My home and wallet are feeling ravages of time
SUBURBAN CHRONICLES
My new house isn’t so new anymore and that’s a problem.
When we moved in almost 15 years ago, our suburban subdivision was still in its early stages of development. The main road stopped abruptly a few hundred metres beyond our intersection. The house next door was a big hole on the ground. For the first several months, we didn’t have grass or a fence and there wasn’t a tree as far as the eye could see.
Inside, however, everything was shiny and new. The wood floors, cabinets and countertops and the upstairs carpet were all sparkly — so much so that I was afraid to touch anything for fear of scratching it or leaving a mark. The first time I spilled a drink, I almost wept at the ruinous nature of my inherent clumsiness.
These days, however, things have changed.
The roads and houses are long finished and there has been plenty of commercial development as well. There is a movie theatre, several restaurants, an LCBO and two grocery stores within walking distance — everybody still drives — and a Tim Hortons opened up not too long ago. It is a neighbourhood, I guess, though one that feels like it was ordered out of the “Suburbs and Strip Mall Catalogue.”
Meanwhile, our house has gone from brand new to lived-in chic. The wood floors have a few scratches, the countertops a few nicks and the carpet upstairs is now dotted with the scars from red wine spillage, kid vomit and multiple dog accidents. There is wear and tear everywhere.
It’s also become apparent that the craftsmanship and quality of some of the fixtures in our home was, shall we say, less than ideal. These houses were built quickly and with an eye to the builder’s bottom line: virtually everything beyond the basic four walls and the roof was an upgrade. But even the upgraded stuff has downgraded with time.
And speaking of the roof, those 25-year shingles barely made it through 10. One of the common sights and sounds this summer has been the scraping of roof tiles into giant steel bins followed by the clacking of nail guns; I keep telling the kids that putting a roof over their heads is expensive — and now I have the bill to prove it.
Before we built this place, my wife and I owned a couple of older homes. They were lovely and, in many ways, more to our taste but there was always something in need of fixing: busted pipes, weird electrical, 100-year-old stone walls with pieces falling out. It was nice not having to worry about that stuff for awhile.
Minor grievances aside, I have come to appreciate our family home — not to mention that complaining about the state of a recently-built suburban house is a First World problem of the first order. It’s starting to show its age and, well, aren’t we all.