If you have children and own a house, I have no doubt these two words have crossed your mind several times: Money Pit. I need only write these three syllables down as my title on the top of a blank page and a novel can be produced with a list of what our house needs inside, what our house needs outside, and the number of renovation projects that have been started with a footnote at the bottom as to the number that have been completed: two. And, needless to say, the two rooms of the house that have been renovated to completion each belong to members of the family who contribute no income, who show no appreciation for our efforts, who can immediately sniff out a pristine area of the house for immediate destruction, and who don’t hesitate to ask for more.
Yes, most days I love this house and yes, by law, I’m required to care for these children but I shouldn’t secretly desire a trip to the mental hospital to lessen the number of things driving me crazy in close proximity.
Just like kids, renovation projects start small and then quickly become all-encompassing monsters that wipe your energy and clean out your bank account. It all started with one little project at our first house; we decided to upgrade our kitchen with a discount sink tap we found at a flea market. When we thought about it more, that new faucet was going to make its surroundings look dingy so we decided we might as well change the old laminate countertop from its faux butcher-block pattern to a speckled grey one, still laminate but there was only so much money to go around and this was BK—before kids. The kitchen walls no longer matched the countertop so they needed to be painted, and the curtains were next, and so on. Not long after that, we were given yards and yards of used luxury carpet that we thought would look great in our finished basement, and while we’re at it, we should upgrade the windows and drywall the ceiling...you see where this is going. In addition, just to make one more obvious point, the baby’s room was the first room to be fully finished and decorated in that house, too.
After selling our first house, we banished the illusions of home ownership while we rented a row house in a suburb of Toronto and welcomed a son to our family. We thought we were ahead of the game having already acquired all the necessities we would need for the second child—I now long for the days when diapers were the most expensive thing on our shopping list. As your kids grow, you send them to school, you enrol them in lessons, you sign them up for activities, and when they are at home you provide on-site entertainment in the form of movies, toys, video games, books, crafts, board games, and sports equipment. Do you want your child to go on the field trip? That’ll be $20. Do you want to watch the hockey game your kid is playing in? That’ll be $3. You don’t want your child’s potential to be squandered, do you? That’ll be $15 for half an hour of music lessons. Do you want one night off this month from cooking? That’ll be $35 for pizza, $70 if you dare go to a restaurant. I would mention the full cost of braces for two children but I may frighten the weak-hearted. Your refrigerator will look like a revolving door, your house will look like a cyclone hit it, and although they purport to be concerned with the environment, they have no regard for the electricity bill. Most of the on-going purchases needed to keep them occupied and fully-supplied, will still be in as-new condition when your kids outgrow them or become bored with them, if they didn’t break within the first 24 hours—at least diapers were well used before you threw them out.
A few years later, when it was time to move on or set up camp, we considered our rental house, built only eight years ago at the time, with its postage stamp-size rooms, flimsy windows and cardboard box walls, and the $210,000 asking price, and said no, thanks. It was at this time, with our memories of the blood, sweat, and tears of home renovation fading, we cheerfully bought another house; the thought process not unlike how we decided to have another kid...well, the first one wasn’t so bad, how much harder could it get?
Although my first impression of our potential home was simply noted on my checklist as scary, we went back for a second look and decided this house had good bones, unique features, a nice location, and, for the right price, was a bargain for the square footage. We wanted this house to raise our kids in, who were seven and three at the time, and we knew we could make a home here.
That was the moment when a black hole formed in our universe and began to suck us dry.
Next month, part 2.
