Recently I heard a story that gladdened my heart: A home decorating editor for a fancy women’s magazine, after years of advocating the joys of restoring an old house, began believing what she wrote.
The editor and her husband bought an old barn-or was it a gristmill?-in upstate New York and completely restored the thing. The project took three years, and when it was over, the couple was bankrupt and divorced, and she had a nervous breakdown.
Old houses are lovely places, some of the last available homes with character. But the stories about them have the sameness of a row of suburban tract houses. They go something like this:
– The Sting: The couple, usually young, attractive and of a slightly liberal bent (she is a sociology major, he works for Legal Aid) find an enchanting Victorian (Georgian on the East Coast) home in what is delicately called a transitional neighborhood.
The couple see that the house has problems. There are no walls in the second-floor rear bedroom, and a home will have to be found for the family of rats in the basement.
But the house has great “potential.” The couple buys it for practically nothing.
– The Horror Stories: This is the part everyone loves to read. “We hauled out 25 truckloads of trash before we could begin the restoration work . . .”
The stories of stripping, scraping, rewiring and refinishing are endless, for there are endless things to go wrong with an old house. Finally, after several exciting months, our couple triumphs.
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– The Happy Ending: This is celebrated in before and after pictures with the couple beaming like proud parents in the midst of their redecorated splendor. There is no doubt this story has a happy ending.
The story, alas, is a delightful bit of whimsy. No one ever lives happily ever after in an old house. That’s a fairy tale. Living in an old house is more like a soap opera.
Don’t get me wrong. I like my old house. I wouldn’t live in any other kind. But people ought to be warned before they go into restoration wide-eyed and innocent. These are the best years of your life. You may not want to spend them with a hammer and crowbar, knocking out plaster.
There is nothing romantic about it. Restoration is filthy, expensive, difficult work. It is a strain on your marriage, your temper and your bank account.
Here is a set of restoration tips you’ll never see anywhere else.
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1. Restoration is never finished.
When you’ve restored all the rooms, the roof will begin to leak. When you’ve repaired the roof, the basement will develop odd cracks. The porch will sag.
Old houses just don’t have antique woodwork and old-fashioned stained glass. They also have antique plumbing and old-fashioned wiring. An old house is an expensive hobby. You may want a cheaper pastime-a stable of race horses, maybe, or a yacht.
2. Know your handyman.
If it will make you feel better, check the Better Business Bureau to see if he’s reputable. But that’s not the big question. Instead, ask yourself: Do you feel you could spend the rest of your life with this man? Because the handyman is going to move in with you for six months to two years.
You’ll see him more often than your spouse.
Make sure your relationship is based on mutual trust and understanding. If the first thing he says is, “We’ll get rid of this old molding. Too much dusting. And lower those 10-foot ceilings-that’s wasted space,” he is not the man for you.
The relationship will be a lot like the early stages of love. You will spend long hours waiting for his call, hoping that today maybe he will come see you. Handymen are an independent breed, who work when they feel like it.
Note: There is a movement in restoration circles to do all the work yourself. This way lies madness. It’s much cheaper to have a professional do it right the first time. Ask yourself: Could an amateur do your job at the office?
3. Nothing in an old house is ever standard size.
Especially the windows. Those large, gracious windows that you so admired are at least a foot longer than any regular-size windows.
This means storm windows and curtains will have to be custom-made. These usually cost more than the house. Some homeowners partially solve this problem by not having any curtains. One of these houses is on our block. The lights are always on at night, revealing four neat, orderly rooms and no people. I think the inhabitants go from room to room by crawling on all fours.
4. Every project becomes complicated.
The company stopped making parts for your plumbing in 1927. Your wiring has been obsolete for at least 50 years. You can spend all Saturday in the hardware stores looking for one part.
5. House restoration can cause severe personality changes:
a. You become boring.
While your friends are analyzing foreign affairs or the latest movie, you discuss the merits of a new wood stripper, and where to buy wallboard for 79 cents a sheet cheaper.
Because no one else understands your problems so well, owners of old houses tend to seek the company of other old house owners, where they can discuss the fine points of restoration to their hearts’ content.
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b. You become strange.
When you enter a house, you no longer admire the stained glass, woodwork and antique light fixtures. What really awes you are flawless, uncracked ceilings. Showers, garbage disposals and other modern conveniences are endlessly fascinating.
You’d do anything to have them. Except move to a new house.