Warming up to this old house
On closing day, my parents and siblings gather at the new house to eat pizza and drink beer. In my family, this is how you follow through on an offer to help with the move. Sure, my brother rolls a few pans of paint over the pink walls in the kids’ bedroom, and my sisters cram some dishes into the kitchen cabinets, but mostly they’re here to christen the new digs and wish us well. Again.
This is the third home my husband Mike and I have owned in eight years, the third time we’ve packed up the clan and moved on. No, we had not been relocated by work and no, we were not getting more bedroom space, a bigger yard, newer construction or a better neighborhood. We were getting something a little different.
And a lot older.
Last summer, when we ambled through this 1917 brick bungalow—a home comparable in square footage to the one we already owned and located just three blocks away, but 40 years its senior—we were so charmed by its sunny disposition and quirky personality, and so inspired by the renovation possibilities, that we decided to try it on for size. And on this, our first evening as its caretakers, we’re feeling pretty good about the fit.
Yelling to be heard above the din that 20 people in an unfurnished living room create, I tell my husband to open a few windows and air the place out. It’s a request that has more to do with rejuvenation than with ventilation—an "out with the old, in with the new" gesture. A fresh start.
Unfortunately, my orders cannot be executed.
"They’re all painted shut," Mike returns. "Isn’t that weird?"
And immediately I’m thinking, "How come we didn’t notice that before?"
Ugly heads, reared
I have been inside many old houses, professionally as a feature writer and socially as a resident of a historic suburban area. It is my personal opinion that each one has its own unique spirit and obviously, its own baggage.
Our previous home was a ‘60s ranch that met all our needs efficiently and had no structural issues to speak of, but interesting it was not. My immediate visceral reaction to this well-worn bungalow—a handsome but humble home with room-spanning radiators, wavy glass windows and rustic wood details—was strong and positive. The attraction was due in part to my nostalgia for an era of greater architectural integrity, when a working-class guy likely built this home for his family using quality materials and high construction standards. But looking back, I can see it was also the result of some truly delusional, "It’s a Wonderful Life" romanticism.
"This crazy old house," I’d envisioned myself saying to Mike as he waltzed me through the drafty dining room humming Buffalo Gals. "Isn’t it a character?"
And in the first few days after moving in, we do take little idiosyncrasies—like doors that don’t catch closed, doors that won’t stay open, down-sloping floors, chipping paint and mysterious odors—with the same lighthearted bemusement that George and Mary do on their first leaky evening at 223 Sycamore.
We chuckle after the front door handle comes off in a guest’s hand. A constant breeze blowing in under the back door (an oversized monster of a door that made one potential contractor walk away laughing) prompts us to introduce the kitchen as a three-season room to friends who’ve come for a tour. We consider letting the kids sled down the front steps when a sagging gutter turns the porch into a mountain of ice. And when the pull of a closet light chain separates the fixture from the ceiling, sending a shower of plaster down onto our sweaters, we take it with good humor.
But soon, an insidious paranoia—fueled initially by neurotic genes inherited from my mother but accelerated to the point of hysteria by frequent visits to home restoration websites—would rise up to dominate the period where these quarters and I would get better acquainted.
Within a few days, conversations between Mike and I that once began with wondrous discoveries like, "Hey look, a broom closet!" are quickly replaced with questions like, "Where did that puddle on the kitchen floor come from?" and "What is that smell?"
Could the oil tank that was once under the back porch have leaked into the soil? Is that 300-year-old tree going to fall on our house and crush the children in their beds? Could the glass shingles on the back porch be giving us all Mesothelioma?
For a while, I wonder what could have possibly made us think we had the guts and the optimism required to take on an old beast like this. I am consumed with fear that there is something dreadfully, horribly wrong with the house and everyone else in town knows about it but us.
"Those poor people," I imagine our new neighbors saying to one another over the privet. "Wait until they find out about the (insert major, $100,000-costing structural issue here). Hope those kids don’t think they’re going to college."
All of this is completely ridiculous, of course. We know the home’s previous owners through doings in the village, and they are good people. They would not have palmed off a lemon on us intentionally. Still, maybe there’s something they hadn’t known ...
I think back to our first night in the house, when my brother-in-law addressed our non-functioning window dilemma with a hammer and a flathead screwdriver; when bits of paint flew hither and yon as he cranked them all open. A link on Bobvila.com takes me to a passage about lead hazards in houses built before 1970 and the likelihood (around 90 percent) that an old home contains at least some. And I completely lose it.
At night, I dream of my children eating peanut butter and paint chip sandwiches. When I wake in a cold sweat, Mike urges me to get a grip.
Inner peace, restored
"I think you’re overreacting, but if you’re worried about the windows, let’s deal with it," Mike says with complete calmness. "Make a few calls. Get some estimates."
Deal with it? Why hadn’t I though of that? I knew I married him for a reason. For the next three weeks, every single day, there is someone at my house giving me a professional opinion about the windows. And they’re all different.
"Obviously you want better insulation and easier maintenance," the replacement window salespeople say.
"What you want to do is take them apart and coat everything real good with an oil-base," insist the painters.
"It’d be a crime to get rid of those windows, they’re works of art," the refinishers say. "Strip the paint and stain ‘em. They’ll take your breath away."
And ultimately, because a liquid strip is considered the safest way to remove old paint (and because we really didn’t need a vacation this year, or clothes, or groceries ...) we determine that this is the right thing to do in the formal spaces. While we’re at it, we might as well restore all the doors, trim, molding and baseboards. What the heck.
In the weeks that precede the start date, energized by the forward motion and recommitted to the effort of making this home our own, I quickly get to work on the things I can do myself. On one afternoon, I take a bleach-soaked toothbrush to the mosaic tile in the entrance vestibule and the world around me disappears. On another, I spend three hours scraping Pokemon stickers off a radiator cabinet with a spatula, and I can’t remember the last time I felt so satisfied. Maybe there is something to this old house stuff.
Now that the ball is rolling, Mike and I begin to talk long-term about the place. We make plans to attack the exterior, work the garden, expand the attic – plans we never made at our other homes. And suddenly, the old barn isn’t quite so scary.
Staying put
"All I really need from a new house is a kitchen that looks out over the backyard," I used to tell Mike. "I just want to be able to stick my head out the back door and yell at the kids if I think somebody’s about to lose an eye."
Now that my modest demands have been met by a west-facing galley kitchen—which is small but cool thanks to an architecturally harmonious update made by previous owners—my husband wonders if I’m truly sated.
"In Lake County, we could have a brand new, five-bedroom modern colonial with a billiard room, a home office, a three-car garage and a 2,000-square-foot kitchen/great room for what we paid here," Mike offers from behind the New Homes section of our daily paper.
"Yeah, that sounds great in print," I say, after some consideration. "But there aren’t any trees in those subdivisions. We’ll all have melanoma. And why are all those joints built around retaining ponds? How many kids do you think drown in those each year? Plus, those new homes are hammered together in an afternoon, and who knows how long the water supplies will last out there ..."
This is the third home my husband Mike and I have owned in eight years, the third time we’ve packed up the clan and moved on. No, we had not been relocated by work and no, we were not getting more bedroom space, a bigger yard, newer construction or a better neighborhood. We were getting something a little different.
And a lot older.
Last summer, when we ambled through this 1917 brick bungalow—a home comparable in square footage to the one we already owned and located just three blocks away, but 40 years its senior—we were so charmed by its sunny disposition and quirky personality, and so inspired by the renovation possibilities, that we decided to try it on for size. And on this, our first evening as its caretakers, we’re feeling pretty good about the fit.
Yelling to be heard above the din that 20 people in an unfurnished living room create, I tell my husband to open a few windows and air the place out. It’s a request that has more to do with rejuvenation than with ventilation—an "out with the old, in with the new" gesture. A fresh start.
Unfortunately, my orders cannot be executed.
"They’re all painted shut," Mike returns. "Isn’t that weird?"
And immediately I’m thinking, "How come we didn’t notice that before?"
Ugly heads, reared
I have been inside many old houses, professionally as a feature writer and socially as a resident of a historic suburban area. It is my personal opinion that each one has its own unique spirit and obviously, its own baggage.
Our previous home was a ‘60s ranch that met all our needs efficiently and had no structural issues to speak of, but interesting it was not. My immediate visceral reaction to this well-worn bungalow—a handsome but humble home with room-spanning radiators, wavy glass windows and rustic wood details—was strong and positive. The attraction was due in part to my nostalgia for an era of greater architectural integrity, when a working-class guy likely built this home for his family using quality materials and high construction standards. But looking back, I can see it was also the result of some truly delusional, "It’s a Wonderful Life" romanticism.
"This crazy old house," I’d envisioned myself saying to Mike as he waltzed me through the drafty dining room humming Buffalo Gals. "Isn’t it a character?"
And in the first few days after moving in, we do take little idiosyncrasies—like doors that don’t catch closed, doors that won’t stay open, down-sloping floors, chipping paint and mysterious odors—with the same lighthearted bemusement that George and Mary do on their first leaky evening at 223 Sycamore.
We chuckle after the front door handle comes off in a guest’s hand. A constant breeze blowing in under the back door (an oversized monster of a door that made one potential contractor walk away laughing) prompts us to introduce the kitchen as a three-season room to friends who’ve come for a tour. We consider letting the kids sled down the front steps when a sagging gutter turns the porch into a mountain of ice. And when the pull of a closet light chain separates the fixture from the ceiling, sending a shower of plaster down onto our sweaters, we take it with good humor.
But soon, an insidious paranoia—fueled initially by neurotic genes inherited from my mother but accelerated to the point of hysteria by frequent visits to home restoration websites—would rise up to dominate the period where these quarters and I would get better acquainted.
Within a few days, conversations between Mike and I that once began with wondrous discoveries like, "Hey look, a broom closet!" are quickly replaced with questions like, "Where did that puddle on the kitchen floor come from?" and "What is that smell?"
Could the oil tank that was once under the back porch have leaked into the soil? Is that 300-year-old tree going to fall on our house and crush the children in their beds? Could the glass shingles on the back porch be giving us all Mesothelioma?
For a while, I wonder what could have possibly made us think we had the guts and the optimism required to take on an old beast like this. I am consumed with fear that there is something dreadfully, horribly wrong with the house and everyone else in town knows about it but us.
"Those poor people," I imagine our new neighbors saying to one another over the privet. "Wait until they find out about the (insert major, $100,000-costing structural issue here). Hope those kids don’t think they’re going to college."
All of this is completely ridiculous, of course. We know the home’s previous owners through doings in the village, and they are good people. They would not have palmed off a lemon on us intentionally. Still, maybe there’s something they hadn’t known ...
I think back to our first night in the house, when my brother-in-law addressed our non-functioning window dilemma with a hammer and a flathead screwdriver; when bits of paint flew hither and yon as he cranked them all open. A link on Bobvila.com takes me to a passage about lead hazards in houses built before 1970 and the likelihood (around 90 percent) that an old home contains at least some. And I completely lose it.
At night, I dream of my children eating peanut butter and paint chip sandwiches. When I wake in a cold sweat, Mike urges me to get a grip.
Inner peace, restored
"I think you’re overreacting, but if you’re worried about the windows, let’s deal with it," Mike says with complete calmness. "Make a few calls. Get some estimates."
Deal with it? Why hadn’t I though of that? I knew I married him for a reason. For the next three weeks, every single day, there is someone at my house giving me a professional opinion about the windows. And they’re all different.
"Obviously you want better insulation and easier maintenance," the replacement window salespeople say.
"What you want to do is take them apart and coat everything real good with an oil-base," insist the painters.
"It’d be a crime to get rid of those windows, they’re works of art," the refinishers say. "Strip the paint and stain ‘em. They’ll take your breath away."
And ultimately, because a liquid strip is considered the safest way to remove old paint (and because we really didn’t need a vacation this year, or clothes, or groceries ...) we determine that this is the right thing to do in the formal spaces. While we’re at it, we might as well restore all the doors, trim, molding and baseboards. What the heck.
In the weeks that precede the start date, energized by the forward motion and recommitted to the effort of making this home our own, I quickly get to work on the things I can do myself. On one afternoon, I take a bleach-soaked toothbrush to the mosaic tile in the entrance vestibule and the world around me disappears. On another, I spend three hours scraping Pokemon stickers off a radiator cabinet with a spatula, and I can’t remember the last time I felt so satisfied. Maybe there is something to this old house stuff.
Now that the ball is rolling, Mike and I begin to talk long-term about the place. We make plans to attack the exterior, work the garden, expand the attic – plans we never made at our other homes. And suddenly, the old barn isn’t quite so scary.
Staying put
"All I really need from a new house is a kitchen that looks out over the backyard," I used to tell Mike. "I just want to be able to stick my head out the back door and yell at the kids if I think somebody’s about to lose an eye."
Now that my modest demands have been met by a west-facing galley kitchen—which is small but cool thanks to an architecturally harmonious update made by previous owners—my husband wonders if I’m truly sated.
"In Lake County, we could have a brand new, five-bedroom modern colonial with a billiard room, a home office, a three-car garage and a 2,000-square-foot kitchen/great room for what we paid here," Mike offers from behind the New Homes section of our daily paper.
"Yeah, that sounds great in print," I say, after some consideration. "But there aren’t any trees in those subdivisions. We’ll all have melanoma. And why are all those joints built around retaining ponds? How many kids do you think drown in those each year? Plus, those new homes are hammered together in an afternoon, and who knows how long the water supplies will last out there ..."
posted by Chris Placitella | 9:19 AM
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