We live in an old house. It was old in 1991 when we moved here, and it hasn’t gotten any younger. It’s aged fairly gracefully, thanks to both it’s good bones and the many facelifts we’ve given it.
But this fall’s facelift – adding a shower head to the tub in the upstairs bathroom – breaks new ground. This is the first remodel of a room we remodeled. Granted, this transformation won’t be as dramatic as the first one. What could compete with trading out flaking, blue plastic bathtub paneling secured with masking tape for ceramic tile and real grout? Or yanking out blue shag carpeting (turned green from urine dribbles around the toilet) and replacing it with clean vinyl flooring?
Still, we are removing lovely ceramic tile we hoped would remain much longer. And we’re swapping the medicine cabinet put in when the kids were little, the cabinet they wore out during their growing up years. The stained tiles, evidence of Anne’s childhood painting, ink and dye experiments, are gone. The cabinet where they stored their toothpaste and retainers, their acne medications and smelly soaps is gone.
Our children are gone, too, along with twenty years in this old house. And we’re not getting any younger, no matter how fit and trim we stay. So we’re moving on, too. Putting a shower in the upstairs bathroom. Ripping the shower out of the downstairs bathroom off the kitchen. Moving the laundry room out of the basement and into the kitchen bathroom. Getting ready to be old in this house or to improve it’s chances of selling in case the opportunity arises to move closer to wherever our kids settle someday.
That’s what makes this remodeling different. The improvements include the possibility of pulling up roots instead of putting them down. Of leaving memories behind instead of creating new ones. Of growing old instead of growing up.
Its a new way of thinking, this second time around. Sure hope I’m up to the challenge.
