’d better get into something as fast as we could. The problem was, the houses were flying off the market before they were even listed for sale. One lucky (?) day, we shoved our way through the crowds at an open house, noted the house was functional enough for our family and offered well over the asking price. A couple of days later, yee-haw, we foolishly bought our third house! Here’s the list: redo the basement rec room with the plaid carpet on the walls. Yes the walls. Strip the green astro turf (technically probably an indoor/outdoor carpet—glued on with some kind of space-age glue) off the front porch (I'm not kidding), redo the kitchen countertops, tear out a moss-covered 20 foot long cement block planter that ran along the back of the house, completely tear out the pool deck and replace it one cement pad at a time over 3-4 years (By the way, that cement mixer was well worth the money), get a new liner for the fireplace, replace the avocado green bathtub, sink, and toilet. Put a new sink top on the bathroom cabinet, cut back the evergreen bushes that were attempting to move into the house, strip wallpaper, paint, put in new windows, fix the fence, etc.
What would it be like to hop into the car on a Saturday morning and drive to some interesting place? Heck, how about having time to go to garage sales or the library? I want to drive down to Hyde Park and see the fabulous old rich-people houses. (They were smart enough to be rich enough to be able to hire people to do their work.) But, I’m not bitter! I’m actually a pretty skilled homeowner, that’s what I am! At least for now.
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