I am 41 years old, and I have lived on my own - away from my parents' home - since I was 17. During all those all those years,as I lived in lots of different dorms, apartments, and finally, houses, it was my my parents' house and neighborhood that continued to feel more like home to me than any other place I inhabited. Everywhere else I alighted, including the suburban rancher I owned and lived in with my first husband for more than seven years felt strangely...temporary.
Don't get me wrong, I had many wonderful times in that sweet 1950s rancher, and I grew to love several of my neighbors there very much. I cried the day I had to move out. And even some of the houses and apartments I inhabited for much briefer periods over the years were special to me in different ways. But none of them really felt like home in the same way my parents' house and 'hood did. I sometimes wondered whether there was something wrong with me - a lingering immaturity, perhaps, that made me unable to completely cut ties with my family of origin, even as I raised my own children.
But 2.5 years ago, my husband Jon and I bought our first house together, and from the first moment I walked in the door as a potential buyer, the place felt like it really could be my real, permanent home. Today, it simply is home. I feel as firmly rooted in this house as I once did in my parents' abode.
This is the view out the front door of what became our house, taken the day we toured the house with our realtor for the first time.
This is a picture of our house taken several years before we moved in. Since we bought it, we've added a white picket fence, a new roof, landscaping, and lots of interior work. But this is pretty much what it looked like the first day I saw it. And it was love at first sight.
And despite the fact that my three older children had to do far too much moving around earlier in their childhoods, before we landed in the house where we live now, I hope very much that the house is beginning to feel like home to them, too. I want them to remember Christmases and summer nights on the porch and potluck suppers with friends and treeclimbing and playing in the hose -- all in THIS house. Of course for their baby sister C., it is the only home she has ever known. And unless some unforeseen circumstance makes a move unavoidable, Jon and I plan to stay here until the children help pack our things for the old folks' home.
I've wondered just what it is about this house that makes it different from the other places I've lived. I think part of the reason it feels more "forever" is because my relationship with my husband feels truly permanent. This is our home - together - and we are a family that feels as solid to me as the one in which I grew up felt when I was a child. But it's also because I love the neighborhood. It's not for everyone, but we've chosen to settle down in a historic, inner city neighborhood, full of gorgeous Victorian and Craftsman houses. Some are fully restored, like these.
Our own house is only about halfway restored. We couldn't have afforded it if it had been completely renovated; it will be years before we can do everything we want to do to it. So for now, we are living with barely functional kitchen and bathrooms. But in exchange for these less-than stellar features that we can't yet afford to improve, we got 3700 square feet and five bedrooms for our big family, high ceilings, gorgeous woodwork and windows, and a wonderful fireplace in the living room. Having grown up in old houses myself, these are the things that make me viscerally comfortable. And did I mention that we have a creek? A real creek in our backyard? How many city houses can say that?
This is the official description of our house from the historic preservation experts who described it the year it was featured on the annual neighborhood home tour:
This 1910 Queen Anne Cottage is one and one-half stories with an irregular plan over a brick foundation. Its hip roof has lower cross gables, front and side hipped dormers, and an asphalt shingle covering. The house has one over one double hung windows and an interior end brick chimney. The front and side porches wrap around the house, and feature round fluted columns with Ionic capitals, a sawn wood balustrade and Queen Anne patterned transom and sidelights of stained glass at the front entry.
I like living very near downtown, and I like it that my teenager can actually take the bus when he needs to get somewhere. I like it that every house in our neighborhood - even the ones that could use some work - has a distinct look and personality. No cookie-cutter houses here. I like the small businesses that surround our house, and the fact that I can walk to them without fear of being mowed down by traffic. I love the big. mature trees that line our streets, and I love the annual Christmas tour, when the most beautiful houses in the neighborhood twinkle with lights for the thousands of visitors who come to take a look at them. I like the fact that most of my neighbors have also purposely chosen this funky, unique community, and the rest have been here for decades, providing an eclectic, friendly, and never-dull mix of great friends all around. I love it that my sister and her family live only a few miles away, and Jon's parents live even closer - in the house in which Jon grew up.
Charlotte enjoys our front porch.
Jane and cousin Eleanor dance in the front hall.
Jane, Henry and Elliot enjoy a summer evening on the front porch.
Elliot helps Jon strip one-hundred years of wallpaper in one of the bedrooms
Jay teaches Henry chords in the living room.
The view from one of the upstairs windows right after we had the backyard fenced last spring.
There are challenges to living in our urban community. Many houses in the 'hood are still more "transitional" in their appearance (READ: pitbulls, collapsing front porches, and chainlink fences), and the neighborhood does have issues with sketchy transients from the nearby mission district. But we also have real sidewalks for walking, and beautiful greenways and parks snaking through the entire neighborhood.
This is one stretch of the lovely greenway that runs through our neighborhood, including right behind our backyard. It's a park that many suburban neighborhoods would kill for, but I think a lot of people have no idea it exists right here in the middle of the city.
Yes, a walk through the park still too often involves stepping over a drunk guy sprawled across the path, but we've decided to stake our claim here, and work to make the neighborhood we love better, instead of opting out of it altogether. The very, very active neighborhood association is full of other people who feel the same way, and those who have been here a lot longer than we have say we have no idea how far the neighborhood has come already.
So yes, this is home now. Having finally put down roots somewhere feels wonderful (even when I silently curse the terrible condition of our rickety, ugly kitchen, or complain about the homeless guy urinating in the creek out back). I know many of my friends who live in houses with fully functional bathrooms in neighborhoods full of neatly manicured lawns can't imagine living here, but all I can tell them is that I can't imagine living anywhere else! And I think that's a pretty good litmus test for whether you are where you are supposed to be.
Now that I have given this matter some thought for myself, I am curious to hear from blog readers about what feels like home to you. Is it your current house? Is it your parents' house? What defines the right living environment for you to feel most comfortable raising your own family? Do you have a dream neighborhood in mind, but you haven't managed to get there yet?
Tell me in the comments below.
SUBSCRIBE TO THIS BLOG
FOLLOW KATIE'S BLOGGING ON TWITTER OR FACEBOOK
READ MORE OF KATIE'S BLOGGING
