As humans we are given to optimism. It’s necessary for joy and for motion. When faced with things such as big, dreamy houses covered in rotted – but So Charming and New England! Coastal! Weathered! – cedar shake shingles and padded in musty carpet, dated colors, smelling of old and new dampness, we find ourselves swept up in all of that bright and sparkling What If and Imagine. Such that we decide to buy the great sagging rambler Cape and the shy acre of magazine garden it’s fastened to and tell ourselves pretty lies as we sign the paperwork and wire the funds.

Lies such as “It will be fun! We can make it our very own! Think of it! Our island dream house! Blue geometries of ocean and inlet between houses and over roofs from this high and rocky perch! Every trim and layer of latex eggshell rolled out in our chosen color and style. Someone call HGTV! What a fun story we can tell when it’s finished! We’ll make a mail-order before and after photo book to haul out for the perennial parade of out of town company we’ll host each favorable season in all of our attractive guest bedrooms!”

Converse to daydreams, the ugly daily and unrelenting dawn to dusk reality of living – with a two year old – in a full scale, to-the-studs renovation of 5,211 square feet under decades of disrepair is a harrowing experience.

Our shining eyes and optimistic attitudes quickly eroded under the duress of having to hide in single rooms behind plastic sheeting, makeshift decon chambers, shoes outside please, no dust allowed.

Dealing with contractors, even the ones with big hearts and good intentions, is largely a shaggy, disorganized and undependable affair.  Even the happiest couples begin to bristle in one another’s direction when faced with the daily maneuvers like, I Found Another ____, and Whose Turn is it to  Call/Text/Flash Signal the Roofers and Remind Them That New Roofs Should Not Spring New Leaks.

New Walls Should Not Be Wavy

New Siding Should Not Spare Rotten Facia

New Windows Should Not Admit Water

New Walk-In Showers Should Be Tiled in Straight Lines.

Stone Countertops Should Be Set Level

New Walls Should Run Straight 

New maple floors should meet at their edges 

And on. 

Eleven months and two weeks later now, coming up on a year since we first pulled up to this house, all of our earthly possessions behind us. I was looking at photos yesterday. JD walking Ember through the halls, holding hands, peeking inside bedrooms, getting the lay of the strange new land. Our tiny house in Pittsburgh was all she had ever known. The idea of a home as a changeable thing in decor and in location comes with time and experience. 

That was your room, but now this is your room and that room belongs to someone new. Your room has green carpet and beige walls, but soon it will have soft blush walls and driftwood maple floors.

The seasons have turned all the way around the dial. Every morning the leaves are more awake, the trees more green, the lush privacy of summer foliage more full and complete. Soon the yard will look much as it did that afternoon we arrived, June 4, 2019, rushing to beat the cable guy, leaning on our real estate agent to come woman the driveway, filling the 40 minute gap between our GPS arrival and Comcast’s window start time. 

The house is new inside. Very little of what we came home to that day remains. I’ll be undertaking a post with before and after photos in matching angles in the coming weeks, for sharing and for record keeping. I’ll use categories for this blog, so all such house related posts will live under the House category. I’m working on being a person who is organized. 

There are still three untouched bathrooms and the gym/movie theater room is still in a state of partial-finish. A lot of exterior work out front remains to be done, landscaping, rock wall, front porch for lemonade, summer sitting, fall pumpkins and bales of hay. But the hardest is done and we survived and we are lucky and we are glad and we are charmed here by the sea.