Things my house has taught me, II
1. When you are a homeowner, an empty bottle of malt liquor on your treelawn brings out something fearsome in you. Something that could never come out of you back when you were a (pff) renter. It makes you want to charge down the street after the culprit like a kwyjibo on the loose.
2. For the love of God, don't paint over wallpaper!
3. Like it or not, you will start getting to know the former owners of your house just about as intimately as you know your own family members. You know how there are some family members who you wish you weren't related to? Mmm hmm.
2. For the love of God, don't paint over wallpaper!
3. Like it or not, you will start getting to know the former owners of your house just about as intimately as you know your own family members. You know how there are some family members who you wish you weren't related to? Mmm hmm.
posted by Christine Borne at 9:09 AM
3 Comments:
Did you meet the previous owners? I did, once, and, much as I try, I can't accept that that person and the person who lived in the house and filled out the disclosure form were one and the same.
How did they manage to nurse along all the appliances such that they failed so shortly after they left?
Further, what made them think that spikey plaster on a ceiling that already had plaster crown moulding would be a good idea? And then what made them paint over it with high-gloss paint? There's no way to resurface it now that I can tell. Ugh.
On the other hand, we did meet a couple of previous owners. One was a professor here at CSU who seemed totally uninterested in the house, but the owner before him was warm, interesting and full of stories about the elderly lady she'd bought it from, who built it in '39 and lived there quite a while. In 70 years and five owners, only one owner who'd lived here two years wasn't a teacher or university librarian! (And none of them painted over anything with high-gloss paint.)
I have so much high-gloss paint in the house! The worst part was that I started painting over it not realizing it was glossy. "Hmm, why isn't this paint going on right?" I am going through a lot of primer.
I can begrudgingly forgive them their love of shiny things, though, because they waterproofed the basement. With the amount of rain we've had this year, I hate to think what the basement would look like otherwise.
Post a Comment
<< Home