I had a moment of clarity this week that really surprised me. Standing in the back yard, watering plants, I realized that I could leave this house. Just walk away. It would be fine. The idea that I would be able to do this also made me a bit melancholy.
I didn’t come to this conclusion lightly. The thing is, I love this house. We bought in July 1996, after 13 years of driving by and wondering if it would ever go up for sale. We put together a financial house of cards to make the purchase possible, a kind of lending hocus-pocus that in it’s day was not to be believed. We moved our two kids from a beautifully remodeled home to a tired old living space that needed a lot of work. And before that, we moved our babies from a cute, remodeled little Riverwest house into our first home in Wauwatosa that also required a lot of work. But that’s another story…
Our house was built in 1882, an old Queen Anne with a turret. In 1927 it was converted to a duplex. Over the years it received varying degrees of love and attention—or not so much. Talking to former first floor tenants; when it started to rain it took exactly five minutes before the water was coming through their ceilings. The 1960’s were not kind to Victorians.
But by the time we bought it the lower space was a beautifully remodeled 2 bedroom/2 bathroom apartment. We rented that out and moved in upstairs. By October of 2000, our house was one of six featured in the Wauwatosa Historical Society annual tour of homes. In the intervening years Dan and I (mostly Dan) built 3 bedrooms, bathroom and laundry room in empty space on the third floor; added a second stairway to meet building codes; tore out walls to create a large living room of what had been two bedrooms; created a dining room out of a third bedroom including gorgeous built in cabinets; and removed another wall in the back of the house to create a large kitchen with separate eating area. Did I mention the recovered tin ceiling? The red fireplace?
And the work doesn’t end. Four different colors applied to the exterior require constant touch up. The shady yard is plant and grass resistant. The remodeling is now over 10-years old and starting to look a bit tired. Two big dogs have worn out a few carpets. Home to teenage boys who have since moved on to adulthood, the wear and tear still shows in places.
Then of course we also have tenants living downstairs. An interesting variety over the years. Three medical students; a surgeon, his wife and two kids (the always amusing 2-year old nearly naked Neal); a mom and her high school daughter; and our longest term tenants, a couple. Tenants bring a different level of complexity to home ownership. You share common spaces; you have responsibility for the upkeep of someone else’s living space; you need to make arrangements for unexpected emergencies when you are out of town; and so on. Until this week, all expected and routine.
At 3:00am on Thursday morning the phone rang. There was a “bat or a bird or something in the apartment, could Dan come and take care of it.” Really? Dan, trooper that he is went downstairs and dealt with the problem. When he returned to bed he said it was a large bat. I asked him if it was “ a pterodactyl?” No just a big bat that came through an open flue. Great, now we are landlords to the bat cave.
A rainy Saturday morning allowed for breakfast at one of our favorite places. As we debriefed the week Dan told me about the extra effort he had to put in on a Friday vacation day to touch up on the front of the house, having gotten rid of a rickety 40-foot ladder and replacing it with a 36-foot ladder. Yes I said, I’m sure that missing 5-feet really makes a difference. And then we laughed at my Paula-ism, one of many over the years, and talked about how our view of the house, or our home, have evolved.
With mixed emotions our younger boy Hunter and his fiancé leave for LA in just a few weeks. Carl is in Philly. Neither boy is, at the moment, thinking of moving “home.” It’s just us and the dog faced boys.
