For Love of House and Home
On a Sunday morning a few weeks ago, I turned on the TV to catch up on the news with my coffee. The destruction and insanity and death was too much – I just couldn’t do it. So, I gave in to my weakness for watching videos of house restorations in the UK (watching other people’s happy endings) and watched an episode. (On Tubi Season2 Episode 14)
I enjoyed it so much – a wonderful record of the determination, love, and creativity it takes to do this work. I was suckered in, toasted some homemade bread and watched the second episode (On Tubi S03:E14 – Longhurst Lodge Revisit). How fortunate these two people are to have found each other; to take on this ruin, to see past the ugliness and to imagine only possibilities. They love solving problems, they love creating, they love history of place and of building. Most fortunately, they appear to love hard work. It reminded me to find a bit of joy again, even when it seems like my house might be actively trying to drive me insane.
My wee house is no 19th century gatehouse, but it is over 120 years old. Buying the crooked yellow house was somewhat of an act of desperation, with little choice available while still in the throes of the pandemic. Jumped in with both feet, full of optimism and thankful for the discounts while working at a home building store.
I didn’t realize until later, but the house had been empty for three years – it was cold and sad and neglected and covered in layers of grime and cobwebs and mouse poop. The last time it had undergone any work was likely the mid nineteen-seventies.
During my first year, nearly every week exposed a new problem, resulting in both budget and timeline being tossed aside. I’ve watched the “Money Pit” clip with Tom Hanks laughing hysterically waaay too many times.
I slept on the floor for 6 months while ripping things apart and only graduated to a bed when I contracted Covid. Too sick to do much else, I sat on a pail in the backyard and refinished an old iron twin bed. I put my mattress on that, made the bed like a grown-up and felt very accomplished. I was finding some joy in getting somewhere, and beginning to love my house sometimes. There were still months to come filled with tears of frustration, yelling into the void and pounding my fists on unforgiving walls. They didn’t show that in the Fairytale Cottage video.
My house was probably built by people who had no choice but to use the scavenged building materials I kept finding: studs with paint on them, floor boards with mud on the underside, square nails sticking out of everything. Repairs were done with scrap, floors underlaid with newspaper, stove holes wallpapered over, and sawdust insulation (this WAS a lumber town, after all). There was still coal soot on some walls upstairs (I found coal in a window well). One doorway seemed very short, until I realized the floor had been levelled or corrected so many times, they lost four to eight inches in ceiling height. I started wondering if this was even intended to be a house when it was built.
In an effort to find some love for a house that maybe hadn’t seen a lot of it, I spent a few hours at the Arnprior & McNab/Braeside Archives. If I could find some history to grab onto, that might be something. We looked at fire insurance plans for the town over the years with details of the size and finish, to see if anything changed (it didn’t, although the address has changed 3 times). Went through tax rolls looking for owners’ names, then following up with census records of families who lived here. Between about 1900 and 1968 it looks like the little yellow house changed hands nearly 20 times, and that might explain a bit – not many planned on staying long, or could afford to do much. I began to feel more a part of this home’s history, and it was up to me to give it some love. I even found out that the town of Arnprior was originally divided by “sections” according to original landowner names. I live in what was once known as the Harrington Section, named for my great-great grandmother’s brother, Eric Harrington. Neato.
I have all this rolling around in my head, and it fuels the constant fight between loving and hating my house. The pride I feel in the hard work I’ve done and the skills it took me to get here is at conflict with the anger I feel over having so little control over how things work out (or how they so often don’t). I don’t know whether to stick it out or grab my tent and run for the hills. (“There’s a thin line between love and hate”– thanks Chrissie).
Watching the videos of these people renovating and SMILING, seeing the special and meaningful things they do for each corner of their home has me leaning towards staying put; remembering why I was doing this. I didn’t even throw things at the TV. The work you pour into your home and the choices you make are acts of love, and sometimes of blind faith that things will work out – because they have to. Because this is MY home, and when I come in the front door, I really am glad to be home.
Ok ok Mary – where were you going with this? Sounds like complaining.
I believe there’s a connection between this struggle and the love of home, to the drawings I do of places – of houses and homes. A client who commissioned a house portrait a while ago told me that when she looked at the drawing, she felt like I must have loved her house. I’d heard that once before. I do feel as though I am creating a relationship with my subject, whatever it is, while I draw – it is a kind of intimate process. The feeling extends to houses I draw; it’s more than lines and colour on paper, it’s a love of houses and places, of drawing and creating, of recreating a small part of that for someone else.
Somehow connecting all of this together has brought me back to a better place. Nota bene: I have been told I am “much nicer” when I’ve been drawing. Go figure. I did manage to make a little house portrait for myself while suffering from a terrible cold (of course) and I enjoyed that instead of thinking about my cold walls.
Someday I’d like to put together the story of improvements I’ve made to my crooked yellow house (even if I get reno PTSD) but there’s ALWAYS something else to do. Last week it was ripping out ceiling tiles, part of an ongoing battle against destructive invading squirrels. Soon it will be time to tear down the breezeway, and get more work done on the bathroom. For now I will watch videos like that one above, where things work out for people, for inspiration, and for a little joy. And I’ll keep working on drawings of homes – drawings that remind me that other crazy people love their homes as much as I (sometimes) love mine.
