We’ve lived in this house for over eight years now. It’s our first house, and the only home our two daughters have ever known.
So why, after eight years, do we have only ONE room painted, and still have nothing hung on walls? Remove the furniture and it’s builder’s standard white through most of the house.
I have no actual answer for that question. We were in such a rush to move in once the house was ready that we didn’t take the time to paint before we moved everything in. So the only room that was painted was Cordy’s room, since I was pregnant at the time and it was the one room that had no furniture at first. I also didn’t want to hang anything on the walls until they were painted.
We also never planned to stay here this long. During the big housing boom, it was common to buy a house and sell it for a profit within four to five years. We bought a house that fit our modest budget, expecting our salaries to go up, and to make a profit on the house, so we could trade up to a better neighborhood.
Ha. Sometimes fate likes to kick you down a notch. Four years after we signed the mortgage agreement, instead of looking for our next home, we were struggling to make payments for this home and keep our family together.
And now four years later, we’re still here. We didn’t lose the house (thank goodness!) but at the moment we also have no ability to sell it without taking a loss. Most homes in our neighborhood are selling for far less than their original prices. To make it worse, there’s this immediately behind us:
I think we still haven’t made any changes over bitterness at not being able to leave. The house has become a prison, reminding us every day that we’re stuck here and not going anywhere anytime soon. We were lucky enough to not lose it through the recession, but now we find it also won’t let us go.
I’ve gone through the stages of grief over being stuck in this house, and I may have finally reached acceptance, or at least a temporary acceptance. I still have no intention of staying here beyond another few years, but I’ve also hit the point where I’m ready to live here, not just subsist here.
All of our walls are still white (except for Cordy’s room). Nothing has been hung on the walls. The house still looks like we’re apartment dwellers afraid to do anything to the standard built-ins for fear of losing our security deposit. But this is our home. It’s time to start treating it as such. There’s no need to keep it neutral in decor unless that’s what we want.
We’re refinancing the house using a new refinance option to cut down our monthly mortgage, freeing up a little more money each month. We’re no longer in that dire situation from four years ago, so we can spend a little money on simple updates to the house.
And now I have home remodel fever.
I want to paint, to hang cabinets, to install a backsplash in the kitchen, to put in new faucets…the list goes on and on. Pinterest DIY boards are now my unhealthy obsession.
There’s only one teensy-tiny problem: I have no talent or skill in home remodeling.
I also can’t seem to find anywhere to learn these skills. Some of the home superstores offer workshops on limited projects, but I need the absolute basics.
I guess I have a little time before I need to figure out how to use power tools. Because before we can begin many of these projects, we also have to clear out a LOT of clutter. About eight years worth of apathy clutter in this house. Starting with the garage.
Ha, we’re in a similar situation. We’ve been here for ten years, and still haven’t finished unpacking…
The upside is that the neighborhood is getting better all the time, and although we’re still under-water, we’re getting used to living here. Who knows, maybe one day we’ll even put some pictures up on the wall!
Denise is superstitious or something and won’t hang anything on the walls of a home because as soon as she does she has ended up moving. This literally does happen to her and often makes me want to make her hang every picture we own.
When we moved to this rental four years ago–it was a temporary one year we couldn’t afford something closer/better/whatever to what we wanted. The china is still packed for that some day move. (why pull it out if we are just going to pack it back up–my great grandmother’s plates are missing my kids golden years of usage.)
The art, paintings, family photos are all still packed in their boxes and shoved in the boy child’s closet…he started high school with them there–he left for college without them budging. I hung a few pieces of art in the first months. We’ve hung a few other things that were added since then. But, despite our house being regarded as “homey” (clutter! Knick knacks! Pets! Books!) it isn’t “home.” We daydream a lot about our forever home. We chant four more years. Every year the lease comes up and we sign for another year. Our landlord is great. The house works for us mostly. I mean there is a bedroom that literally gets ice inside in the winter, a mildew problem, a lack of insulation, a mouse issue. There are ways I daydream I would change it if I owned it even though I wouldn’t really want to own it. The location isn’t great for us. (a long drive to the little kids school/other house, a neighborhood that isn’t particularly keen on us as neighbors, and of course, in the complete wrong part of the country for us to feel “at home.” But…for now it is the place we call home, treat like a house, and the place I will miss in some ways when we do move. Yes, I will miss the tippy floors, the crazy layout, the dangerous spiral staircase, the multiplicity of doors which means you play a guessing game if a delivery comes.
I understand. We rent right now, but the house is nicely painted and there’s nothing stopping me from hanging things except apathy. I’m not thrilled we live here (although I’m working on my attitude! I really am!) and it seems like every time I think I’ll have time to work on improving the house, something else happens and I shove those plans aside.
I look forward to seeing what y’all do with your house!
My favorite line “We were lucky enough to not lose it through the recession, but now we find it also won’t let us go.” US TOTALLY! We got our house 10 years ago during the boom, our first and only one. We both had steady jobs, the plan was we had a kid, I was going to go to nursing school, graduate, land a great paying hospital job then we were going to move. Well, that plan went to h-e-double-hockey-sticks. Graduated into a hiring freeze, husband lost the job, husband still doesn’t have a job, I’ve bounced around LTC jobs, the house is so far underwater due solely to neighborhood depreciation that we will never swim out, it’s 110 years old and we may be in it for as long as it (and we) holds out. The first year I was so grateful to keep the house. Now it feels like cement overshoes. We also have the white walls, although I do have things hung on them. I’ve been told I should just walk away from it, but for better or worse it’s mine. I just can’t do it. It’s the only house my daughter has ever known. It is home, even if our relationship is frenemies at times. Enjoy your “new” home 🙂
My mom learned how to do most of that stuff by reading about it and trying it out, because unlike her assumption when getting married, my dad had no desire or aptitude for home projects.