I guess I chose to live in the suburbs. Today is the 30th anniversary of moving into our house. At the time we purchased the house, we didn’t consider how long we might live here. We’d been married two years, had no kids, and generally believed this was our first, or starter, house.
It’s a simple structure, Cape Cod style, on the smaller side, with a two-sided fireplace, a lot of roof, and a second story that can get beastly hot in the summer. We’d likely upgrade at some point.
And then the years passed, the house became firmly entrenched as our home, and we stayed. There was a brief period when the kids were young, and we thought we might need a bigger house. We looked for a year, found nothing better, and decided to stay and do some renovations.
Over thirty years, we didn’t just “do some renovations.” We made many enhancements to the house. And we made it ours, every day. This is the house we owned when both our kids were born; it’s the only home they ever knew until the day they moved out. It’s the home where we raised our family, formed indelible memories, faced challenges, and shared love and loss. This is the house where our lives took place.
It’s hard to imagine ever moving somewhere else, although it might happen someday. Until that time, I’ll savor the 30 years behind us and look forward to whatever time we have ahead in our beloved home. And we’ll get to work on the next project, now that these are completed:
- Knocked down the wall between kitchen and dining rooms, added a new kitchen and a sliding door to the patio.
- Waterproofed and finished the basement, adding an office and a playroom.
- Enclosed our breezeway to make it a four-season room.
- Replaced the poured concrete patio with pavers and new steps.
- Added a shed to the yard.
- Built fences in the back and side yards.
- Planted many trees, had others removed.
- Paved the gravel driveway.
- Renovated both bathrooms.
- Replaced the original windows on the first floor.
- Replaced the front door.
- Installed a new bluestone front stoop and walkway.
- Added new garden beds.
- Installed central air conditioning in the second-floor bedrooms.
- Replaced the mantel over the fireplace.
- Added shutters to the side and rear windows.
- Installed a whole-house generator.
- Built a Little Free Library.
- Kept up with homeowner maintenance updates including a new boiler, a new hot water heater, cedar siding replacement in select areas, refinished hardwood floors, new roof, painting every room and the exterior (more than once), rebuilt the chimney, replaced the broken underground sewer line, upgraded the electric, added new insulation in the attic . . . the list goes on, and we go on living here.
