Love/Hate

I have a love/hate relationship with my house. I love the house, it's feel, it's open-ness, it's a happy house. It works for us. And I have lived in houses that no matter the work put into them didn't. I hate that it flooded, and there's a part of me which can't turn off that information. When we rebuilt, I feel like we did it not hastily, but without thought for the distant future, and any future flooding.

We have friends whose parents raised their house 14ft. It looked absurd, people laughed at the silly image, shook their heads and wondered aloud. Well, they have since completed the work and now have a home which is wonderful! They enclosed the front of their stilted house and put in a garage door and parking area. Behind that lovely garage/storage area complete with elevator for their elderly ease of access, is an incredible covered patio. Wow it is neat, like the houses built on the beaches, they have tons of storage, access, all that.

Our house was built in the 1920's. In 1957, after a devastating flood, which our house then escaped, the house was raised 10ft. Eventually they enclosed the entire space, renovated it entirely in the 80's and now we have rebuilt it again. All the while, a nagging thought that we should just build up sat inside me. I still wish we had done that, left the downstairs open, put in a parking/storage area in the front half and opened the rest as a partially walled patio.

Why all this thought now, two years after the flooding? Well, it keeps raining and raining and raining. And three times now we have had water seep under the walls. The first time was BAD, water everywhere, but we have since figured out how to create the proper water flow in the yard to keep the house dry. Still.

Where exactly does all this thought come from all of a sudden? Well, I was in my mini-studio in my half of the laundry room, trying to put some bags of yarn up on top of the cabinets and couldn't get to them because of the stuff on the floor, blah, blah, blah... I built shelving, a work surface, all that, and am now unhappy with the layout. After the expense and work of building what I have, I hate to even mention it to my husband. So I sit with a space that might be better laid out, a house that may flood again, and nagging worries that the money spent could have been better spent. Oh well, live and learn. And maybe get a stepladder to get up to the tops of the cabinets next time so my brain doesn't go overboard again.

I think I need a complicated knitting project to distract me from all these thoughts. And a few sunny days so I can stop thinking about the water that may never come. (And if it does come, I can implement the plan for higher living.)