Twenty Years at the Same Location

 Twenty years ago this past weekend, we moved into this house. Our first two nights here we ate at restaurants, for the kitchen sink wasn't in place. On the third night, we ate at home and did the dishes in the basement utility sink. The radiators were not connected, and were pushed out of the way as suited us.

The house had not been lived in for something like five years when we bought it, and had not been maintained for some years before that. During the first heavy rain after we moved in, we found water rolling down the attic steps; a bit of plywood, nailed against joists, remediated that. During another early storm, we watched with interest, almost awe, as a gutter shot water several feet out from house.

We brought some skills to the work, and learned more, but we needed a competent contractor, whom we eventually found. Still, we did a great deal of the work ourselves. We refinished every double-hung window, we removed all the old varnish from woodwork, and restored it, we painted every room in the house at least once.

Before we got to twenty years, each of us had lived here longer than anywhere else. We lived in Maryland for fourteen years, and before that my wife's longest was twelve years in Central Pennsylvania, mine was twelve years outside of Cleveland.