We bought the house for the view.
Our realtor took us to three houses. The first looked better in the photos — the owner spent more on a photographer than on the shoddy renovations — and the second had a postage stamp for a front lawn that butted up to a busy roadway.
When we pulled into the crunchy gravel driveway of the third house, a symmetrical brick ranch overshadowed by two mighty oaks, we knew it was the one. The white-columned front porch overlooked a pasture filled with happily grazing cows. A few calves chased each other through the rolling hills, which sat at the foot of a green mountain.
We hadn’t even gone inside when I told my husband, “I think this is the one.” And it was. We put an offer in later that day. It was accepted just a few hours after.
The first two months of homeownership were full of drywall dust, one-coat paint, and Scrub Daddy sponges. We learned to install lighting fixtures, patch holes in the walls, and tear down chair railings. By the time we moved in a few months later, the interior of the house was unrecognizable — the dreadful brown dining room had been painted a soothing sage green, the filthy carpet in the bedrooms had been replaced with a soft, stain-resistant carpeting, and the toilets, which had been colorful, mid-century relics, had been replaced with modern, efficient vessels.
The weekend after we cleared out our first apartment and filled our new home, we noticed some activity at the house next door. Despite owning the house for three months by that point, we still hadn’t seen the neighbors, but that day, furniture filled the side yard, and a few extra cars were parked in the driveway.
Later in the day, a young man, probably around my age, carried some of the furniture down the cement steps in the backyard and into the basement. We waved, and he replied with a friendly nod — Later, we learned he was our neighbor’s grandson. It wasn’t until the next day that we talked to the homeowner herself — a petite, butterfly of a woman. She wore a purple lounge outfit, complete with a housecoat and bonnet. As she shuffled her way down the wheelchair ramp from the back door, I waved.
“Hello!” She called across the yard in a shaky, sweet voice. “How you doin’?”
I took her question as an invitation and crossed the grassy depression between our houses. Up close, she looked even older than she had at a distance. Her cappuccino-colored skin crinkled around her eyes like linen, which strained to see through drooping lids and thick, bifocaled lenses.
“You know that used to be my mutha’s house,” she said matter-of-factly, pointing to my brick ranch next door.
“I didn’t know that,” I replied. “We bought it from a younger couple.”
“Oh yes,” she said. “They didn’t take much care of it now, did they?” She shook her head and eyed the pile of garbage the previous owners had left in the backyard — mostly scrap metal with a foam mattress topper folded in.
“We’re trying to make it a home again,” I replied, smiling.
“Oh yeah.” She nodded. “I seen you over there workin’ on it. I told my daughter — She’s movin' in with me today — you all are goin’ make it look real nice.”
I shared with her a little bit about the work we’d put into the house, and she seemed pleased we were taking care of it. Her sister had built the house for their parents in 1978. Back then, she said, every room had wallpaper.
Now, none of the rooms have wallpaper. It had long been torn down or painted over by the time my husband and I purchased the house in December 2021. Most of the changes we’d made so far had been out of necessity — replacing carpets that had been soiled by pets and 40 years of use, repairing and painting walls that had been punched and kicked and sloppily covered to hide the abuse. While the avocado green American Standard toilet in the primary bathroom was adorable (and coordinated with the sink and shower), I needed a taller toilet that wouldn’t drain the well with a single flush.
So I Shop-Vaced the water out of the green toilet, unbolted it from the floor, and carried it out to the carport where it waited for a few weeks with the other construction debris. Now, I wonder how my neighbor felt seeing that vintage porcelain throne sitting on the carport. The flooring company carrying the rolls of old shag carpet out to their truck. The new family — my family — bringing in buckets of paint and boxes of tools and sheets of drywall.
I tried to commission a house portrait of my dad’s childhood home for Christmas last year, but I couldn’t find a good photo of the house — my Nana and Papa’s house. All the photos I had were of the side or obscured by Nana’s out-of-control flower garden, which wrapped around the entire property line except for a small gap in the front to allow for the driveway. In a last-ditch effort, I searched for the house on Google Earth.
The results horrified me.
While the house was still standing, it was unrecognizable. I knew the people who bought it from my grandparents planned to make some changes, but they tore it to pieces.
As a child, I’d sit at the kitchen table next to the bay window with Nana and help her peel potatoes or chop vegetables for Sunday dinner. It was made up of one big window and two smaller awning windows that popped open from the bottom and let in a nice breeze — especially when sweat gathered on our brows and the backs of our necks from using the stove in the inescapable Lowcountry humidity.
The big bay window, along with the chimney that sat to the left of it, had been scraped off to flatten the facade. The red bricks were now a sad beige, and the eaves were re-faced with some kind of vinyl to give the house — originally designed as a mid-century masterpiece — a Craftsman appearance.
Perhaps the greatest sin was the landscaping. In my memory, a fence of voluminous azaleas and hydrangeas hid the house from the street. The new owners scalped the entire yard and painted it with patchy grass. All those years of planting, watering, and tending ripped away like a common weed.
As I hefted that avocado green toilet over the side of the dumpster at the landfill, I wondered where those wood-seated toilets from Nana and Papa’s house ended up. Did the new owners keep the jacuzzi tub in the hall bathroom? The Corian countertops in the kitchen? Nana had always been so proud of those. What about the soda can crusher or the koi pond in the backyard?
I knew all of it had been torn out, updated, or replaced. And while Nana and Papa’s house is probably very loved by its new family, I can’t help but feel a sense of ownership. My grandparents spent more than 30 years in that house. Papa had built half of it with his own two hands, which explained the fireplace in the dining room and the impractical yet incredibly charming L-shaped living room.
I’m sure my neighbor feels the same way about my house. I’m the family that bought the house. The family that made changes. The family that tore out the things her mom chose and the things her dad built.
But I hope that two months of us coming to the house every night after work showed her how much we value it and want to make it a home again.
Nana and Papa’s house is special to me because it was their house. Not because of the pink granny tile in Nana’s bathroom or the formidable cast iron wood stove in Papa’s den or the jelly bean jar on top of the kitchen fridge. Because of them.
It’s hard to let go of places associated with loved ones — especially when those loved ones are no longer with you. Just because Nana and Papa’s house doesn’t exist anymore — not in the way I remember it, at least — doesn’t mean it’s gone for good. It lives in my memories, just as the wallpaper, the green toilet, and the shag carpet lives forever in my neighbor’s.
Without a family — without love — a home is just a house. I’m thankful so much love and so many memories filled Nana and Papa’s home for so many years. Though I’ve only been living in my house for a little over a year, it already feels like home. I don’t know much about the families who lived here before, but the more I learn from my neighbor, the more confident I am it was filled with love for many, many years and will be for many, many more.
Comments