This Old House

I am finding myself in the position of needing to seriously consider giving up my wonderful old house. We have lived in it for 35 years come November, and I am ready to admit that it is just too much to maintain, to care for on a day-to-day basis. It is three stories, with five bedrooms and over 3,000 square feet.

The history of our house is kind of fascinating, as it was built by the contractors that built close to a hundred stone houses, of many different sizes, in the town we call home. It was originally a company town, owned by a great big outfit that made, of all things, asbestos. Yep, we are a Superfund Site.

The houses are of different sizes and shapes according to the status of the employee that lived therein. There are a few very ornate, huge places on one street that were obviously the executive homes, then came the management or supervisors' homes, three floors high and 30 feet square, dotting streets all over town. Finally there are sections of large, somewhat ornate row homes, for the factory workers. All of them are way beyond any middle class homes being built today.

Ours is one of the middle-management houses, though actually owned and maintained as an income property by the builder instead of the company. For that reason, our house was rented from 1900, when it was built, to 1975 when we bought it. We are honestly the first owners on the deed.

We purchased the place as a handyman's special, and I truly think it still qualifies! In the first few years we were here, we put on a new roof, redid all of the plumbing (probably lead pipes wrapped in asbestos!), bought a new furnace, put in a sump pump, and started the rewiring of everything. Walls were falling down, ceilings had gaping holes in them, and there was 6" of water in the basement every time it rained.

My kitchen, in need of a current remodel, was originally almost non-existent. It consisted of four bare walls, each painted a different shade of yellow, one built-in storage cabinet, and a metal base with a one-piece ceramic sink and drainboard on it. When we were in fix-up mode my mother decided she would clean the kitchen floor, and she gave up after carrying out and dumping 42 buckets of almost black water. I built our first "real" kitchen, myself, out of Sears do-it-yourself cabinets, which I learned how to hang. I also cut the counter tops and laid the floor. Geez, I wish I had that kind of energy now!

We rebuilt many of the walls and went through buckets of spackle. Paint soaked right in to the old plaster, so many coats were needed. In my kids' rooms, I put up very strong vinyl-coated wallpaper, which is still there. I know I will have to remove it soon, and I also know that most of the walls will come down with it. Home Depot knows us on a first-name basis.

The exterior is all stone, beautiful old Pennsylvania fieldstone, quarried right near town, and lovingly mortared and stacked by a stalwart group of Italian stone masons, imported by the original asbestos company. It has stood for 110 years, and is not going anywhere.

The landscaping has been lovingly accomplished, with trees coming and going, and a carefully built collection of perennials forming a colorful blanket all summer long. My favorite tree is a forty-foot oak in the back corner of the yard, planted gently as an acorn by my five-year-old son. I moved it once, and spent a few years dutifully picking off some bugs that had invaded the leaves. My baby boy is now 32, and it will hurt to leave that tree behind.

Where the tree now sits used to be a ten-foot wide, two-foot-deep pit of sand, ringed by old tires, where the neighborhood kids all gathered and played. I dug it out and filled in the sand myself, all two tons of it! It was a lot of work, but for years I knew where all of the kids in the neighborhood were - in my back yard!

We made a major change to the interior about eight years ago, when we built a twenty-foot square family room onto the rear of the house. The back wall is full of windows, and the ceiling peaks at 11 feet. Happily I had studied architectural drafting in art school, so I was able to develop the plans myself. That room had been in my head for about ten years before then, so I had little trouble with the design. I now spend the major portion of my day doing something-or-other in that room.

There are, as I mentioned, five bedrooms in the house, which are now serving as repositories for the 35 years' worth of stuff we have accumulated. We are in need of a visit by the "Clean House" people. It's not as bad as the homes they show, but it wouldn't take long to get there. I am a collector of many lovely, meaningful things, and my husband collects junk. Of course, he would see the situation turned around.

That's the scariest part of looking at a smaller, cheaper home. What the heck will we do with the stuff? I am in the very slow process of sorting things out, and have managed to throw out more than I thought I could, but we have a long way to go. I was the executor of my parents' estate, and the one who cleaned out their house. I swear I will not leave anything like that for my kids to deal with!

Plans are to stay where we are now for another five years or so. I figure that's about how long it will take me to clean up and sort out our stuff. I sincerely hope that timeline doesn't get shortened, but my husband is in the construction industry, and there is not much going on in that industry right now.

I am mentally getting prepared for this whole process, and have even figured out an area where we could comfortably move, and a much newer house style that I would enjoy. That being said, I think it will take me at least five years to get ready in my heart to pack up and start elsewhere. The most important things for me to take? That's a no-brainer: the memories.