Spring Changes

 

My neighbor took this photo the other day.  Spring has arrived and the blooms are welcoming a new season.

Hello dear old house lovers.  Is spring finding you well?  Here at my house another spring has arrived for this 1889 beauty.  The crabapple tree I planted in the front yard 13 years ago is growing strong and showing her wonderful blooms and fragrance.    The cherry trees in the boulevard begin to bloom too as well as the day lilies, peonies and lilac bushes begin to awaken from a long Minnesota winter.  Spring means change, rebirth but also the discovery of what has died over a long winter.  Spring brings the renewed hope for fresh weather, sunny days and a new season with long days filled with bright light, heavy thunderstorms, lazy afternoons on the porch and sweltering temps.  Spring of 2022 is also bringing something not entirely unexpected to me but a day that I have not been excited about.

Owning the house since 2005 so much has changed in my life.  I am older, less energetic on big projects and my professional work brings me to some amazing places all over the world but in turn that means less time at home and working on the project.  This project for the last 10 years has been mainly just myself completing projects.  One man restoring a large 1889 house himself.  A monumental task not only financially, but also emotionally and physically.  This house has been more than a house for me.  It is a fantasy, a piece of myself, a limb that is vital to my existence.  It is my dream, my family member and my vault of not only my history, but the history of my family and countless memories and antiques carefully collected and displayed to tell a thousand stories of different histories of humankind.  A home I always envisioned having and haunting after I died if someone dared to paint the wood I spent so much time restoring. A home that as my family aged and needed me to care for them that I would always have plenty of room to welcome them in.  A home I had envisioned many future memories in and as I grew older struggling to get up to my bedroom on the second floor and sitting in the 3rd floor smoking room watching blizzards hug the neighborhood in a thick fluffy blanket of snow and cold. Countless dreams that would be the story of my life.

Now with spring of 2022 I have to make some tough decisions.  My work brings me away from my home for extended periods of time and for the past years this has been manageable because I have had my family members living with me, but soon this too is about to change.  My family members are spreading their wings to find their own story and then it will just be me, one man to have this home for himself.  Not that I would mind living entirely in the house myself, I wouldn't be lonely, but with work forcing me away from extended times I cannot comfortably leave the house with no one at her helm making sure the heat is on, mail is collected, and to keep things going. So what do I do with this?

I have several options and none are that great:

Sell the house and finish up what I can, and turn the project over to the next generation.

Move out of the house and rent it so that I still own the house, but don't live it in.  This is scary because how well can I trust someone to love the house like I have. 

Find a roommate to live with me in the house and watch it while I am gone.  Again this is scary because with innumerable antiques this is a large trust factor for anyone else and also leaving them in a house without me is a risk I am not sure I am willing to take. 

Live in the house alone and leave it empty while I am away.  This might be the most scary.  What happens if a pipe burst and nobody is in the house for a week.  What happens if someone breaks in and it isn't discovered for some time?

No good options I fear and all of them leave my heart heavy.  I wish I could live in the fantasy of 130 years ago when I could close the house up and leave a live in maid to trust the house to for general care and when I return he/she would open it up again.  I have the maid's quarters but who has the resources for a live in maid these days?  I also question to myself is it selfish to have this big home and only have for one person.  It should be a home filled with a family.  Many people living within it having regular dinners in the dining room,  gathering around the tree in the large window for Christmas.  Big meals cooked in the kitchen and sitting on the porch playing cards and drinking late into the summer evenings.  

I follow the Ross at https://restoringross.com/ and from what I gather he has an apprentice and friend who lives at the house and helps with his projects.  I envy this because this is exactly what I could use.  How I would love someone who could keep up on the projects in the house and in exchange is someone I could TRUST and I could gladly let them live for free in the house.  When I was of a younger age I would have loved the chance to live in an old house filled with antiques for free in exchange for learning how to restore and love an old house.  Of course I was not a normal youth and finding someone with those qualities seems nearly impossible.  

So I have some time to consider what to do but none of my options seem to give me great happiness and peace.  2022 seems that it will be a transformative year, but not what I was hoping for.  Let the future come what will.

Until next time my old house lovers.