2003-05-19 - 11:14 a.m.

Raised Cheesebox

I read a lot about other people�s houses � there was even a Friday five about homes � and then last week the insurance people called to talk about mine. (They were trying to find out if we�d ever improved it, but we haven�t. Do you think they�ll reduce our payments? Ha!) So I guess it�s time to talk about the �cheesebox.� It may be small, it may be cheap � or even tacky � but it belongs to us, free and clear.

Thirty-three years ago we were still living in a third floor walkup when I became pregnant with our second child. Although I had managed fairly well on the third floor with one baby, I knew I couldn�t do it with two. (The older one was not yet a year old.) Larger apartments were expensive, at least for our budget, and so we began looking at houses.

We looked at this little house that was being sold as a �raised ranch.� Well, it was raised; the living quarters are set on top of the garage and basement. That meant the storage space was just as large as the house. But the only way it resembled a ranch was that it was all on one level. As I explained to the insurance woman, it is just a box. One box at ground level, a quarter of which is the garage. Another box on top, which is the living quarters. I doubt that it�s more than a thousand square feet.

Nevertheless, it was brand new and within our means. We were fortunate that we had saved enough for a decent down payment just before the mortgage rates started ascending. It certainly had lots of potential, and I thought we would either improve it, or else we would eventually sell it and move to a better place. Meanwhile, I could walk to the elementary school or a supermarket or to the synagogue. The end of a dead-end street is a good place for kids to play � when they got big enough to play outdoors.

It has never truly been my house. Having grown up with parents who were always trying to improve their homes, I saw lots of potential in this house. Husband, not having the same kind of childhood, saw it only as a potential for storage. And it was his job to fill it up!

As I mentioned, I was pregnant at the time and I still had an infant. In the time between taking possession of the property and actually moving in, I couldn�t get to the house by myself. Husband kept saying, �you don�t have to go, I�ll take care of everything.� Ah, the na�ve little wife. He transported many small items to the house, and I carefully explained in which room they belonged.

Two days before moving day, I discovered that (1) Husband had piled all the things he had brought into what I had planned to make the new baby�s room, and (2) he had filled at least half the basement with boxes of something about which I knew nothing. I think the only things that ever went into that basement with my approval were the washer and dryer (which I blessed regularly).

I guess it was just as well that the two girls were sleeping in the same room, because Son came along and needed the third bedroom. To his annoyance, Husband had to give up some of his storage space. Much of that stuff simply moved into our bedroom.

At the front of the house are the two largest rooms, the living room and the kitchen. They look bigger than they are because there is only a partial wall between the two. Basically, I like this arrangement. But these days the living room is just another storage area � thank God I don�t entertain.

I still love having the kitchen at the front. From one kitchen window I can see whatever is going on in the street, or from the other I have a view of trees and grasses. Half of the room is kitchen, with built-in cabinets and counters, and I never minded that it wasn�t the �triangle� suggested by the ladies magazines. (Supposedly, your kitchen is most efficient if the stove, sink, and refrigerator are the three points of a triangle. I�m office efficient, not kitchen efficient.)

The other half of the room is supposed to be the dining area, with a hanging light over the table. (Son and Husband replaced the original light with a fan and lights that I like a lot better. Son is very good that way.) I put in a small credenza to divide the two functions. Storing dishes in the credenza was supposed to make it easy for the children to help set the table�in my dreams.

Over the years the dining area has absorbed the freezer as well as a couple of dressers from my mother�s house, so the original area demarcations are not so clear as they were meant to be. I often use the credenza or the table for workspace because they�re lower than the counters � or sometimes I set things in the sinks (about eight inches lower). When you�re vertically challenged, you learn to cope. Nevertheless, I have few complaints about my kitchen. (I could say a few things about the people I share it with�)

At the back of the house are two bedrooms, neither of which is especially large. The only thing that makes one of them a �master� is that it has the largest closet. One other small bedroom is across from the bathroom, and that�s all the living space we have. I thought it would all work very well for a couple with two children. Maybe it would have been; �what if� in the past is fiction.

My thoughts about insulating the basement are lost in the walls that I can�t see behind the boxes of things stored there either by Husband or U.D. (And she�s definitely her father�s daughter in that respect.) There�s a drain opening down there, where we could have set up an extra bathroom, but it was covered with cartons almost immediately, and I don�t know if I could even find it now. All winter long I can�t do laundry without my coat and hat. Now I�m waiting for it to warm enough to turn on the dehumidifier, because we live in a damp area. (Not to mention that I think there�s residual moisture left from the leaking water heater last Thanksgiving.)

When all of the kids moved out, I began sleeping in what had been the girls� room and made Son�s room my �office.� By that time Husband had retired and was doing his �sleep-all-day-up-all-night� thing, and I was still getting up at 5:30 a.m., so it made sense not to try to sleep in the same room. At the same time, I enjoyed being able to spread things out a little. I even set the ironing room up in a corner of the office.

Then U.D. moved back home one more time. Every time she comes back she brings things, and every time she moves out she leaves some of it behind; so we were already storing all kinds of things for her. This time I gave up my office � my office! � and brought a desk and my computer into my bedroom, the only room where no one ever smokes.

Into the small room went her double bed, her dresser, her desk and an armchair, plus assorted other paraphernalia. The overflow went into the �living room.� The dressers in the kitchen never got into my bedroom. My bookcases have broken down under the strain of all those books � two rows on each shelf � but I can�t even get there to pick things up. And U.D.�s cat has been systematically destroying the rug and furniture.

My concept of a home is not decoration as much as function. The main purpose of a house is to keep the weather off my stuff. But there�s no function here; I just move around in the clutter, trying to find a place to do whatever I�m doing.

For a person who doesn�t use cigarettes, I�ve seen an awful lot of plans go up in smoke.

Current Reading:
Good Diary Today:
From the Old Folks' Radio:

previous - next

thanksalot - 2012-03-15
update 12-2011 - 2011-12-04
Did You Know? - 2011-02-08
Not Really an Update - 2011-01-14
The Lonely Crowd - 2010-11-15