Okay, here’s yet another post involving aging, what’s mostly on my mind these days…
I’m not sure quite when the discussions with our son about the need for a first-floor bedroom began. We’d bought this 1756 farmhouse twenty-six years ago, overlooking the stairs that were easily as steep as a ladder, lost in a blur of ardent love for this old house.
I’d badly wanted out of the brick cape we’d had to buy in a hurry after selling Rockledge, an old ore mine manager’s pillared colonial on a hill. It had needed too much work, and we’d never been able to get rid of its mold, despite hours of seasonal scrubbing with TSP and Clorox. And we’d sold our Block Island barn, so we had the wherewithal to spend on something new.
(Please let us find the perfect house…)
On a whim one day, I called a real estate agent, and she took us first to see a house we’d long known. John’s hippie runaway brothers had lived there in the seventies, probably smoked a good deal of pot in its scruffy rooms. The owner’s son told us many years later that his father had hoped they’d burn the ramshackle place down.
We were so glad they hadn’t. A young couple from Brooklyn who loved old houses had bought and restored it with stunning care. A local carpenter who specialized in old houses had done all the exquisite work; his wife had helped with decorating and paint colors. As we wandered the rooms, I quickly fell in love with it. There were exposed beams, wide plank floors, fascinating color combinations, large rooms, two Rumford fireplaces, a Dutch oven. A kitchen with handmade painted cupboards, yet a Wolf range and a Sub-Zero refrigerator.
And upstairs! A master bedroom with a huge closet, hand-planed floors, chestnut beams, pickled wood for walls. Next to it, a bathroom as big as a bedroom, with a clawfoot tub as well as a modern shower, a stenciled floor, a sink made from a copper bowl mounted on an old wooden washstand.
How I loved that bathroom.
(I still do)
The property –four acres—was full of beautiful old trees, a big field, and a large barn, all of which entranced us.
The realtor showed us some other houses, but our hearts and minds stayed with the farmhouse. The steep stairs were its only drawback, but they didn’t bother either of us enough to turn down this special house.
The realtor told us that someone else was interested, so we immediately put a binder down.
(Those stairs would have made this house a really hard sell)
We moved into it in the fall of that year, when the majestic old trees were beginning to turn into the colors everyone drives up to our area to see. How I loved our new bedroom, with its giant closet all for me. And that bathroom! I could hardly believe I was really living in this wonderful old house. The chimney came up through the middle of the upstairs hall and its handsome brick face greeted me every time I walked out of our bedroom. Having grown up in a ranch house, I loved sleeping on the second floor, even just having a second floor.
(Those stairs will never be a problem for us)
I don’t know when our son began to suggest we needed a downstairs bedroom. Maybe not right away, as we were all younger then. As his family grew, pulling their bags up those steep stairs gave pause. Not for them, but for their aging parents/grandparents.
Mostly to quiet him, I called on a company that installed chair elevators, imagining that could be a solution when the time came. The man stayed for a long time, photographing, calling in to the company, taking measurements. He said it could be done.
I relaxed.
(We’re really not that old and we will never need this)
But our son did not. He continued to insist we needed a first-floor bedroom, suggested we repurpose one of the downstairs rooms, as it had a connected bathroom. I resisted “I love sleeping on the second floor,” I protested. “And I can’t give up my closet, there’s no way to put one in that room, and no place for bureaus. Besides, I love that room as it is.”
“Why don’t you add on a closet,” he suggested.
(That would look so ugly)
“Nope.”
“Maybe you could make the garage into a bedroom?
(Our garage! We’ve never had a garage!)
“We need the garage for my car, and it’s the only storage space we have. Besides, I love having a garage attached to our house. So convenient, especially in bad weather.”
He wasn’t giving up.
“Well, then just get someone, maybe John A. (a friend who is a designer) to draw up a plan for an addition.”
“We can’t afford it.”
“Oh Mom, of course you can.”
(He is wrong on all counts, of course)
Finally, maybe six years ago, possibly just to get him off my back, I did call our friend John. He drew up some excellent plans, we got outrageous bids, I put the plans in a closet and forgot about them.
I should add that my husband agreed with me about all of this, that is, until he had his second open heart surgery in May. Weaker and suffering from balance problems, he was having difficulty navigating the stairs and used them as little as possible.
Our son resumed his entreaties.
(Damn, he’s never giving up…)
It was around that time that I’d gotten a social media response from our son’s grammar school friend Jim, who’d lived in our house growing up, as well as in the house next door that his father had built. (He was the one who’d told us that his father had hoped the hippies would burn it down, by accident of course). All the acreage around us, now developed if lightly, had been his ancestral family farm.
I’d heard that Jim had a reputation as the best carpenter in the area, and in addition to hoping to see him again, I wanted to hire him for a job that needed doing in the house. When he finally responded, he confessed he didn’t look at social media much but was so glad I’d tried to contact him.
He sent his phone number, I called immediately, and he came right over. What a joy to see him again! He and his wife, with whom he worked, did a great job on the kitchen counters, and I invited him to come and see our son and his family at Thanksgiving. During that visit, we somehow ended up getting out the bedroom plans.
(Okay, we give in. He’s right.)
Trust in him, a reasonable bid, my husband’s need, finally facing the reality of our ages and desire to stay in our home long-term, finding the available funds, all conspired to create the perfect mix for this important and long-resisted decision.
And my closet will be even bigger in the new room.
They’re beginning tomorrow.
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Once again, thank you all for reading and for your wonderful responses; I apologize for not being able to respond to all of them.
I’m so happy to announce that I entered “Moving On” in a blog post competition and won first prize. I’m now working on putting together a collection of these posts for a possible collection. Stay tuned!