In my relatively short {going on 9 years now} homeowner’s life, I’ve lived in 2 homes. Two completely different homes. Our first home was small, cozy, old, and required a lot of work. Our second home, the one we currently live in, is large, open, new, and pretty much maintenance-free. Still, I find that every home has little quirks to it. You know, little ticks that make it different and/or difficult to work with. And just because a house is new doesn’t mean it’s void of these traits. Take my home, for example.
1. Shaky chandy. I love the capiz chandelier we installed over our open dining area. It’s shiny, textural, moody when lit, and even a tad feminine. It’s also noisy at times. You see, the chandelier is hung from the ceiling right below my son’s bedroom. If things get rowdy up there {i.e. jumping on the bed, kids’ gymnastics, wrestling with brother, etc}, the movement causes the chandy to shake. When all those rectangular capiz shells get to rattling all at once, the light morphs into a sort of wind chime. It’s not overly loud but definitely noticeable. It always reminds me of the opening scene in Mary Poppins {one of my all-time favorite movies!} where Admiral Boom fires the cannon causing pictures frames and vases to clatter. In case you don’t know what I’m talking about, see the clip here. Our laundry room is on the second floor of our home also, and I use a front-loading washer that spins at high speeds. When it’s on its spin cycle, this sends our dining chandelier into a rattling frenzy too. Luckily, the washer only spins for about a minute, so it’s not awful. In fact, I’ve come to like our chandy when it shakes. It’s a good way to tell if my boys aren’t in bed at night sleeping soundly like they’re supposed to be. It’s a signal that my load of laundry in the washer is just about ready to be transferred to the dryer {I find those beeping and buzzing end wash cycle options annoying and always mute them}. And it gets me reminiscing about my favorite movie as kid. Now if only I could snap my kids into shape like Mary Poppins does Jane and Michael…
2. Y marks the spot. Obviously a builder {not a designer} chose the flooring finishes in our spec home. And while I don’t particularly like any of them, what disturbs me the most is the way the builder joined them all. There’s a landing strip of hardwood that runs the length of our entry hallway back to the main living area. There, it dead-ends into a point where it’s met by carpet on one side and vinyl on the other. Have you ever seen anything more absurd?! Replacing the flooring on the first floor has been on our to-do list since day one, but because all of the flooring was in good shape we put this costly project way down on the bottom of the list and just lived with it. As you can see, this area has become somewhat of a play area. The harder floors {wood and vinyl} are where my kids end up when they put together floor puzzles, build with wooden blocks, and drive their cars. The softer floor {carpet} is where the kids sit to play with Legos/Knex, read books, and lay out their alphabet and number cards. So while I haven’t ever liked the look of this strange flooring intersection, it has served my kiddos well.
3. Lost in the mail. There’s a slightly different application of the phrase ‘lost mail’ at our house. We have a storm drain located right below our mailbox, so if we drop anything when checking the mail it usually ends up about 4 feet below the ground. I don’t know how many times Handy Hubby has had to lie in the road to stretch his arm down into the drain to retrieve lost mail. He’s the only one in our household who can reach that far. The kids think they’re pretty lucky though. We let them off the check-the-mail hook when we realized they were regularly dropping mail into the drain. Your Honor, the reason I didn’t show up for jury duty was because my son dropped the summons letter into the sewer. That probably wouldn’t go over too well.
4. Blue light special. It’s hard to tell from the picture, but that one glass globe is different than the others. These lights hang over my sink in the master bath. Obviously, someone broke the matching shade during installation and replaced it as best they could. But the understudy shade has a slight blue tinge to it that is just enough to draw my eye upwards every time I’m in there. I should just get over it. Or replace the entire light. But that would cost money and, really, I’m the only one who notices.
5. Off means on. I was so excited when we moved into this house to have a laundry room on the second floor. I still am. It keeps all the dirty laundry and clean, unfolded laundry piles out of the main living areas. I was also excited {and still am} about our front-loading washer. It uses so much less water and detergent AND does a way better job of washing our stuff than the top loader we had in our first home. However, when we first moved in, hauled our washer upstairs and hooked it up, it wouldn’t work. I kept getting an error message. The washer was still under warranty so I called the manufacturer who sent a technician out to have a look. Turns out, the plumber installed the cold water switch bass-ackwards. So, while I was trying to run a cold water wash, I turned the cold water switch to the ‘on’ position {which was actually the ‘off’ position} but the washer wasn’t getting any water. Hence, the error message. Ever since, I just remember that off means on for the cold water shut-off valve.
6. Loft or landing? I’ve always had trouble with this little area. It’s located just off the staircase on the second floor. It’s too small to be considered a loft room and too big to be your average landing. So what do I use it for? Folding laundry, naturally. {If you look closely, you can see the oval indentation of a laundry basket in the carpet in the bottom right corner.} The laundry room is right off this area, so I dump freshly dried clothes onto the floor, plop down and fold away. I had visions of painting the stair railing/spindles and adding a large built-in, L-shaped bench with cushions and storage to form a quiet little reading nook. But my preschooler is quite the daredevil and I don’t trust his fearlessness. As soon I envisioned the bench, a vision of Everett climbing up onto the bench and falling over the railing quickly followed. Needless to say, this project never panned out. It would have been a nice idea for kid-free home.
7. Where bugs go to die. I love the open, two-story foyer. There’s a window up high that lets in tons of natural light and keeps the entry and upstairs hall feeling bright. But, seriously, how does a homeowner go about regularly cleaning a second story window with no floor immediately beneath it? My solution? Don’t. Don’t worry about it. In complete and utterly embarrassing honesty, I have cleaned that window once in the three years we’ve lived here. {See that death-defying act here.} Sure, I could hire someone to clean it. But, again, that costs money. And I’d rather have a new design book and dirty window than a clean window and no book. Know your priorities people.
So those are the few quirky ticks that this house adds to my already quirky life. When I lay them all out there like that, I’ll admit they aren’t that bad. {Much better than the basement that regularly flooded in our first home.} Still, they make me twitch a little.
Does your home have any peculiar areas, tricks, or nuances to it? A section of floor that squeaks every time you walk on it? A problem spot that you haven’t quite figured out how to address but instead just live with it? A furnace that needs a good kick sometimes? An odd corner that you’ve turned into something beautiful? Share!
images: all Dana Miller for House*Tweaking
DIY, kid-friendly