House Update: Summer 2011

So a few Saturdays ago—you know, the one that was 104 degrees and therefore made most of humanity incapable of movement—Jason and I sought refuge from the heat in the coolest place in our house: the basement. I thought we were going down there to organize the stuff we have but never use (and of which I should be ashamed), and, granted, we did a little of that. But lo and behold, I turned my back for five minutes and Jason had some box cutters and a pry bar in hand and was ripping up the edge of the carpet.

Back story: our basement mirrors the size of our upstairs, but only 400 square feet of the basement are considered finished. We’ve been in this house for almost 5 years and have largely ignored this “livable” area because it always seemed a bit gross and unappealing—aged carpet, yellow walls, unattractive ceiling tiles, windows that don’t open. As depressing as the basement may sound, it's a good representation of one of the main reasons we bought our house: by and large, the house was kind of depressing-looking and no one else in Durham wanted to buy a sad and unappealing house on a busy street in a sidewalk-free area of town. 

And that makes me think of the show House Hunters, which Jason and I watch a lot. Actually, Jason would revise that statement to say that his wife falls asleep during a lot of House Hunters, but what do you except when it’s past 9 p.m. and I’ve had a glass of wine, dude? Anyway, we are always amazed at the wish lists that folks have, particularly American buyers. They all want everything brand new and stainless steel. They want these giant bathrooms that I’m convinced they don’t realize they’ll have to clean one day. They want giant master bedrooms, which I guarantee will be used 80% of the time for sleeping and 20% of the time for collecting piles of dirty laundry. Lots of folks want a pool, and for that, you might as well write Pine Needles, Acorns, and Drowning Bugs at the top of your house hunting wish list because that’s what you are going to get unless you add Hot Young Pool Boy to the list and then, of course, by all means GET THE FREAKIN’ POOL AND INVITE ME OVER. And finally, everyone on House Hunters wants a tray ceiling—or rather they see the tray ceiling in the house and have a structural spiritual awakening thinking it means their house is well built and what not, to which I say, DIAGONAL SUBFLOORING, fools. (And yes, I realize I’ve probably offended most of my readership because you either have a tray ceiling or you have no idea what diagonal subflooring is and what that means in terms of the structure of your house, but still, The Chronicles are about life as Marge knows it and not about your tray ceilings and hot pool boys.) Anyway, apart from a low price, Jason and I had only three things on our house wish list: (1) the house needed a big sunny yard for the growing of tomatoes; (2) the house needed a full basement that could facilitate woodworking and give refuge to power tools and a Vogue magazine collection; and (3) the house needed to have good bones but otherwise look like a piece of shit so we wouldn’t feel bad about tearing it apart and putting it back together.

Needless to say, we got exactly what we wanted.

So back to the 104-degree day, which concerns Point 2 but pertains largely to Point 3 on our wish list...Jason and I ended up removing 400 square feet of carpet, 400 square feet of foam padding, and 400 square feet of tiles that had their heyday back in a middle school cafeteria built in 1972. We then discovered the concrete foundation of our house. It all looked something like this:

And then we went further, and it looked something like this:

Yes, we cut out some drywall JUST BECAUSE WE COULD.

But then we discovered something else. As Jason was removing some of the baseboards, he came across what every homeowner fears: a colony of termites, which was obviously not on our wish list. So instead of getting a new roof—which we still need to get sooner rather than later—we had to pony up what amounted to a mortgage payment to remove these little bastards from the premises, and from here on out, we’ll be paying, in essence, a yearly HOA fee to keep them from returning.

But at the end of the day, we can’t complain. If we had not be so hot aside or if we had an affinity for nasty old carpet, we might never have found the termites. And to be honest, Jason and I are just excited to be back at one of the things we do best: tearing shit up. It’s much easier than putting it all back together, although after you do put it all back together, you have the satisfaction of saying, damn, we’re good. And that looks something like this:

And if that seems unimpressive, consider that when we started it looked like this: 

And not only did we do it all by ourselves, WE ARE STILL MARRIED.

 

Comments

[Katie]

I absolutley love your latest blog. I can't get over the kitchen transformation and I'm so glad you caught your "squatters" in time - any longer and they may have had legal rights . . .

[Lola]

Your kitchen is gorgeous! You two are an inspiration!

[Melissa]

Eeeps! Just noticed I used "it's" incorrectly. One of my biggest editor pet peeves!

[Melissa]

Your kitchen looks great! You two ARE good :)

I totally agree with you about House Hunters. I spend half the time rolling my eyes at their "lists." That's why I tend to prefer the House Hunters International Europe episodes. They tend to be more open to seeing a house for it's potential (though it helps that like all the houses they look at seem to have gorgeous bones). This one couple from New Orleans (wife was European; husband was a musician) bought a gorgeous-though-not-even-close-to-move-in-ready country house in the South of France for $50,000 (!!) and they lived in a trailer in the yard while they worked on it. And, no, I didn't leave out a zero. I really said 50,000!! While I watched that episode I experienced the most serious case of house/lifestyle envy I have ever had.