Oh no. It’s July 6. Deep into summer. Cresting the hill. No, heading downhill. Picking up speed. And with so much left to do.
Daggone summer house projects!
I live in an old house. A really old house. One that needs what all old houses need: Money. Attention. Brain cells. (And I long ago filed for bankruptcy on that last one.)
Old houses will consume you. They will turn your summer into one long, unending project. That is, unless you procrastinate long enough and never begin any projects. Then your house will literally fall down and consume you.
Oh no. It’s July 6 …
The list always grows longer in an old house. Never shorter. I have one of many tacked to a cork board above my desk. There were two items crossed off, and three more added. (The three additions were to re-do my earlier work, plus repair the damage from a hammer I threw out of frustration.)
If we ever named my house it would be “Futility.” Or something I can’t print here.
People always love old houses. These are smart people who don’t live in them. They live in civilized dwellings with level floors, insulation, windows that work and roofs. They walk into old houses and say genuine things like, “Oh my gosh, I love this! It’s so rustic. And unique. And wonderful. Is that a live chicken on your mantle?”
My wife is usually pretty sedate, but sometimes she goes off on people like this.
“Are you blind?!?” she’ll snap. “There’s a hole over here in the floor where you can see China?”
So many projects to complete. The crumbling plaster in the pantry. The overgrown trees. The little rotting board on the back porch. The big rotting board on the back porch. The lawsuit from the guy who fell through the big rotting board on the back porch.
Sometimes I just want to buy a big concrete bunker, complete with a big concrete front yard. No towering trees. No hardwood floors. No old house windows that stick and threaten to drop panes of glass like guillotine blades when pounding on the frame. Everything would be level and square and boring and perfect.
But that’s not what we signed up for in old houses, is it? It’s a choice. A lifestyle. An addiction. A fraternity of the insane. I love bumping into a neighbor at the hardware store. “How’s the third round of tetanus treatment coming?” I ask.
“Oh, just fine. You ever get that chunk of heart pine removed from your spleen?” he replies.
“Nope. Next week. Right after I re-run the wiring to the attic. The old stuff set my insulation on fire.”
And on it goes. Two old house owners will just stare at each other, cracking half smiles and commiserating. Knowing exactly what the other one is going through. It’s a brotherhood. Or a cult. “See you on the other side,” is our goodbye. Because we know if our domiciles don’t kill us, our old house summer project lists will.