I Really Regret Buying an Old House
Courtesy of Julie Vick When my husband and I got married, we bought home in Denver — a Victorian that was built in 1903 and sat on a picturesque tree-lined street. It needed a lot of work, but we were up for the challenge.
"Fixing up an old house together sounds romantic," a friend said.
But my dad said: "I hope you've seen The Money Pit."
I had, and remembered that in the movie the renovation takes much longer than expected and almost rips the couple apart, but still, I was feeling optimistic. Plus I loved the scene where Tom Hanks falls through a hole in the floor hidden by a large oriental rug, and is wedged in said hole for hours. Fixing up an old house could be hilarious! You just had to look at it the right way.
Our most immediate problem was that the upstairs master suite lacked some basic things — like walls. The bathroom, which featured a glass shower, was completely exposed to the hallway and a wall covered in windows. Basically, it was possible to simultaneously shampoo your hair, greet someone coming up the stairs, and nod hello to the next door neighbors. We weren't sure if the former owners were free spirits or ran out of funds to finish the renovation, but we weren't like them. We wanted walls.
We figured the fixes would maybe take six months. Two and a half years later, we had just completed the bathroom. And the other projects were piling up.
Talk about an open-concept bathroom. Courtesy of Julie Vick. We had hired a friend to renovate that bathroom, but we took over the rest of the renovations. And it was never easy. A seemingly simple floor fix revealed seven additional layers of flooring (some wood, some tile, most glued together) and the angles and eaves that had such great character turned out to be a nightmare to mud and paint and trim.
One thing our newly married life proved short on was time. In combining our lives we had doubled the amount of friends and family we had, and the house project became another relationship to try to fit in on the nights and weekends after work. We debated hiring out more of the work, but financially it made more sense to do it ourselves.
The fault lines in our personalities also began to show. I would start out trying to paint a wall by carefully edging out the perimeter, but then would quickly lose patience and start slapping up paint haphazardly in an effort to just get it done. My husband, on the other hand, spent hours perfecting and replicating the complex trim work to retain the historical charm.
Four years into all of the renovations, we had a baby, and a new definition for lack of time. The cute old rooms became cluttered with bouncers and toys and all the charm in the world couldn't make up for the chopped up floor plan. Luckily, our neighborhood had only grown more popular and by the time we were ready to move, the house looked like it would be easy to sell. As we readied the house for the market, my husband got more stressed out. "There is so much left to do," he said.
"We don't have to do it all!" I countered, "Leave something for the buyers to do."
"But the buyers are going to figure out it's an old house that's falling apart!" he said.
We had redone the entire master suite, backyard, and mudroom; replaced most of the appliances, and painted almost every wall, but there were always more things to improve: cracked windows, missing tiles, ugly fixtures. I could look at the house and see everything we had done, but my husband saw the list of everything left to do.
To be fair, he was also the one doing most of the work. My sloppy paint skills and fear of the circular saw didn't make me the best renovator, and buying a fixer-upper hadn't magically transformed me into one.
We finally listed the house and after multiple bids it was under contract within a week. My husband continued to tinker with small projects, unable to let go of perfecting things until the day we moved out and could breathe a little easier.
I don't completely regret buying an old house. If we hadn't done it some part of me would have wondered what it was like, and my husband says it got his desire for owning an old house out of his system. Maybe once we retire and have more time we will take on another project, but for now, we took the easy way out.
Last year we moved into a newly constructed home.
"Fixing up an old house together sounds romantic," a friend said.
But my dad said: "I hope you've seen The Money Pit."
I had, and remembered that in the movie the renovation takes much longer than expected and almost rips the couple apart, but still, I was feeling optimistic. Plus I loved the scene where Tom Hanks falls through a hole in the floor hidden by a large oriental rug, and is wedged in said hole for hours. Fixing up an old house could be hilarious! You just had to look at it the right way.
Our most immediate problem was that the upstairs master suite lacked some basic things — like walls. The bathroom, which featured a glass shower, was completely exposed to the hallway and a wall covered in windows. Basically, it was possible to simultaneously shampoo your hair, greet someone coming up the stairs, and nod hello to the next door neighbors. We weren't sure if the former owners were free spirits or ran out of funds to finish the renovation, but we weren't like them. We wanted walls.
We figured the fixes would maybe take six months. Two and a half years later, we had just completed the bathroom. And the other projects were piling up.
One thing our newly married life proved short on was time. In combining our lives we had doubled the amount of friends and family we had, and the house project became another relationship to try to fit in on the nights and weekends after work. We debated hiring out more of the work, but financially it made more sense to do it ourselves.
The fault lines in our personalities also began to show. I would start out trying to paint a wall by carefully edging out the perimeter, but then would quickly lose patience and start slapping up paint haphazardly in an effort to just get it done. My husband, on the other hand, spent hours perfecting and replicating the complex trim work to retain the historical charm.
Four years into all of the renovations, we had a baby, and a new definition for lack of time. The cute old rooms became cluttered with bouncers and toys and all the charm in the world couldn't make up for the chopped up floor plan. Luckily, our neighborhood had only grown more popular and by the time we were ready to move, the house looked like it would be easy to sell. As we readied the house for the market, my husband got more stressed out. "There is so much left to do," he said.
My dad said: "I hope you've seen The Money Pit."
"But the buyers are going to figure out it's an old house that's falling apart!" he said.
We had redone the entire master suite, backyard, and mudroom; replaced most of the appliances, and painted almost every wall, but there were always more things to improve: cracked windows, missing tiles, ugly fixtures. I could look at the house and see everything we had done, but my husband saw the list of everything left to do.
To be fair, he was also the one doing most of the work. My sloppy paint skills and fear of the circular saw didn't make me the best renovator, and buying a fixer-upper hadn't magically transformed me into one.
We finally listed the house and after multiple bids it was under contract within a week. My husband continued to tinker with small projects, unable to let go of perfecting things until the day we moved out and could breathe a little easier.
I don't completely regret buying an old house. If we hadn't done it some part of me would have wondered what it was like, and my husband says it got his desire for owning an old house out of his system. Maybe once we retire and have more time we will take on another project, but for now, we took the easy way out.
Last year we moved into a newly constructed home.
By Julie Vick
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