It was never our first home—it was just home.
WE RECENTLY REPLACED a mirror in the first-floor bathroom of our house. It was installed when we bought the place 24 years ago. Back then, our home was new construction, and filled with builder’s-grade appointments and appliances. The mirror was just a big, square surface fastened to the wall at each corner. Nothing fancy.
Nothing about the house was exactly custom when we bought it in July 1996. At the time, the house was an unfinished-up, split Cape with a gravel driveway. It was one of four to be built along a winding country road that has a speed limit of whatever most cars can reach on the quarter-mile at Star Speedway. We were young, newly married, didn’t earn much and didn’t have much, but we did have a house and two acres of land on a hill in southern New Hampshire.
The first thing we did was splurge on a lawn tractor that could barrel up and down the hilly property and tame that big tangle of green. The salesman said we’d get 20 years out of it, and on that day, in the tractor store, it seemed impossible two decades would pass and this glorious, orange machine would one day go quiet and leave our home broken down on the back of a flatbed. He was good on his word— we did get about 20 years out of our tractor, but it seems like that machine has been gone a long time now.
After a few years in our house, we finished the upstairs. We had a baby coming, and the second floor was a huge, unused space that was basically Christmas ornament storage/mouse playground. In its place, we added two bedrooms and a bathroom—and then a daughter. Things stayed unchanged for a few years, until we added a garage with a great room above (known as the “spare house”) and then paved the driveway. The house was becoming rather unrecognizable from the tall, sloping box we originally moved into.
There are some things that remain completely unchanged, after all these years. The simple, construction-grade stove, dishwasher, washing machine, dryer and refrigerator are all in the same spot where they were dropped on a hot July day 24 years ago. Lately, the refrigerator has been barking at us a bit as the compressor groans to life, chills things a little and then takes a much-needed breather, but it’s still keeping everything cold. The fridge is white (very ’90s), but you can’t really tell because it’s covered in magnets, photos, postcards and school pictures—reminders that time really has snuck past us. The floor underneath it, though, needed some help. So earlier this year, we renovated—new floors, hardwood and new paint on every surface.
A couple of years ago, we added a bar to the great room. It has become the heart of our home—where we eat dinner together every night, where we’ve seen Super Bowls and Stanley Cups, Christmases and birthdays.
Now that the house has become the home we dreamed of at its closing, I’ve been talking about downsizing. Our daughter is just starting her college career, and to be honest, it’s way more house than three people ever needed, never mind two. The thing is: between the great room, the garage, the bar and the hardwood, I’m not sure I have it in me to leave. But when I looked at that mirror, I saw that—whether I liked it or not—things were changing. I just never noticed (until I saw) that edges had begun to chip, a few wrinkles appeared that weren’t there even a few years ago and things had turned gray. The mirror had seen better days, too. Despite my musings that we should move, I’m guessing the only way I’m leaving here is broken down on the back of a flatbed.
The house on the hill in the woods was never our “first home.” It was just home. It’d be weird to start calling it that now. NHH
By Bill Burke | Illustration by Carolyn Vibbert