My house is my home. It‘s a place where I and my family have lived for more than 50 years. It isn’t fancy, more like “unfancy,” an early 20th century Arts and Crafts bungalow with porches on the back and the front of the house.
If I took you on a tour of our house, I would point out that modifications born of needed repairs as well as those made to meet the needs of a growing family have changed almost every room. There’s a family room we added in the 1970s, a second bathroom in the ’80’s, a refinished basement in the early ’90’s, etc. We’ve added another fireplace in the family room; the fireplace in the living room is an old-fashioned wood burning hearth, but the new one burns natural gas logs. One of the porches, the one in the back of the house, became part of our family room. The front porch remained untouched, except by the weather.
The front porch is not as commodious as those you see on the magazine covers, but it is big enough to allow us to fit a very old and in-great-need-of-refinishing glider complete with its Naugahyde cushions that have seen better days. It is surrounded by a green privacy curtain made of from the lush growth afforded by greeneries from a dogwood, a viburnum, a huge rhododendron, two apple trees and a bush with an unknown moniker. There are four powder coated chairs and a glass topped table that make up the rest of the porch furniture. An assortment of shade-loving flower accents finish my porch décor.
I love sitting on the porch, having a cup of coffee or a glass of a spiritous beverage, a book …or whatever. Friends come, drop in, share this space. I love it. But it has seen better days – much better days. Changing climate has made the area under the porch damp, and that dampness has led to peeling paint on the sides and floor of my porch. Twenty years ago I would have scraped, sanded and painted it. Back then intention and energy coexisted. Time and deteriorating physical resources had left me with few options. It is an annoying, no, a frustrating part of getting older when things I easily could accomplish in past years were no longer possible.
So, do I just let things “go”… you know as in the sentence, “Poor thing, look how she let herself go,” or do I take inspiration from a piece that I recently read that really struck home….it goes something like this:
Can’t wash all the windows, wash one. Can’t do all of the laundry, do half a load and fold it tomorrow.
Can’t prepare a four-course meal, boil some eggs…etc.
So. encouraged by this, I thought that I could approach the project in pieces, e.g. do small parts over time. I did get the floor partially scraped. Then reason prevailed and I stepped away from this delusion of control and accomplishment Calculating when I would finish the job led me well into a future that is, at my age, very unsure. It became clear that someone else would have to finish this job.
I went to the modern-day version of the back fence, the internet, and asked if anyone could recommend someone to paint parts of my house. Anne Temple, a woman who lived five houses away in the 1970s and who now is an accomplished painter of furniture at Annabelle Design, recommended Heidi Dubach.
“She’s excellent,” Anne said.
So I contacted Heidi and last weekend my porch became beautiful again. The peeling paint was scraped and sanded and finished as beautifully as if I had done it myself.
Asking for help, so inimical to my former self, has adapted to reality. I don’t for one minute denigrate the idea that if you can’t do something perfectly, you should do something less perfectly anyway. It has become how I approach almost any task from doing the laundry to sweeping up. Eventually it gets done, as close to goal as it can. Getting help is part of a larger goal which includes your peace of mind and comfort. After I finish this piece, I am going downstairs and clean out one small drawer and boil one egg.
And, after that, it’s porch time with a good book and a cup of tea or maybe something with cranberry juice, Cointreau, lime and vodka. It’s my place.
