About Me

This is a blog about my house---but it's really about me, about how in renovating my house I restored my spirit.

I had no business buying a fixer-upper in the fall of 2006, none at all. Back then I was sad and tired and overwhelmed with my life. We had just moved from central New Jersey to a Midwestern suburb:  me, my Husband and our three children. We had relocated because of Husband's job, but also because the move brought us closer to our extended families.

It also brought me closer to my ghosts.

Yes I have ghosts, and you do too. I don't mean spirits of the dead, although that is certainly a definition of the word ghost. What I mean by ghosts is the unresolved issues that had been haunting me most of my life: the early deaths of my parents, the loss of my childhood home, the sometimes dysfunctional relationships I had with my siblings. Insecurity, pessimism, anxiety: Ghosts.

It was easy to avoid my ghosts when we lived in New Jersey. I was busy having babies and raising them and being part of a community and there was no time to the events of the past. And no need. I had a wonderful  life, enriched by many friends, healthy children and my very own George Baily: Husband.

And then we started over.

Husband and I did not plan on buying a fixer-upper. We planned on buying a really nice house. But everything we liked was too expensive, and everything we could afford was really awful. In T.F.U.H., Husband saw a way to get what we wanted while having some control over the costs. I, who was lonely, thought it would be good to have a project. But making a quilt is a project. Brewing beer in the basement--that's a project. Restoring an entire house when you don't know anyone and your kids have just started new schools: that is not a project.

And yet it healed me, this house. During the renovation, memories tumbled out of my subconscious as randomly as my mother's old chemo wig once fell from a shelf years after she had died. Instead of stuffing them deeper into a cabinet, I let the flashbacks out. I studied them. I cried. I wrote about them in the blog. I let them go.

My house is lovely now, so perfect. It is old and modern. Small and sunny. It endured a treacherous flood, months of frigid weather, demolished walls and extreme excavation. It is stronger for the effort.

So am I.

Comments

[Michelle]

Hi,
I'd like to know what paint color you used for your living room, and who makes the paint?
~michelle

[adrienne]

Michelle,
Hi and thanks for reading TFUH! I used benjamin moore HC 35--Powel Buff and the trim is Dove White.

It's very lovely!
Adrienne

[donna]

Touching...never imagined restoring house would be cathartic. Taking the old and making it new does infer hope!

[Steve]

Hi,

We saw the colors of your dining room and love the combination. Can you tell me the two colors you used? Excellent job...

Thanks

[Lisa]

Wow! What a fantastic job you've done on your house! I too have a 1920's dutch colonial that looks very similar. I am considering a renovation/addition and don't know where to start. I would love to see your layout. Where did you fit a butler's pantry and a mud room?! Keep posting those pictures! Just the perfect inspiration!
Thanks!
Lisa

[Mads]

Just stumbled onto your blog...love it! Your house is a thing of beauty and I love to read what you have written about your process of finding that beauty.

[Cheryl]

What color paint did you use with the Costa Esmeralda?

[Jen]

Hi can you tell me what colors you used in your dining room? I am paiting mine and love how yours turned out!