Homeownership

Today was an interesting day in the neighborhood.

Our Internet service provider was sending out a crew to check on the unbearabley slow internet conditions that have been causing much distress in my work day for a few weeks now. I had totally forgotten, but the man we bought our house from works for our Internet service provider, and lo and behold, he's the guy they sent! (Actually, he told me, he kind of just tagged along on the visit to see what we've done with the place.)

They showed up around 9:30 this morning.. I introduced Thunder as a friendly but mildly curious dog and led them into the office where my laptop, wireless router and modem are located. I was standing there, took a sideways glance at one of the guys, and thought to myself, "he looks really familia.....oh.....wait....didn't the guy who used to live here work for....ooooooh.....oh my."

 As I was thinking this, he said "so, how do you like the place?"
I turned to him and said "Did you used to live here? I was just thinking how familiar you look."
"Yep!"

"Yeeea" That was my brain trying to think of something nice to say.

"Its a nice neighborhood!" he said
"Oh yea! We love it here. It's so quiet," I spouted (100% truth).

After a while, I needed more coffee and they needed to go to the basement and replace a connection somewhere. Ha! Good thing he used to live here and installed them all himself! He knew exactly where everything was. "Do you still have water problems down here?" he asked.

Later, "Did you get a new bathroom sink?"

Later, "I see you replaced the windows! I'll bet this place holds heat great now!"
"Yep, we only go through one tank a year."

Oh my. It was awkward, but it really got me thinking about how much we've actually done to improve this house. And how much it HAS improved. And how REALLY HORRIBLE it was when we first moved in! Sometimes (when the pipes below my sink explode and I spend my lunch half-hour cleaning milky, murky water from the kitchen floor) I forget how amazing it is now in comparison, and that really, I have a lot to be thankful for.

Our history with our house has been a rocky one. It was the only listing that our real estate agent came up with that we actually refused to look at until we were completely desperate. Once we finally did look at it, we were pleasantly surprised by the large yard and the sunny rooms. (Its amazing how large less than a quarter acre can seem when the house is so tiny, and our south facing front windows right on the edge of a hill provide TONS of sunlight, summer and winter!) Even so, it needed a LOT of work.

We have been happily flea free for four and a  half years now.

Seth built a new stoop so that we wouldn't fall through the rotting wood of the old one.

We got a new roof, and we had the chimney redone from just under the roof.

Roof and chimney before:

The new chimney!

We got new windows! The old ones had gaps in between them and the house in some places. It was unacceptable to go through a single winter with holes in the house. (Although apparently they had been doing it for years.)

We've redone the bathroom, which used to be unbearably disgusting, and is now just bearably disgusting.

We dug a drainage ditch around the outside of the house and put an underground gutter to route drainage away from our basement door.

We've expanded all the gardens and are putting another out front so that we don't have to mow :) (Thunder has been extremely helpful)

We've redone the office/guest room which used to be a hideous hole of negativity and is now a delightful happy yellow sunny room.

Our latest effort was in redoing the master bedroom, the walls of which I used to try to find faces in (two holes for eyes, one hole for a mouth - sometimes even a nose if I was lucky) which distracted me from reading at night and occasionally gave me nightmares. I chose to use a Shaker color scheme because I find it so intensely relaxing and calming. I love it, and now instead of being distracted by the holes in the wall I am distracted by how perfect it all is!

 Slowly but surely, we have been improving our house. In the meantime we've also fallen in love with our yard. Our backyard is sheltered by an enormous sugar maple, the tallest by far in the neighborhood (which makes Seth exceedingly proud). I am in continuous wonder at its life sustaining support. It provides haven for birds and squirrels (and all sorts of insects), shade for the flowers, if we wanted we could tap it for maple sugar... I feel immensely safe under its protection. I sit under the tree on summer mornings with my morning coffee, and usually just stare up through the leaves. It feels like our yard (and us) are a part of a tiny ecosystem completely supported by our maple tree.

Since becoming the occasionally proud owners of an itty bitty home, Seth and I have taken to comparing the size of our house to rooms, or blocks of rooms in other people's houses. For example, I'm fairly certain that our entire house could fit in my cousin Jody's kitchen and living room. We're pretty sure most of our house would fit in Dad and Cindy's new addition. I can tell you for sure, after taking a good long look from across the road, that our entire house would definitely fit within the leaves of our maple tree. (I'm not sure if that speaks to the enormity of the tree or the diminutive nature of our house! Perhaps both.)

Anyway, our occasionally proud moments are becoming more common, and it is exciting! It's easy to be overwhelmed by how much is left to redo, or how much HAIR Thunder gets all over the place (ugh), but when I think back to what it was when we moved in, I can hardly believe how far we've come!

Enough of this philosophical jibber jabber, I have more exciting stories to write!