The reasons for home ownership are many and compelling. Investment: excellent. Security: you’re immune from rent hikes or capricious landlordish dictats. Flexibility: you can have it your way without having to ask anybody’s permission. Depth: your roots dig deeper and spread outwards. Taxes: it’s the great middle class income tax scam, pure and simple; not only interest on your mortgage is deductible, but so are your property taxes. Monthly: in many cases, the monthly payment is either competitive with rent or is notably lower. Pride: you own it — ‘nuff said.
All of that is very well and good. But all of those many lists of advantages leave out what is undoubtedly the 500-pound gorilla of the bunch.
They never talk about just how crazy fun it is. And Gott in Himmel, is it ever crazy fun. A house is the ultimate grown-up toy. Nothing can compete with it for sheer absorption of time and energy, for heady joy in seeing it grow and develop, for a sense of limitless possibility. It’s the last word in cool hobbies. It’s a Barbie Doll on steroids. It’s the electric train set that stamps finis on all other choo-choos. It’s a friend that responds to every gift with gratitude. It’s a never-exhausted list of intriguing projects. It’s friend and lover, colleague and challenger, competitor and crony, mentor and student. It’s the coolest toybox ever.
My house has come to me after a five-year period of benign neglect. Without a doubt its former owners valued and loved it. But they didn’t clean it very much or very well. And they painted some of it in colors that are several orders of magnitude removed from my idea of good decor. The paint is easy to fix and results in the most dramatic improvements. Cleaning, on the other hand, offers more subtle improvements yet continues unabated, even if I took full possession of the property almost six weeks ago. The basic rule of thumb is: if I haven’t cleaned it yet, it’s dirty. I’m not exaggerating that. Today, while painting the family-room-turned-office, I removed the plastic light-switch plates and electric-socket plates. Each of them needed a run under the faucet and a soapy sponge before I would return them to their niches on the wall. There is no baseboard that hasn’t accumulated a thin crust of gunk, no doorframe that doesn’t need its upper rims given a good scrub, no stretch of flooring that won’t yield up copious amounts of goo and grime. The only clean windows are those that I have cleaned so far. There isn’t a square foot out of its approximately 6000 (counting garage, house, and land) that doesn’t call out for my ministrations.
But that’s part of the fun. For one thing, I’m one of those disturbing people who actually enjoys cleaning. I am particularly partial to persnicketty, itty-bitty household engineering, such as going after a goopy crevice with a Q-tip or doing away with faint lines of gray gunk along the rounded strips of wood that border the floor sills. So a dirty house, while distressing, is not anything I’m going to view with alarm or dismay. I’m going to take it for what it is: a project to be tackled for the sheer fun of it all. And the house gets truly clean, bit by bit, in the process.
I love going to Lowe’s. I love buying stuff for the house, big stuff and little stuff and practical stuff and cool stuff. Oh: I need a pair of pruning shears. Oh: I want to get a nice garden spade and a weed-puller. Oh: I need a couple of rakes and isn’t that a great-looking shovel? Oh: I need plenty of extra screws and nails. Oh: look at those cool hoses! Oh: you know, that room could really use a better lighting fixture. Oh, yeah—a dimmer switch for the dining room and what about a good carpet shampooer? Noticed last weekend that there isn’t enough light for the back deck at night; what to do about that?
Bed, Bath and Beyond: I could ruin myself financially in there. But what fun it is! Oh: let’s try a gray-and-slate motif for the bathroom towels this year! Ah, yes: I have three bathrooms now, don’t I? Which one goes gray? All three? No. The downstairs powder room will be much better in a sand-and-beach motif. But the upstairs bathrooms—oh, yes. Grays and slates most definitely. And then a wild splash of dark green in the midst! Howzabout this matched set of Kleenex cover–soap dish–lotion dispenser–drinking glass?
Target: homelier but homey nonetheless. The perfect place to stock up on supplies for those aforesaid three bathrooms. “Wow, lots of big sizes here,” the checkout clerk said. “Three bathrooms,” I answered with a laugh. So of course I need to buy big shrink-wrapped stacks of Kleenex boxes and 32-packs of toilet paper. Shoe racks. Closet organizers. New alarm clock.
Pier 1 Imports: another place to lose it utterly. Get a load of that beautiful vase, the really high one with the reddish streaks through all that black glass. That would look just incredible in the upstairs hall, wouldn’t it? How much? Hmmm … the Visa card balance isn’t really that high, is it?
Kirkland’s: another paradise. Stuff that looks great that an ordinary person can actually afford. Nice people. Great seasonal stuff. Just wander and let the imagination do its thing.
Paint. Rugs. Wrenches and pliers and brushes and clasps and brooms and mops and cleaners and fasteners and tillers and ceiling fans. Wall hangings and floor coverings. Walking down the floor-tile ailes at Lowe’s, making notes and thinking about how this or that tile might look in the two upstairs bathrooms, which will be getting new floors some time in the not-too-distant future.
Garden aisle. That whole glorious, still slightly mysterious, half-outdoors area at Lowe’s where you get plants and flowers and trees and fencing and ground cover and all that.
Glass cleaners. Wood floor cleaners. Toilet bowl cleaners. Shower cleaners. Bathroom cleaners. Window cleaners. Kitchen cleaners. Oven cleaners.
Paint and brushes and rollers and canvas dropcloths and blue masking tape and detail brushes and detail rollers and edgers and rough-edged cleaning rags.
Stuff to put in vases. Stuff to put on counters. Stuff to put on the walls. Stuff to put on the windows.
Bigger stuff: when to replace some double-paned windows that have lost their seal and suffer from cloudy patches? When to replace the window that has a bad track and doesn’t open properly? Do I or don’t I commit to eventual recarpeting of the whole? What about a major kitchen remodel, or perhaps just have the cabinets re-finished? What about having the hardwood floors sanded down and refinished? How many miles does the water heater still have on it? Roof is good now after escrow-period inspection; what about next year? Remember to call to get a chimney-sweep to come out. What about getting the AC/heating vents cleaned? Professional landscapers for the side lawn that’s full of rapidly decomposing dog poop right now but could turn into something wonderful? When will be the best time to re-seed the dog-scraped patches in the back yard?
When will I get to the garage? How long will it still be filled with boxes? (Answer: it will be full of boxes until I’m damn good and ready to do something about that.)
Game. Challenge. Project. Avocation. Profession.
Sheesh. Anyone who thinks that all you get for your (typically horrific) purchase price is a hunk o’ land with a building on it: wrong, wrong. What you get is the best time you’ve ever had, albeit one with backaches and scrapes and burns and chafes attached.
And you get to live in it—live your life, practice your profession, entertain your friends and colleagues, read and cook and practice and walk and watch TV and listen to music and waste time on the Internet and sleep and wake and eat and dress and bathe and shave and talk on the phone.
So there it is: a toybox for living. Expensive, yes. But worth it. Lordy Hallelujah, how worth it.