I wonder what the young house hunters on HGTV would think if they knew my husband, Paul, and I waited 20 years to tear down an attached shed and build a new family room.
They might faint from the shock.
I was in a hospital waiting room recently, and “House Hunters Renovation” was on. Granted, the premise of this show is that the home shopper is also ready to renovate. Still, it made me wonder. Is there anybody under 40 who’s willing to make do?
Perhaps I was still bemused by a conversation I had at work. I’m a school librarian, and we were talking about encouraging more of our graduates to pursue post-secondary education. One of my friends had told me her son found it impossible to share a dorm room because he’d always had his own room. It turns out that’s a trend. So, not only are parents paying exorbitant tuition bills, they’re forking over even more so Junior can have his own en suite digs.
I hate to bring up “back in the day,” but really, how can I not? I spent my freshman year with two other girls in a room meant for two boys. My sophomore year was somewhat better: Three girls in a room designed for four boys. Finally, in my junior year, I landed a two-person room in a new building specifically constructed to handle the influx of females into what had been a male college.
But even that room wouldn’t meet today’s standards, because the bathroom was still down the hall.
Which was, by the way, exactly where I thought it would be.
If young adults think college should be as comfortable as home, I can see why, a few years later, they are unwilling to accept a house that does not meet the criteria of their ideal situation.
Is this why they are sinking into debt?
My parents lived for two years with my mother’s family, which included my grandfather, and an aunt, uncle and cousin. I appeared in year two. Next, they rented an apartment. Then they bought a small house. Finally, they bought land and build a home of their own—while living in an apartment nearby. They were seven years into their marriage when we finally moved in.
Paul and I rented a rather ugly little house (although it had been recently renovated inside) when we first wed. Then we got a nice place in a Victorian duplex —spacious, bright, and with a yard. Next, we bought a place of our own.
It was a sellers’ market, and it seemed that every house we looked at had something wrong with it. The house we ultimately chose had “good bones.” It had a solid foundation, hardwood floors and was insulated—not bad for a place built in the 1870s.
Yes, there were things we couldn’t possibly live with. The rust-colored wall-to-wall carpeting in the master bedroom had go immediately. The upstairs bathroom floor had suffered water damage. That was next.
But other “to-dos” had to wait. Initially, we had the old attached shed shored up, and a deck built in the angle between it and the house. Much landscaping needed to be done, as the back yard had been forested with spindly maples. Paul painted the upstairs rooms and the kitchen.
We took a big step when had the exterior of our Victorian painted. The existing pea green shade was noxious, but hiring painters to work on a 1 1/2 story gable-front-and-ell style farmhouse was expensive painted, even at less than 1,000 square feet.
I picked out Sherwin-Williams historical colors — a creamy beige with olive green shutters, cocoa trim and red accents.
At very long last, we had the ugly brown linoleum in the kitchen taken up and Pergo laid down.
Then we undertook our major renovation. The shed came down; the family room went up. The old garage came down; a new garage went up. The ugly, crumbling woodstove chimney came down; a handsome new stainless steel one went up.
This was three years ago. We were married 26 years at the time.
Trying to obtain your dream home when you are two years into your marriage reminds me of a 10-year-old who wants to wear lipstick. What does she have to look forward to when she’s 13? Life is full of rites of passage. I try to take them as they come.
We’re poky, I admit. There were things we should have done sooner, as well as things that still remain to be done. But in tackling big projects, we have waited until we felt comfortable, financially. We have never borrowed to renovate. We don’t enjoy the disruption construction causes, so we have to really want something to put up with it.
And we tend to stick with what we have. We invested in a good-quality Country Curtains ensemble for our bedroom windows a few years back—drapes and matching insulated shades—and they will likely hang as long as they last. They match the bedspread, which I have no plans to change until it falls apart.
The house has been the same lovely color for over 20 years, and the addition and garage now match.
Somehow, despite the linoleum that needs to be replaced upstairs, and a shower that has seen better days, we still have managed to be happy. Maybe it’s because we always have something to look forward to.
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