Change

We have had a few weeks of going back and forth about moving to this house.  We currently have a very awesome house, and one that we weren't really ever planning to move out of.  It's not huge, but it's really bright and open and a good house to live in. It's not in a fabulous location, and a lot of times I really do not even like my neighborhood-  mostly in the winter when the assholes come out with their stupid parking dibs at the slightest hint of snow, or oh, I dunno, for the LAST 12 YEARS of the yellow jeep's car alarm going off at least 3 times a night.  I don't care for my next door neighbors part time auto shop that he runs illegally out of his garage, it drives my husband insane with rage that the whole neighborhood uses our one garbage can (the other gets stolen as soon as it's replaced) to dump their unwanted trash.  Lots of things like that make me not love my neighborhood.

I have a longer list of the things I love, like the mexican grocery on the corner where we buy warm tortillas almost every night.  I love that most of my neighbors can't be bothered to talk to me at all, let alone quiz me about homeschooling. The kids on the street are mostly nice, and I've seen most of them grow up.  We share the street with a Greek Orthodox church and once a year, around Ben's birthday, there is a long parade of parishioners marching on our street, with trumpets and a flower covered bier and incense swinging.   I have a huge weedy perennial garden with all sorts of amazing flowers blooming.  We've planted flowering bushes and trees and our street is wide and green and pleasant most of the time.   We have put the love and money into this house too... it has a perfect new kitchen, and a bathroom that is pretty much a love letter to myself.  I designed all of these things for us, not for some strangers to come in and live with.  I never intended to leave this house.

But, we have this letterpress. and with the letterpress we have a lot of type, and tools and stuff stuff stuff.  All of this had been being stored and used by other letterpress printers, but they moved away and it all came back to us.  We've been thinking of where to house this stuff so that we can use it. The logical spot is the garage.  Our garage is standing only by the grace of the universe.  It looks like it could fall over at any moment.  Over the years it's been home to a large family of rats, who burrowed under the cement pad.  For a long time, the garage was a place that we preferred to not think about.  And then our terrier Malcolm showed up and barked the rats away.  And the press arrived.  So we made plans to put more money into this piece of Chicago, knowing now that we were getting past the point where we would be able to get the money back out of this place if we were ever to sell.   That isn't so much the issue, if we were planning to stay here, but our yard is small, there would never be an opportunity to have a bigger yard here.  We forged ahead with plans to rebuild the garage, on a smaller footprint, to give us as much yard as we could.

Still, it seemed like that still wasn't going to work out.  We'd have to build 3 feet in from the property line in order to meet the new code.  That 3 feet would cancel out downsizing the garage... we'd still be left with little yard left over.  We decided to just take a look and see what was available out there on a double lot.  We looked for about 5 minutes online and our new house showed up.  Upon taking a closer look at the listing I realized that this house was a house that I used to walk by about 4 years ago while W was in karate.  I would drop him off and Scout and I would ramble around Galewood, imagining myself living in that peaceful, integrated neighborhood with it's big lots, unique houses and nice people.  And this one house, the one that looked like summer home in the woods of northern Michigan was one that I always slowed down and looked at.  This is the house in the listing.

So, immediately my witch bells started ringing.  We called and set up an appointment to take a look at the house a few days later.  We loved it.  We went back with our carpenter friend.  He looked it all over carefully and gave us his opinion and advice.  We decided to go for it, and started the bidding process.  And here we are.  Getting ready to move to that house.  A house that is the same age as this house but has a list of issues as long as the new overgrown back yard. As tall as the hugest tallest tree back there, the one that is covered with an overgrown grape vine.  There is so much to do in this house, but so much that is already good.  Bigger rooms on the main floor.  A fireplace that is out of my dreams.  A sun porch (that has no windows that open) that will make a perfect studio and reading zone.  There is a den, with glass doors, and a bathroom with a tub from the 20's.  There is a back stairs and a screen door that leads out to the back yard.  An upstairs door that leads out to a balcony.  Well, it leads out to a roof.  It will be a balcony.

There is a poplar tree, and an Oak tree.  and a lot of scrubby pines and cypresses that will need to leave, and a whole lot of ground cover.   There is a long driveway that leads to a garage that we can move the presses into.  (After it is cleaned and gets a new roof)  There is no air conditioning, but there is radiator heat. There is going to be a brand new wood floor and fresh paint and open windows.  And a lot of construction and repair.   It has cedar siding, one whole wall of which needs to be replaced "corner to corner" as the inspector said, but we are going to see if we can fix it.  It has the potential to be amazing.   The energy in the house right now is flat and still and old feeling.  I can't wait to see it get moving around with lights and music and food cooking, and animals and kids.

The ladies who live there (elderly mother and daughter) have invited me over to meet them.  I'm hoping that I can go over there and turn over a bed to transplant a lot of my flowers in before we even close.  I know it seems like a crazy thing to do, go from being so settled and comfortable to being at the mercy of a big old problem filled house.  But the problems aren't structural, the house is solid.  We won't talk yet about the kitchen.  Oh the kitchen.  Oh my already perfect kitchen.  I will miss it, of course I will.   But, I am excited about the changes ahead.  Change is good.


The blog Chicagolo has been on hiatus for a long time.  the archives are available here, dating from 2006! if I can figure out how to transfer them all over here, or change the typeface there for a bigger font, then I might be posting there again.  Thanks for reading.