This Old House

I stood in the doorway to my less-than-beautiful new home, surveying the work ahead of me. It was huge, it was dirt-cheap, it was falling down around me, and it was absolutely perfect for what i had in mind. With a feeling of deep satisfaction and eager anticipation, I stepped across the threshold.

I'd never seen the upstairs. The staircase had collapsed in the center a few decades ago, and the upstairs had fallen into disuse. The realtor said that there were old belongings up there that i would have to sort through and, most likely, throw out. No matter. I walked through the applianceless kitchen, feeling that something beyond the obvious was missing. I paused, and then it came to me: the humming of the refrigerator was absent. Naturally it would be, i told myself, seeing as how there was no fridge present to make the hum in the first place. It's just funny the things you don't realize you look for until they're not there. Through a set of double doors to the north stood the formal dining room. The table was still there, a long, grand, stately affair with nine chairs on either side, and one at each end. Though nothing was left on the table itself, i could half-see a moldering wedding feast, complete with a moldering Miss Havisham lamenting over it.

I continued through the house, noting the plaster crumbling from the walls in this room, the missing baseboards in that room, the water-stained ceilings throughout, the peeling wallpaper; the decay and detritus everywhere i looked. I went back outside and pulled the ladder out of my old beat up pickup truck. I had promised not to do exactly what i was on my way to do: find my way up to the upstairs. My pledge was to completely gut the house, but i couldn't deny the house its last chance to tell its story before i gave it a much-needed makeover. Makeover. No, that was too cosmetic a word. This would be more like a complete reconstructive surgery. It would be unrecognizable. It would be a death and a resurrection, though admittedly, it already had both legs in the grave. It just hadn't leaned far enough forward yet.

I propped the ladder against the landing and braced it at the bottom with chunks of the ceiling that'd fallen down. Eagerly i climbed up, carefully pulling myself up on the landing. It held me up, though i could hear the floor protest and the dust my weight caused to flake off the ceiling below me. Gingerly, i walked up the next flight of stairs, my foot only going through one of them. There was a hallway with several rooms to either side, and a pull-down set of stairs at the end leading up into an attic. I opened the doors as i came across them. There were five bedrooms altogether, a water closet, a linen closet, and a small room that gave access to the upper part of the chimney, presumably for the sweep.

The first bedroom was nothing but a large hole, the contents of the room splintered and broken in the room below. I'd already seen it during my previous walk-throughs, but from another angle. The second and third bedrooms were intact, but obviously unused guest rooms. I was starting to feel a little disappointed at the lack of payout for the risks i'd taken just to traverse these rooms. The fourth room was a nursery. The walls were painted a once-bright blue, with fluffy white-turned-dingy gray clouds all around. The paint was streaked and running, giving the illusion of a sunny day turned to storms. The nursery contained all the usual trappings of an infant's room: a crib with an animal mobile, a little dresser, a rocking chair and a small chest. The chest contained various stuffed animals. Odd, the realtor hadn't mentioned any children. Just the old man who'd died peacefully at the breakfast table, reading his Sunday paper and sipping his Sunday coffee. The fifth room had to be his.

The fifth room was his. It was the smallest of the bedrooms, and the tidiest. The twin bed was made, though the sheets were stained from a leak in the celing. The dresser had a few ordinary photographs of various family members, and very little else. All in all, the room was extremely utilitarian: A bed for sleeping, a nightstand for holding medications, a dresser for holding clothes, and a closet for storage. Very disappointing in its lack of personality or secrets. I moved on to the attic.

. . .which took five minutes out of my day. I popped my head up to a completely empty attic. I didn't bother ascending all the way before making my descent. The house had no story to tell, so it was time to lay it to rest before i breathed new life into it. "I'm already up here, i might as well start here," i said to myself, pulling a spray bottle out of my knapsack. I stood in the center of the room with my eyes closed for a moment, then i raised my arm and began unhurriedly to spray. In my mind, i saw the dust, dirt and details begin to drip slowly down the wall. I sprayed more liberally and opened my eyes. Everywhere i sprayed, detail ran in rivulets down the wall and collected on the floor. A clean blank canvas was the only thing left behind. Eager to get to work on that canvas, i began to spray away the old existence of the house, mentally composing its new face as i went along.