Extreme Makeover, Home Edition
“That sounds like a lot of work.”
That was the latest reaction that I got to what I did last Sunday. I spent the afternoon in the garage with a can of furniture stripper and removed three layers of paint and the original stain finish from the bathroom window woodwork. My goal is to still have the walls and woodwork refinished in that room before the cold sets in. And, yes, it is a lot of work.
The bathroom in our house, for those who have yet to hear the tale, was given a similar treatment as much of our house was. The previous owners went through with their big bucket of white paint and covered every last inch of plaster and woodwork. Although, for no apparent reason they did attempt to spruce up the bathroom with brushed-on swishes. Odd and unfortunate, as the non-functioning fan in the bathroom didn’t pull the moisture out, leaving the steam to peel the cheap paint off the underlying wallpaper that is also peeling away. And let’s not forget the mold that only grew on said cheap, white paint.
It was unfortunate.
But now the fan has been replaced, and we’re working at resolving the mold issue before we scrape the walls down to the plaster and paint the room a nice, light blue. Jen chose the color, but she does choose the bathroom as her comfortable sanctuary in the house, so I’m pretty much willing to give her free reign over what she wants in there. I have exercised the power of the veto once, though, so I am not completely without a say. And it has been up to her to get the walls cleaned up and ready for that fresh, new look.
That leaves me with the woodwork, It’s something of a pet project of mine, and the bathroom is just the start for me. Every window in the house has its original trim work, and the interior doors are still original even if they’re missing some of the original trim. At some point, presumably in the 1960′s when the unfortunate “updating” of our kitchen occurred, the owners of our house “modernized” some of the woodwork as well. The end result is that we have these skinny baseboards that are mismatched with the original trim that remains, and every last bit of it in the house has a few layers of paint on it.
My goal is to clean up and restain ever bit of original woodwork in the house over the next few years. Eventually I’ll get around to replacing the baseboards with something that matches the window trim better. I’ll scrape off the popcorn ceiling and pull down the skimpy crown that was put up with the baseboard, and the stark, white ceilings will have a cream color that’s brought down to a picture rail.
Of course, that’s not all that our house needs. The floors need resanding, as they’ve been horribly mistreated over the decades. The front door is as soulless as the baseboards and drafty besides, but that’s being replaced this fall. The vinyl windows are warped and leaking, along with the fact that the old frames they’re in are rotting. While I could go on about the atrocity that is my kitchen, let’s just leave it at someday I’m going to strip the room to its studs and start fresh.
There’s more, too. Our baseboard heaters will eventually go, replaced by in-floor heat. Our attic will be expanded to accommodate two bedrooms and possibly a bathroom. The basement will be completed to have a guest room, refinished bathroom, library, and bar. Our yard will be fenced in, a retaining wall across the back to keep the alley from falling into it. The front stoop will become a front porch. A brick knee-wall will go along the front sidewalk, and two stately looking lights on pedestals will flank the front walk up to our house. The massive amounts of driveway taking up half our backyard will be partially removed to make way for more grass and a patio. We may even strip the stucco off the exterior and reside the house.
“That sounds like a lot of work.”
Yes, yes it is. But that was the plan all along. We bought a house we could afford in the location we wanted. It is old, it has character, it has charm. It also has issues, but those are issues that can be fixed over time. We bought a house where we wanted to be while sacrificing what kind of house we wanted. But that’s all right. The abuse that the house has taken makes it sort of feel like we’ve been given more of a blank slate than some other, more polished house that we would have been more afraid to disturb. Or maybe it’s a Florence Nightengale sort of thing where we fell in love with something that was poor and abused and needs to be nursed back to health. Either way, we’ll spend our time and our money and our efforts working toward making this house into our dream home. And while that is a lot of work, well, when our friends are moving around and trying to get accustomed to new neighborhoods and going through the hassle of moving and moving and moving on up in their search for that bigger, better, more perfect dream home, you’ll find us still rooted right here. Where we like our neighbors and our neighborhood, and we’re familiar with them.
The best equity to put into your house is sweat equity. Much like farmers talking about being closer to their land every day they work the field, I feel closer to my home with every brush stroke, every tap of the hammer, and every finishing touch on every little project. And the house will still slowly progress, and as it inches closer and closer to perfect it will still always feel just right.
