aka: How I embrace my inner white trash. ;)
Let me just start off saying - I love my house. Well, I love some parts of it more than others. Over 16 years ago, the fiancee wanted to buy a house so we could start building equity. It was a sound idea in theory, even though to this day, I am still not sure why it is so important to get yourself into massive amounts of debt to build this mysterious thing called equity. Does something like this reflect well on your permanent record? At the time, I was hesitant about the whole prospect as a house means a bigger space, more to clean and ... urg... yardwork.
But I abhorred the apartment that we were living in which was like an easy bake oven in the summer and a walk in freezer in the winter and smallish for two adults and three cats, so I gave in.
I had some grand ideas of what a first house should look like but as our budget was meager and my salary wouldn't count towards in the mortgage application process (I was a contract, therefore an unreliable income: remember, this was back in the day where banks were far more careful about the money they were handing out), so I was bitch slapped by reality on what we could afford. Although I did stick with my main point - no ranches. I grew up in a ranch house and I hated how the kitchen was on the same floor as the bedrooms. I would wake up any time someone passed by my door to either the kitchen or the bathroom. The house was too damned small and it was really impossible to get away from everyone in it. In hind site, my loathing of ranches was pure stupidity on my part, because now I get to lug laundry up and down two flights of stairs instead of just one.
After we had looked at least 30 houses (and nearly got killed by the realtor, who had a seizure while driving while we were in the car), we found a fairly nice looking 1928 colonial that had been reduced enough in price that we could afford it. I hated the kitchen and bathroom on sight, which considering the problems we have had with both was probably my sixth sense warning me (a story for another day), but the basement and attic were both mostly finished, which was perfect for our office area and entertainment center plans. Plus, the yard was small, which was perfect for my lackadaisical plans for gardening. It also had the cutest little porch with windows we could open or close for cross breeze (and cigarette smoking) purposes. (We both smoked at the time and made a promise to each other that we weren't going to do it in the house.)
Well, though a series of stupid moves, I had restarted smoking about a year or year and a 1/2 ago. About Three weeks ago, during one of the balmier December nights, I had left the porch windows open to air it out. I had forgotten to close them the next morning and during the workday, the wind picked up - enough so that it started slamming the windows open and closed until one of them shattered, leaving glass all over my porch and a jaggedy chunk still in the pane. It has since been covered over by plastic to prevent the wind and snow from coming in. I feel like my next step should be to get some cement blocks and put my car up on them in the front yard. I know absolutely next to nothing about replacing that pane of glass, because of the way the porch was put together. Hubby says that there is only a little caulk holding the rest of the glass in place and I am not sure who to contact to fix it. In the meantime, it billows nicely in the breeze and adds a little more character to a home that is already brimming with it.
It also reminds me that I need to quit smoking again. (I'm working on it...)
Let me just start off saying - I love my house. Well, I love some parts of it more than others. Over 16 years ago, the fiancee wanted to buy a house so we could start building equity. It was a sound idea in theory, even though to this day, I am still not sure why it is so important to get yourself into massive amounts of debt to build this mysterious thing called equity. Does something like this reflect well on your permanent record? At the time, I was hesitant about the whole prospect as a house means a bigger space, more to clean and ... urg... yardwork.
But I abhorred the apartment that we were living in which was like an easy bake oven in the summer and a walk in freezer in the winter and smallish for two adults and three cats, so I gave in.
I had some grand ideas of what a first house should look like but as our budget was meager and my salary wouldn't count towards in the mortgage application process (I was a contract, therefore an unreliable income: remember, this was back in the day where banks were far more careful about the money they were handing out), so I was bitch slapped by reality on what we could afford. Although I did stick with my main point - no ranches. I grew up in a ranch house and I hated how the kitchen was on the same floor as the bedrooms. I would wake up any time someone passed by my door to either the kitchen or the bathroom. The house was too damned small and it was really impossible to get away from everyone in it. In hind site, my loathing of ranches was pure stupidity on my part, because now I get to lug laundry up and down two flights of stairs instead of just one.
After we had looked at least 30 houses (and nearly got killed by the realtor, who had a seizure while driving while we were in the car), we found a fairly nice looking 1928 colonial that had been reduced enough in price that we could afford it. I hated the kitchen and bathroom on sight, which considering the problems we have had with both was probably my sixth sense warning me (a story for another day), but the basement and attic were both mostly finished, which was perfect for our office area and entertainment center plans. Plus, the yard was small, which was perfect for my lackadaisical plans for gardening. It also had the cutest little porch with windows we could open or close for cross breeze (and cigarette smoking) purposes. (We both smoked at the time and made a promise to each other that we weren't going to do it in the house.)
Well, though a series of stupid moves, I had restarted smoking about a year or year and a 1/2 ago. About Three weeks ago, during one of the balmier December nights, I had left the porch windows open to air it out. I had forgotten to close them the next morning and during the workday, the wind picked up - enough so that it started slamming the windows open and closed until one of them shattered, leaving glass all over my porch and a jaggedy chunk still in the pane. It has since been covered over by plastic to prevent the wind and snow from coming in. I feel like my next step should be to get some cement blocks and put my car up on them in the front yard. I know absolutely next to nothing about replacing that pane of glass, because of the way the porch was put together. Hubby says that there is only a little caulk holding the rest of the glass in place and I am not sure who to contact to fix it. In the meantime, it billows nicely in the breeze and adds a little more character to a home that is already brimming with it.
It also reminds me that I need to quit smoking again. (I'm working on it...)
