Today I am thankful for our home ... just the way it is.
I often explain our home as a work in progress, but naturally that would mean that things are progressing, when in fact we live this way. Are you guys ready for a dose of candid sharing today? Because to express my thankfulness in our circumstances is something that has been on my mind, and this is the seed of a memory-keeping project, so I'll begin it here ...
My husband, Paul, designed and built our home when we lived in "the shack" in what is now the back yard. In recent years, partly because the kids have affectionately remembered it as such, we refer to the old place as "the little house." That term is used mainly in retrospect, because during our time there it was certainly the shack. There are places where a family of four can live in a tiny one bedroom lean-to with no foundation, squishy floors, no dishwasher, and scruffy cat where it might be the norm. Among our peers however (and in this area) it was unusual. We stood out. Our circumstances were dramatically different from those of well-intentioned friends who (with more than a hint of pity) asked of our home's progress at every meeting. "It will all be worth it. ..." would be my conclusive remark to change the subject. It was temporary (Paul and I told ourselves) and would be worth it when the new house was complete. We would look back on these days as worth the sacrifice, worth the inconvenience, as though it was such a hardship. And at times it was. There was the time when during a heavy rainfall water seeped up through the floor. And there was the unwelcome urban wildlife that kept me from sleeping from January through spring. (I do tend to romanticize things in my own pensive memory, so I need to remember that.) At other earlier times though, it was sweet and intimate in a way that living in a two story brick four-over-four will never be.
The rubble from the little house filled just two large dumpsters the day we tore it down a few weeks after Marty was born. I recall happily taking the first ceremonial swipes with the bucket of the rented front end loader. Then Paul took over as the risk of demolishing the neighbors fence outweighed my personal satisfaction. [There are pictures of this]
We never looked back; leveled out the earth and put a grass yard in its place. The first we've ever had.
To say that we moved into a dream home would be an exaggeration. But when you consider how few people in their lifetime ever build their own home, let alone one with a heavy timber frame of traditional mortise-and-tenon joinery -- it is a dream. So while there are many, many spaces to finish when it becomes affordable, this home that we live in is a daily joy. Our floors and walls are plumb and our fixtures are shiny and new. The smooth warm cherry and spanish tile floors have been installed piece by piece by Paul's hands.
While we have rooms in need of baseboards, and paint, and switch plates I don't nag. And I never ask when it will be done. I know he does all he can. In fact there is progress it's just such a big place that I need to remind myself. These spaces are inspiring finished or not. I sleep under a lucky star. I also sleep under a hundred year old southern yellow pine tree that grew somewhere along the eastern seaboard.
The floor of our bedroom is a mosaic in the making of blue cobble stones for our fireplace surround. It's a good thing I love the materials themselves for they've been here a while and will be installed in due time, but I'm happy ... just the ways things are. They really look like a creek bed, don't they?
Most of our neighbors have been supportive as we improved this lot from a tiny cottage in disrepair to a nice home with a welcoming porch that many believe might be a renovation of an older bungalow. A compliment unparalleled in Paul's view. There's one surly old man from an apartment down the street who will call out in passing "Are you ever going to finish that house?" The irony humors us.
I know that our living in these unfinished spaces is still such an oddity to some. I don't sympathize when people complain about living through a remodel project. "It's worth it" is about all I bother to say. It was (and is) absolutely worth it.
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This post was partly inspired by Amy's 'moments' feature, at A Commonplace Life, on bloggers sharing their realities. It's a good thing to remember that amidst all the pretty pictures of crafty projects, the real stories can be so much the richer if we allow ourselves to share truthfully.
