Most people have seen the movie "The Money Pit". It stars Tom Hanks and Shelley Long who buy a huge house in the country. It is their "dream" home. Once they purchase the home, they begin to find little things (like the front door falling off) that are wrong with the house. As the movie unfolds, Hanks and Long have to deal with rebuilding or replacing almost everything in their dream house. It is very funny because we can all relate to the exaggerated problems.
Talking to Grasshopper No.4 recently, he described little things that urk him about his present home. It seems there are things that constantly need repair or upgrade. He is experiencing the "tarnished dream". Every homeowner goes through it.
Our family bought the big old house on 6th street in the early 1970's. It was a dream. It was priced at a huge discount because it needed work. But hey, the price was right. It had a huge yard and it was in the right location on the north side of Sheboygan. Your Mom and I envisioned all the things we could do to make it better. And we did some things. We put in a long, long concrete driveway. They we added a large two car garage. Immediately after we bought the house we remodeled the kitchen. As so it went, we kept improving the house as our budget allowed.
But like the "money pit", there were always things that were wrong with the 6th street home. The floor in the kitchen sank towards the middle of the house. If you dropped a marble in the kitchen it raced to the inside wall. The back TV room was always cold so we had to use a floor heater. The small bathroom next to the front entry way (you had to go down 2 steps) had water pipes on the outside wall and they froze when weather got cold. I would use a hair dryer to unfreeze them. We were lucky because the pipes never burst. The mold from the wall paper in Grasshopper No.4's bedroom almost did him in with a respiratory problem. The shower in the master bathroom always leaked into the downstairs back hallway. We needed to put a glass front on our fireplace to keep the bats out. And so it went.
But it was our home. It was ours. Every house has it quirks. That is what makes it unique. If you think it is ever going to be perfect, you need counseling.
The lesson Grasshopppers in that every home has defects. It is tarnished. But owning a home also allows you to dream of things that might be. So put your feet up, light the God damn Christmas tree and watch the Green Bay Packers lose to the Jacksonville Jaguars. Enjoy your investment. Don't forget to hug the person closest to you!
Love,
Dad