July 25, 2005
Ownership
When you're preparing for a large life change - a home purchase, the birth of your first child, marriage - the people who blazed the trail before you offer a lot of advice, most of it boiling down to "Oh, it's a lot of work - you just wait." And as the novice, the one who has yet to venture into this unchartered life territory, you think "Well, maybe it's a lot of work for YOU, but I have true love/maternal instincts/a good handyman on my side." You're positive that for you it will be different. It won't be as bad as they claim.
Hahahahaha!
In the months leading up to the purchase of my first house, I got those little advice nuggets a lot. "It's always something with houses!" or "You know if something goes wrong, there's no landlord to call...." And I said, "Yes, yes. Yes, I know this." Because, well, I did know it. But I didn't know it like they knew it - oh, those on the other side. I thought - "Well, I'm being smart about this. Well informed. Besides, I'm not completely clueless - I _can_ use a plunger!" I rode a wave of First Escrow Love and stayed buoyed by the idea of my badass self, the Single Female 20something Homeowner, all the way through closing and painting parties and housewarming get-togethers. I extravagantly blew my budget on things like lawnmowers and cordless drills - prepping my home for a do-it-herself queendom.
But then hurricanes and tropical storms rushed through Atlanta, Cindy and Dennis practically holding hands they blew though so close together, and my crawl space flooded and water dripped down into my attic and my pilot light went and suddenly I realized - I have no hot water and I'm only getting it back if I take care of it. And then there's that "charming" original 1950s bathroom that a few months, and mortgage payments, in isn't so charming anymore. And the large tree in the backyard - the one you are certain has been home to many children climbing its branches and lovers kissing under its umbrella branches - is more menace than friend, with its heavy, generations-old limbs hanging heavily over your roof. What renter has to worry about a tree crashing through her roof? Not this former renter, that is for certain.
Luckily (oh so luckily) I am blessed in the company I keep, and seem to have picked up my very own personal handyman somewhere along the way. This friend who drives down from his outside-the-perimeter berg to crawl into my scary attic to look for leaks and who listens to me complain and kvetch that maybe I made a mistake and WHY won't it STOP RAINING, when he was the agent who signed his name right next to mine hundreds on times on all the scary closing paperwork. (I don't have a first born, but I'm fairly certain I owe him to someone anyway.) So at least I'm not going this totally alone, as long as I have him out there to save me, and since I'm not the first person to ever do anything, I know quite a few Single Female 20something Homeowners who are there to lean on, ask questions of and commiserate with.
So thanks to trailblazers and to everyone who hasn't said "I told you so." I have a leaky kitchen sink to go fix.
Posted by hannah at 04:46 PM
Word! In the two years that my boyfriend and I have owned our home, a 100 yr. old Victorian, we have patched and painted five interior rooms, created cottage gardens in all the neglected flower beds, did a total copper re-piping, patched a leaking roof during the almost record breaking rainy season, demolished our old picket fence and rebuilt and painted it and right now there is a four inch hole surrounding our bathtub that is waiting to be tiled tomorrow. We've done the bulk of the work ourselves and while it's always something....buying our house is something I would never change.
Posted by Crazyaimz on July 25, 2005 06:54 PM
