Thursday, October 31st, 2013

Making a House a Home
31 October 2013

So today’ s blog just jumps into the “How to” of surviving a renovation; how to make a house a home. We have been in this home for officially three months now, without a functioning kitchen and some partially-functioning other things.

Many folks who come through have looked around and indeed, seen the potential! And in an effort to be encouraging, they exclaim, “Wow! It is going to be so beautiful! It is going to be SO WORTH IT!” Well... there are days where what would’ve been the most encouraging for this renovation-weary soldier is to hear, “WOW this really SUCKS, doesn’t it!?! I mean, how DO you DO it!? Day in, day out, with four kids!?”

Ha. Really, we are okay. We remind ourselves that we signed up for this. We stuck our hands up in class and said, “OOOOH! Pick ME!! Me! Over here! Pick Meeeeee puh-leeeasssseeee!”

So, hopefully today the momentous occasion will be to install a faucet in the kitchen sink. No, no more tub dishwashing sessions for moi! My back will be grateful...my brain will be grateful (how many times have I thought, “Can I cook that? Hmmmm, well, does it fit in the microwave and can it be easily cleaned out in the tub?” By the way, for a hygenic note- no, I have not just stuck forks and knives in a big bathtub full of bubbles. Just for the record, I carefully washed everything in skin-scalding hot water and dish soap and inside a smaller “wash” tub. After rinsing food particles off in the front yard, with the hose, that is.

When the faucet gets installed, all I ask is that you harken back to your sick days, staying home from school, with Bill Cosby doing Picture Pages and Bob Barker running the Price is Right. Remember when those people were picked to “Come on DOWN!”? They whoooped, hollered, jumped and some of them nearly imploded the flooring underneath just trying to display their boiling-over emotional ecstasy that they were chosen to play the Mountain Climber game.

When we get the kitchen sink, I will have my Price is Right moment. Just don’t have the watermelon boobs to really get the point across as I am jumping up and down. Oh well, nothing’s perfect.

Making a House a Home
History

We have a way of buying homes that have histories themselves. It has everything to do with what we can afford, and not our sense of adventure. (Perhaps it does appeal to my husband’s sense of adventure; my idea of an “adventure” is ordering something different at my favorite restaurant).


Home #1:
In Historic Waverly, a neighborhood known to have had (in the 1980/90’s) a crack and prostitution problem. However, positioned in a strategic point in the City of Columbia, with beautiful historic homes sprinkled throughout, and close to multiple Universities, the City began efforts in the late 90’s/ early 2000’s to rejuvenate the neighborhood and encourage more law-abiding citizens to make their homes in Waverly.

I remember the listing well: It encouraged “Urban Pioneers” to come and make it a dwelling. The property was actually owned by our friend, Ted Maas, and he had turned it into a Halfway House for folks struggling to re-enter society successfully after drug addictions. Well, when my husband, Nate, told me where the home was located, I said, “I am not going to look at it.” To which he responded, “It has a clawfoot tub...” And so of course I said “I will be right there.”

The first step was to clean the syringes out of the front yard. It needed a ton of work inside, too, to make it feel like a home for our growing family; we didn’t know it, but we were soon to find out after purching the home that our first child was on the way.

We did the work, made it beautiful, then when our daughter was an infant, another place came along....

Home #2:
We were told the previous owner of this Shandon Estate sale had died. That was no problem with us! We found a great deal on an adorable cottage, in a very desirable, walkable location. In fact, my mother worked at Rackes’ on Devine when I was a little girl, and I clearly remember driving by this home, with its’ wrought-iron fencing out front, and thinking it was like a fairy-tale house.

What we didn’t realize until living there a couple years is.....she died in the fairy-tale house. In our bedroom. We had been talking with Demi and Al, our across-the-street neighbors, and I casually mentioned that anytime it rained, the whole house had a distinct cat smell. Demi, also casual, said, “Oh, that is probably because after ___ died, the animals had free-run of the house.”

Me:(always imagining _____ dying in her hospital room): “What do you mean, they had free run of the house?”

Demi: “Oh, well, they didn’t find her for days, you know? And she had several dogs and a few cats that just had free run.”

Me: (shocked, sick)”She died IN THE HOUSE!?”

Demi: “You didn’t know that?”

Me: “ I always imagined her dying in a hospital! It never occurred to me to ask where she died....”

And so, Demi and Al told us the details of _____ dying unexpectedly and in fact, it was Demi that grew concerned for her when she didn’t see the animals being let out for days, lights not being turned on and off. So when she got no answer, she contact some of ____’s relatives and so began the process of discovering the greusome details. In mid-July.

We moved in the following April, and it had been immaculately cleaned, except for the cat smell that permeated when the humidity was high. And the house was indeed a home where we raised three children, and entertained many guests, and ran two businesses, until we felt we had outgrown our small space.

Home #3:

And here we are. There are some similarities and some differences to the other homes. This home is also in a desirable, walkable location, central to everything in the City. This home also had drugs in it (a little business, the tenants had been running), until the Feds raided it and shut them down. Regarding this home, I also told my husband:

“I am not going to even look at that place. I don’t like it.”

Well, he has a way of getting me over to look at these places, and indeed, even though I did not see the potential, our contractor friend and real estate agent accompanied us and this time, they felt we had stumbled upon a winner.

The deal was- with hubby- I cannot live in that place until it is pretty much gutted. And so, that is what we did as the ink still dried on the paperwork at the lawyer’s office....demolition began.

The idea was, go ahead and move in, but just plan to “camp” in our own home a few weeks, while the kitchen was put into place, walls repainted, bathroom tiled. A few weeks turned into a few months....and here we are. I will have to decsribe for you in another post how we did it, I just cannot stomach it right now. But....I will let you know: It can be done. Just be prepared to get a little Third-World and rinse stuck-on food off the dishes in the front yard.