L talking about "the weekend of no house"

The following longer quotations are taken from some e-mail L wrote in the last few days talking about "the weekend of no house." The plot is quite simple. We looked at a house that was almost what we were looking for. And, in the course of a weekend, we went from talking ourselves into it to talking ourselves (quite rightly) out of it.

"Thom and I have continued looking for a house and we are going back today to look at one again that we are pretty serious about. It’s a older home (by regular standards, not New England standards – meaning it was built in 1967 – not 1867! ), but VERY well kept up. It’s in a very established neighborhood where everyone seems to keep their homes and yards very nicely taken care of. It’s a 3BR, 1.5 bath – not our favorite plan, but it would work for our family. It’s a ranch style house where the garage has been nicely converted into a den and utility room. The biggest selling point for me is that it has a beautiful deck and a fenced yard where the kids could play safely and I could sit on the deck. The deck is so large it would be great for entertaining – having my parents and my brother and sister in law over and the yard is the perfect size. For car coverage it has a two-car carport that is also well-maintained and not tacky-looking – you see a lot of car ports down here and some are better than others. The house is very livable and yet there are some areas where we could make upgrades over time – bathroom could be updated, kitchen, etc. but it’s all cosmetic, not structural. So, we’re praying about it and thinking about it and talking about it. It’s in our price range, which seems amazing to us, since our range is pretty small and this house has been so well kept up and is in such a nice neighborhood. So, please pray with us about this, it is a huge decision and we want to be sure we make a wise choice. I’d tell you the list price, but you’d drop over dead when you compared it to house prices in New England!"

The funny thing about this house was that portions of it resembled our grandparent's houses. The flat white ceilings, the 50s colors, the way the rooms opened into the straight hallway like independent compartments. Moving around in it, I passed through different ages: six, twelve, sixteen. It has been a long time since I thought about my grandparents homes. About how they felt as a boy, and I wanted to go back to each one and spend a moment there just for a little longer.

The kitchen is all knotty pine paneling with really ugly 1980s wallpaper and the bathrooms also need to be updated – one has aqua/torquise blue tile and the other is more hideous 1980s wall-paper – bold strips plus floral. The layout was a nice ranch style and the home had been very well kept up. There’s a deck out back and a fenced backyard.

At one point we went into the bathroom and L started to tell me, "The linen closet is behind the door." But, thanks to my grandmother's house, I already knew. As I told L. later, being there it was hard to think about purchasing the house. We were children intruding into the strange space of adults. They know the past which we will never know, and we could very well see the future which they will not see. In us, those two poles stare across a divide at each other and hardly know what to do.

By Sunday night, we were coming out of the reverie.

Here’s the catch – lead paint. Homes built before 1978 generally have lead paint on the interior and exterior surfaces. With the remodeling projects we were imagining it would kick up the lead-paint and cause lead-paint dust – which in turn becomes lead poisoning in children and seriously affects intelligence. It wouldn’t be a problem to live there, just to do any of the updates we would want to eventually do. So, after two days of hemming and hawing and not being sure what we thought we finally got a sense of peace when we decided it wasn’t the right house for us. My parents, who had visited the home with us on Sunday, think we’re making a wise decision to wait. It would have been livable and nice enough, but not really wonderful."

Try as I might, I can't see myself owning a home. It is like seeing oneself living in a foreign city or being one of those successful guys in the movies, hurring to cross the street with the cell phone wearing a four thousand dollar suit. I grow up slow. I can't help it. My corneas opened too wide one day and they can't close again. Nevertheless, when the time comes, we will.