Happy Anniversary 180 Oxford!
Six years ago today we bought our house. That’s me when we first found the house. I was pretty excited because we had been looking at disaster houses for a few days and this was the first place we came across that didn’t completely and totally suck. Ah, fond memories!
This morning I asked Kyle to reflect on his feelings about our home. He said “The house has really shaped up nicely over the past six years. There were some really dicey areas at first, but I think we’ve addressed the major challenges.” This brings me back. By “dicey areas” I think he’s talking about the electrical. You see, he wouldn’t let us turn on lights in the house for the first few days until we had the knob and tube wiring updated because he thought we might start a fire. I pointed out the fact that other people had lived in the house for 94 years and used the electrical every day without any fires, but that logic fell on deaf ears. Luckily the electricians set us up a few days after we moved in and we’ve been golden ever since.
There was also the side porch that was rotting and falling off the house. We spent the summer of our second year here fixing that. I specifically remember Kyle and his dad telling me it would only take a week to fix. Three months of working every blasted weekend and weekday evening later, our porch was fixed. Some of our neighbors commented on how they were surprised we made it through the project without getting divorced. I’m surprised we made it through with all of our appendages. We’re not what you would call “skilled” with saws and such.
Our house wasn’t perfect when we moved in and we’re still working on things. Yesterday I mentally went through every portion of the house and yard and made a huge list of projects I’d like to knock out over the next few years. Most of them don’t take a lot of money, just time and effort. It’s a labor of love, I’d say.
On another happy note, our house turns 100 years old this year. We’re going to throw it a proper birthday party this summer. While we’ve only owned it 6% of its life, we can still celebrate its accomplishments and what’s to come. It’s requested a red velvet cake and a piñata. We’ll see what we can do about that…
For today, Happy Anniversary 180 Oxford!
Ha, that’s awesome. We have another 7 years before our house hits the century mark. A centennial birthday party sounds awesome.
Hey, quick question about the electrical stuff: how disruptive is that to the house? We think we may have some old wiring still in the house that I want to replace. Trying to figure out how much of a mess that will create.
Sujal
Don’t worry, you’re on the invite list for the big birthday bash!
For us, the electrical wasn’t that disruptive because we hadn’t really moved in and Kyle had the “no using the electricity” rule. It’s really going to depend on what you’re having done and how much there is. An electrician should be able to give you some idea. I would think maybe a day or so disruption. They try to minimize those sorts of things since we’re so reliant on power these days.
Just let me know if you need any recommendations.
[...] The City of Hartford told us that our house was built in 1910. It says so right on our property data card on their online database. Given that it’s 2010, we thought it would only be proper to throw our house a 100-year birthday party bash this year. I blogged about it a few months ago on our home ownership anniversary. [...]