I remember when we first moved into our house—approaching two years ago now—we had this long list of things we wanted to do. Some were big jobs that we’ve deferred because they’re expensive and not urgent, like getting the old fireplace up to code and removing the rusted wood stove they put in it. Others I just never got to, like figuring out why the basement window leaked (well, I assumed having the dirt line against the glass had something to do with it, but it only leaked a little bit).

I remember thinking, the first time there’s a rainstorm, I’ll run down to the basement and watch the window and figure out exactly where the leaking is happening and patch it up! And I’ll pull up a few deck boards—just a few screws and a drill—and inspect the window from the other side.

Somehow, though, after you move in, it’s easy to see it not as your new house, but as the place you live. What felt as a new homeowner like a list of exciting projects becomes housework. Almost two years, and you walk around and observe the things the previous folks did wrong that aren’t wrong enough to fix, and it’s almost like it’s still their house. When you’re viewing it, or waiting to move in, there’s this sense of wonder and expectation that’s hard to sustain when you’re just there every day.

It’s a funny thing—I love going down in the basement at my parents’ house, or up in the attic, or just hanging out there when we visit. I think, all these years, I thought this is what a house feels like and not this is what the place you grew up in feels like. I think I mistook the lived-in-ness of my parents’ house for the building or type of building.

I’m thinking about all of this because recently, I’ve been doing some projects in the house to really make it feel like our own. By the two-year mark, I’d like to have customized and redone at least a bunch of little things to our style and organization. It’s been too hot to work outside or even just take a walk a lot of days, so I’ve been looking for ways to get a little exercise too. (Why aren’t I going to the gym? It’s almost too hot to drive!)

We’ve organized the kitchen drawers and cabinets, one of which was full of product manuals and papers, which now live in the basement in a file box. That opens up room to un-stuff other drawers, so there are implements I can grab quickly now that used to be a fight to remove from an over-filled drawer or silverware holder.

I decided to go to The Container Store (not a sponsor) and get some nice storage tubs for the umbrellas, the hats and gloves that never go back to wherever they “go,” and a couple of wire racks for the slippers, water shoes, and other things we don’t wear that often. And it’s like, this is a closet! My rule for identifying home improvement tasks is something like, what makes me sigh and groan every time I do it? Aggressively identify, and design that frustration out of your daily life.

The most consequential project was probably a cleaning up and final mouseproofing of the basement. I finally drenched the basement in (indoor) six-month bug spray, vacuumed the floor down several times (the grit and dust never seems to quite go away), stuffed holes and set up traps for the odd mouse—we still get a few, but a lot less than there used to be—and set up all my power tool batteries and chargers on a nice work bench the previous folks left down there.

Whenever I’m at my parents’ house, there’s a particular little thing I love to see: the soft blue lights on the dishwasher panel, throwing just a bit of light into the dark kitchen. Whenever I run down for one last thing, or to check all the lights (when I’m back there, I’m often the one who does that), I always stop and look at that light panel before I go back up.

Somehow that communicates that there’s a settledness and a rhythm in the house. It’s not just occupied, it’s lived in. In the basement now, there’s a line of little green lights when all my batteries are charging. And now I turn the basement light off and just for a second at those little green lights. It’s like this wild dark space is tamed.

I know a guy in my hometown who owns a couple of businesses and is involved generally in trying to bring people back to town. (We’re not at all poor, so “revitalize” kind of overstates it, but we sure could use foot traffic and a few more things to do on Main Street.) He’ll get comments on Facebook that sound kind of suspicious when he’s out mentioning another business or filming some casual video out in town or posting updates about one of the development proposals.

There’s a kind of person who wonders, Who put this guy in charge? Who’s he working for? Who’s paying him? As if nobody ever really does anything on their own—as if the people who do things are a different kind of person.

It’s very easy to think this way. To think, oh, he’s the kind of person who does that. It would be interesting to be that kind of person. To look wistfully at things you can just up and do right now and wonder why they seem closed off to you.

Maybe it’s easier to involve yourself locally in a small town than down here, but there are other things you can do. Like empty and reorganize the cabinets or set up the batteries in an orderly way so the cords aren’t practically tangled around the legs of the dinner table.

In my head, I call this stuff unsticking. Taking something you’ve just kind of gotten used to and doing it differently. As you’re doing this or that task, you think of more tasks. When you finish something in the pantry that’s been sitting there forever, you think of a new store to visit to buy some new stuff. When you scrub the floor, you think about the area rug you were supposed to buy and just didn’t get to.

There’s a certain randomness and serendipity to doing things that feel, looking back, like intentional decisions. One little “alright, time to wrangle this drawer into shape!” can become a whole series of improvements. You need to buy a couple of things, so you go shopping. The shopping trips become lunches out or social occasions, those lead to fun conversations, those lead to more ideas. Whatever this is, you can’t analytically reverse engineer it. You have to realize that you have to get it started, and without doing the initial thing, none of it happens.

Just do one thing. And somehow the rest of it falls into place.

Related Reading:

Me Or Your Own Eyes

A Gremlin and a Plumb Job

More on Pro-Family Urbanism

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