I haven’t lived in a house in a long time. Well, let me qualify that statement a bit. While living in NYC, I spent my time in houses converted into apartments (some better than others) but I’ve never lived as an adult as the primary occupant of a complete house. I’m living that dream now.
It is daunting.
I’m still renting and we moved into a house that has been a rental for probably 40 years. And it looks like it. The inside has only been partially renovated. The kitchen was rebuilt at some point but just built on top of the original floor. We can still see the old floor through some of the bottom cabinets. The garage door is original to the house (built in the 50s) and its paint is peeling. Every window has at least 4 different hardware sets for blinds or curtains and most of it has been painted over. Also, we can see that the owner originally painted over wallpaper rather than remove the wall paper itself. Random closets were installed and there is a million nails and random hooks stuck in the walls. There’s also baseboard heaters that come off when you breathe on them. It’s a mess of a house but we’re making it our own. We’re removing all the random hardware, fixing up cracks, sanding the rusted bits, taking down all the random cables entering the building, cleaning up the yard (and figuring out how to mow it), and just fixing up everything. We’ll paint. We’ll make this place look great. I’m just not sure how long it’ll take.
House living is different.
Here are a few pictures of some of the things we’re dealing with. You can follow along on my instagram.
