I have already told you about the fixer-upper my husband, Paul, and I bought almost a decade back. Within a month or two of taking possession, we gutted and replaced the kitchen, knocked down a wall between it and the living room, painted half of the house and tore out an acre of carpet. And this was point one.
As it was complete, Paul suggested we invite the former employer, an elderly girl, to come over and check it all out.
“Why?” I asked, amazed.
“You understand, so that she can see all of the work we’ve done,” he explained.
“Let me get this straight: You want to have her over so she can see we could not wait to eliminate every trace of her presence from this location?”
“Not when you put it like that!”
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Alison Hodgson
Notice the worn-out drop and planted retaining walls we had — I certainly did — but nobody else seemed to mind.
The former homeowner and her husband had bought the house in the early ’70s, when their three boys were young. They lived there for almost 30 years, until her husband died unexpectedly. The sons were all grown up, and she discovered maintaining everything too much to manage on her own.
She was so glad another young family could be moving in and happy to inform us a bit in their time there; just how soon after purchasing the location they set up an inground swimming pool, and also the day it started her youngest boy, who was at the time, jumped in and swam the length, without hesitation. She didn’t even know he can float! Her boys loved the big yards and the wooded slopes; they had a lot of room to roam about and play with.
The house was originally one-story tall, but they added that a second and made it one enormous playroom (15 by 60 ft) with pinball machines, pool and Ping-Pong tables, air hockey and foosball — children’ paradise.
(Aesthetically it was a nightmare: acres of blue plush carpet, miles of popcorn-textured ceiling and wood paneling, and of course that the wall of volcanic rock that lined the stairwell they installedover the carpet on the stairs. Demoing that — ripping out fields of blue plush, painting the paneling and trimming the ceiling — has been on my list of things to do.)
It’s no surprise that the house was always filled with friends and family. Each summer they hosted their family reunion, which was filmed “Family Rebellion.” They welcomed huge groups in church, and the place was always open to the boys’ friends.
In the five years we lived there, I can not tell you how many times complete strangers could come to our house: support people, parents of our children’s friends, the UPS guy(!) And announce, “Hey, I swam on your pool!”
Alison Hodgson
A 6-foot fence blocked the view of the beautiful lawn and gardens and gave the sense of living in a stockade. We cut it down to 4 ft — keeping security and opening the opinion — but you will notice it didn’t keep out the fun.
That was the type of house I grew up in, a sprawling ranch set in a clearing in the woods with plenty of space plus a massive inground pool. Every household event was at our house. Each Christmas my aunts and uncles and cousins packed the place for days on end. We slept 20 guests without batting an eye. In the summer we hosted both sides of our large families and many, many friends.
When Paul and I were searching for our first house, I was on the lookout for a living room which could accommodate 30, never mind our small family was just both people baby Christopher, who was then the extent of a large garden gnome.
We bought a three-bedroom ranch which matched our funding and our actual life. Eight years after I was thrilled to find this diamond in the rough, within our budget, with so many features I had thought we wouldn’t be able to manage for ages. In all honesty, I reduced the work and the cost entailed in sprucing up it, but I was right on about the fun.
We threw our first party within 48 hours of moving in. We proceeded on a Saturday. Our first guests, a household of five, came early the next morning, and we hosted our first party the day after that, that was Labor Day. And we continued in that vein before the day the house burned down.
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Alison Hodgson
The morning of the fire, one of the sons of the previous homeowner posted the news on Facebook, along with an all-day discussion ensued. A mutual friend later explained that friends from around reminisced about the good times they’d had in that house, which up until the last few years had been, to my eyes, the ugliest duckling.
For its previous homeowners, it had been a swan; they’d chosen every feature I afterwards assiduously removed or coated. Taste is subjective, isn’t it?
The day that our house burnt, during that digital walk down memory lane, nobody asked about the wall of volcanic rock. Nobody said the low ceilings using all the faux beams, the lack of windows, the unlimited carpet and the imitation brick. Obviously that wouldn’t have been polite, but I am sure it didn’t even happen to anybody, if they ever noticed. I bet the majority of the men and women who have been welcomed there over the years have been focused on being with friends and having fun.
My dad had a saying to describe what mattered and what didn’t. “It will burn” he’d say to discount something which was not worth stressing about. I fretted and clucked over all the ugly finishes in my house for so a number of the years we lived there and spent thousands and thousands of dollars creating it as amazing as I dreamed it might be, and at less than an hour it was consumed by passion. What lived was destroyed by smoke and water.
Alison Hodgson
I wish I had spent less time worrying about what my house looked like and more of it purely enjoying my family and all the people we welcomed there. I did get that correct, just like the prior homeowners did, like my parents showed me, and despite my concerns, I did fling open our doors and allow my house to be a sanctuary.
It’s so easy to get hung up on how we want our house to look. It’s tempting to think we can not have anybody over until it looks like, but I am here to let you know, whatever it looks like — your own nightmare or your own dream — it could all be gone in a flash. However, if we open ourselves, the memories we create can overtake us.
More: 9 Approaches to Appreciate Your House As It’s