How The House Found Me…

As you can guess, my house is one of my greatest passions. When we moved into this place 15 years ago, I was a young woman, in a new relationship, who had never lived outside my parents home.  I had never run my own household, done my own grocery shopping, cleaned my own place, painted or decorated my own space.  And there I was, thrust into the biggest house project known to man…or, at least, to my immediate family and friends.

My husband, then new boyfriend, and I were looking for a place to live in the town we both worked in, and the town I had grown up in.  Small town is an understatement.  Population: 1300, There wasn’t even a stoplight or a gas station.  Rental properties were almost unheard of, and we were in no position to buy…if anything was even for sale.  The quaint town was famous for its picturesque common and wooded streets, notorious for its small town politics and known for it’s beautiful, sprawling old homes with high property values.

We had a line on a house near the common in a “residential” area that was rumored to be for rent.  After many conversations with the Realtor, it seemed the owner wasn’t ready to resort to renting, so we were back to square one.  We were disappointed, but determined.

One day, as I was driving to my grandmother’s house, I passed a vacant house that was tucked way off the street, shrouded in trees.  I realized I had always known it was there, somewhere in the back of my mind, but it was so inconspicuous I never really noticed it.  Something stirred in my memory and I remembered I had been to that house, years before, with my grandmother.  When I arrived at my grandmother’s house I mentioned the “old Fisher place” to her, and she refreshed my long, lost memories.

When I was about 5 or 6 years old, my grandmother used to “sit” with the woman who lived in the now vacant house.  Mrs. Fisher was elderly, in her 90’s, and bedridden.  My grandmother would spend nights with her and on several of these overnight shifts, I would accompany her.  I started to remember the frail, thin woman who laid in a small antique bed.  I remembered a house filled with books and plants, and a small, mean, old dog named Dozer.  My grandmother informed me that my grandfather still looked after the place, that it was; indeed, vacant, and that Mrs. Fisher’s daughter would probably not rent it to us.  She gave me the daughter’s name and number, and wished me luck.

Excited, I called Mrs. Fisher’s daughter immediately.  She was pleasant, well educated and somewhat eccentric.  She lived by the ocean and very rarely traveled to “the country”.  Coincidentally, she was planning a trip out that coming weekend to pick up a desk her father had made for her years previous.  We made plans to meet at the house.

I couldn’t wait to see inside, so I asked my grandfather to bring me up, and show me around.  My boyfriend, Kevin, and I followed him up the long, bumpy driveway and parked under massive hemlock trees.  My first impression of the yard was of an overgrown mess.  Lilacs, and forsythia’s gloriously in bloom, but tangled into one another, strangling the walkway.  Pine needles and pinecones littered the driveway, stuck to my shoes.  A dilapidated garage with one door gaping open, was surrounded by junk metal and overgrown grass.

The house had peeling paint and dirty windows, but the outside could not prepare me for the interior.  The first thing that struck me was the smell.  Old lady, mixed with mothballs and dog.  A stale, musty odor, mixed with propane from the ancient gas range.  And an underlying scent of wet…wet, dirt!?  As we walked through the house, it was like traveling through time capsule.  Vacant for about 15 years, everything was as it was the day Mrs. Fisher passed away.  Just much, much dirtier.  Pathways through rooms cluttered with books, magazines, dead houseplants, old furniture, family photo’s, outdated electronics, clothes, bedding, food.

Oh My God! What was I thinking??  Ever the optomist, and desperate to have a place to call our own, I was thinking a little bit of cleaning, (ok, a lot of cleaning) some elbow grease and determination, and it could be wonderful!

When Mrs. Fisher’s daughter came out that weekend we met with her and worked out the details.  I took a week off from work, and dove head first into a project that has consumed my weekends, tried my patience, sanity and relationship, and left me with callused hands and many exhausted nights.

Funny how life seems to travel full circle.  A place I visited as a child, with a grandmother whom I adored, would become a home I love, with the man whom I adore, and a passion we both share.