When I look around at my house, a house that I tend to hate, I realize that there is work to be done in every single room. Every room on every floor, including the basement, needs attention – and this is even after all the work that has already been done. There are 9 rooms, 1 full bathroom, 1 half bathroom and 2 potential rooms in a long ago semi finished attic. That’s a total of 12 ½ rooms. Plus the basement. Plus the garage. (Though at the time we didn’t know that the basement and garage were well neglected.) In each of these rooms there are closets, windows, doors and floors that are all in desperate need of very dramatic attention. This is a lot of work and more so for first time homeowners.
As of this post, we’ve been living in the Lakedell House for 2 ½ years. We first spotted the house online, on a real estate web site when we were toying with the idea of moving from the West coast back to the East coast. As our decision to move solidified, we looked at the house and dismissed it more than once because it clearly needed a lot of work. We were certain we wanted a move-in ready house especially because only one of us had either the time or the proclivity for renovations but neither of us had both!
But something kept drawing us back to the Lakedell House. Time and again we would notice something new, something different that intrigued us.
“It has a gazebo!”
“Oh look at this part of the map. It’s about ½ mile from that house and it looks like a beach.”
‘There is easy access to the highway but not too close.”
“It’s walking distance to a good high school, for the child.”
“What exactly is this swath of green? A park? How big is this park? Oh, it has walking trails! And another beach! And a carosel!”
“Do you realize there is no outlet here? This means there is no through traffic, just people who live down here. It’s probably a quiet neighborhood.”
“How much yard is a half acre anyway? Wouldn’t we need a rider mower?”
Eventually the time came for one of us to make the 3000+ mile trek east to look at houses in person. My better? half decided to go look at houses and deal with the real estate agent. I stayed back to work on getting pre-approved for a mortgage.
I’m not sure exactly what happened but in the short time between the house viewing trip and, well, the next two weeks, we put an offer on the house. I felt positive enough because my hyper intelligent, thoughtful, detail oriented husband said that the house was solid. He assured me that the house needed only minor cosmetic repairs. Our offer was accepted and we started the process of paperwork and initials and signatures that would make the house ours.
The next few weeks were a whirlwind of boxes and packing and movers and yard sales, then a 5-day, 3200 mile drive across the country with two stubborn adults, one 11-yr old child, a very active dog and an attention whore of a cat. We were driving, we couldn’t be drinking.
We pulled into the driveway of the Lakedell house in the early evening of a humid August night, as dusk was falling. It wasn’t as big as I had expected for a 2900-square foot house. It was a little shabbier than I though too, with warped, split shingles and peeling paint. We opened the door and were hit with the musty stench of a trillion mildew spores lodging firmly in our sinuses. I started sneezing immediately and at this point realized that the task ahead of us was immensely bigger than either I was lead to believe, anticipated and imagined.
Renovate Me! 
your good