There are many advantages to living in a home that is brand new and has never been lived in by anyone else.  In our second city on the Winter Prairies we had such a home and I enjoyed the bathtub in particular, knowing that no one else had ever read a book there, in my tub.  I loved the windows and doors that did not stick, and I loved the clean white ceilings, free from water stains.  But there are disadvantages to new houses as well.  That house was endlessly beige, inoffensive and completely devoid of personality.  Something about beige is paralysing to me; I never painted it, and I love painting.  In fact I never even got around to hanging up any paintings or anything.  I was frozen by the beige.  We lived very lightly in that home, which turned out well for us because when it was time to move, the house sold quickly.  Beige sells.

The house we live in now is not new.  It is about thirty years old, a bit younger than I am but the right age to have several similar touches that I remember from the house I grew up in.  A sunshine ceiling in the kitchen, for example, and brass door handles and light fixtures.

There are significant disadvantages to our choice of living in this older home.  The nicotine stains on the ceiling, I have since painted over, were repellant.  The carpets, which I plan to replace one day, are unpleasant.  The pale blue walls, which I am still working on, are awful.  The kitchen, upon arrival, was filled with nicotine-stained oak and cigarette burned arborite.  We have gutted the entire thing and had it redone.  The roof needed replacing, which cost a small fortune.  The hot water tank rusted through and required replacement as well.  There is aesthetic work to be done, and there are practical considerations.

The time has come that the furnace is on its way out.  In the winter months when it starts to get cooler, the furnace awakens very moodily-creakily and then begins to roar.  Roar is not an exaggeration.  It sounds as though we have a dinosaur living in our garage.  It works, but it's not happy about it.  We have decided to replace the furnace with a heat pump system, allowing for central air conditioning at the same time.  (It should arrive just as summer is ending because we are not so clever with the timing.)  Along with the new heating/cooling system, it has come time to replace the leaky windows that leave the house cold in the winter and steaming in the summer.  Do you know what it costs to replace the windows in a house?

When I add up all these expenses, I wonder why we chose to buy a house, particularly an old house, instead of buying something new or even renting a cute apartment.

But then I go outside in the yard, the gigantic yard that is 5 times the size of yards on new lots, and I remember what I was thinking.  Privacy, quiet, solitude, peace.  Distance from our neighbours, a green and quiet space to be alone in.


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