I want a big kid house. I don’t know what it is — what has changed. Maybe it’s fatherhood, maybe it’s my age. Maybe it’s that I want really nice things so that a storm can come and blow them all away.
Or maybe it’s just that I’m finally tired of looking at those wood putty holes in the utility room door that I started over a year ago but never finished. Take a walk around my house and you find many things like that. The trim I never finished painting. The trim I never finished putting up. The trim I never bought.
Little things and big things. They’ve all been weighing on me recently, making me think it’s time to finish the house and make it a little more grown-up. I have extra motivation, too: It seems my wife feels exactly the same way. Funny the things that will motivate you!
I don’t want to leave my house, I just want to polish it off. Make it feel more complete. It’s a quaint, rustic-looking, century-old abode in Lincolnville that could be at home in Key West or Cross Creek.
It has personality — it seeps from the pours of every piece of heart pine, and even the creaking of the floors sound like an old man telling a tale “Did I tell you about the time I fought off a grizzly bear with nothing but a pair of tweezers and a rolled up newspaper?”
Character can’t be mass-produced. It takes time it has to be aged into a house. That’s the personality and the flavor. I like the flavor, but some days I sure could go for bland boiled potatoes with no butter, no salt and no parsley. Boring sure can be easy and appealing.
Truth is, with an old house, you’re never done. It’s like the tale of Sisyphus from Greek mythology. Poor Sisyphus was doomed to an eternity of rolling a boulder up a hill only to have it roll back down every time he reached the top. Because he was cursed, or like most old house owners, wasn’t that smart, he would just start rolling it back up again.
That’s my life. I’m a Greek myth just what I always wanted to be! I’m a modern-day Sisyphus and my old house is a creaky boulder with bits of plaster that were never painted.
Now, I’m suddenly inclined to paint them.
Part of it is I look at my daughter’s room, which is lively and wonderful. I completely re-did it the year before she was born, and from the paint to the trim to the funky little features … it’s done! It’s complete. It’s the best room in the house. It has new furniture — we don’t have new furniture. It has cool curtains with snazzy little rods that even a guy like me can appreciate. Us? We still have the same curtains from when we first bought the house.
In her room, there are no missing bits of trim or unpainted spots that scream out, “Hey doofus, finish me before the next ice age!”
She’s a little kid with a big kid room. I want that, too!
So I’m on a quest. Already we’re planning an addition on our house, but my goal is to make sure that the old parts are not shamed by the new. That means I have a lot of work ahead of me — a lot! Much of my house hasn’t been updated since we bought it over a decade ago. Granted, it has come a long way.
When we purchased it, the kitchen sink was sitting on 2x4s and the only heat in the house was from a potbelly stove in the living room. It was a mess, and I brought it back to life.
I’m proud of what I did, and how far it has come. But it’s never quite come all the way. More than ever, I feel like I’ve got to keep rolling. I’ve got to get that boulder up the hill. With old houses you’ve got to keep pushing as quick as you can — that way it can roll back down and you can start all over again.