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Wednesday, March 07, 2007

Home Is Where The Heart Is

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posted by Bob at Wednesday, March 07, 2007

2 Comments:

Blogger Bob said...

Her heart is where her home is
How does a house become a home? Is it just a matter of time or a matter of the heart?
By Connie Nelson, Home + Garden Editor
Last update: March 06, 2007 – 10:16 AM

I was born and grew up in the same house. Played Barbies in the same rec room that later hosted spin-the-bottle at slumber parties (girls only) and, much later, boy-girl parties where we ate Doritos, drank root beer and played air guitar to Creedence Clearwater Revival. Back then, I didn't give our cookie-cutter suburban rambler much thought. It was just home.
When I left I moved every year for at least a dozen years. From dorm to apartment to duplex to rental house. From city to city. Never acquiring anything bigger than my breadbox of a Honda Civic could hold. I didn't want stuff to slow me down.

When I was living in a duplex near Lake of the Isles (my toniest address to date), I made an impulse buy that changed my life: I bought a dining room table from a friend of a friend. It was sturdy, affordable -- and my first truly non-mobile purchase. Then my Gramma Nana's massive bureau migrated to my bedroom. A queen-sized bed sealed my fate.

Shortly after that, I bought a house. I've been there ever since.

My city bungalow has been my home for almost 17 years. But lately I've been giving it a lot of thought. I'm trying to decide if it's love or inertia that holds me.

It was love at first sight that led me to make an offer before the house was officially on the market, to sign here, initial there on the mortgage agreement. With its quarter-sawn oak trim, built-in bookshelves and kitchen nook, the modest 1½-story was everything this rambler-raised girl ever wanted in a house. It even had an upstairs.

Of course, we spent years remodeling -- overhauling the kitchen, the master bedroom, the basement. We painted every room (at least twice). Put wallpaper up. Took it down. Eventually, our zeal to improve played itself out. The house started to seem smaller, the neighbors closer, the street busier.

We talked about moving. (I always lower my voice. As if my house could hear me and would be hurt. Or, worse, would retaliate with ice dams and water in the basement.) We looked, but were never smitten. Never saw the house we had to have.

Sometimes I envy friends who can rattle off a list of the dozen or so homes they've owned as if they were exotic travel destinations. But I realize I've been there, done that.

That's why I'm here, in a house I know as well as it knows me. I know how to keep ice dams from forming over the front porch, that the basement never leaks and that on winter afternoons the sun slants in through the windows and turns a swath of wood floor into a blaze of gold.

I've come to accept its clumsy floor plan, be comforted by its creaks, welcomed by its warmth. It's my home. And although I'm no longer in the first blush, it's still love.


Connie Nelson • 612-673-7087

9:16 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

gbhhwoxdYou're lucky you don't live in St Paul. After spending a life and raising a family in a home and paying taxes all along the way, the city will tear it down for your retirement if you fall a little behind on the repairs and have a family member or two that the cty doesn't like.

5:04 PM  

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