Dear Blue House, or– A Tale of Unrequited House Love.

Dear Blue House,

I first saw your picture as an attachment in an email that Lance sent me at work.

Tiny little photos on a real estate web page were enough to grab my attention. Grey Cape Cod with a long white porch running the length of the house, (Okay YES. we painted you blue within two months– so what?!) The Brady bunch style kitchen and the brown octagonal tile did nothing, nothing to dissuade me from what I saw in that porch. Big cups of coffee in rocking chairs. Reading picture books to a lap full of kids on the porch swing. Long mosquito-less (Yes, I was delusional,) summer suppers under white lights. Those iconic southern moments were all I saw. I looked straight past your retro wet-bar which graced the living room with all the early 80’s panache of MacGyver himself. Those large picture windows flanking the fireplace and shuttling in bright rays of sun caused my temporary blindness and I’m so glad. I saw nothing but everything I’d ever wanted in a house.

You have kept us warm, (most of the time) dry, (most of the time) and cool, (except that one time last spring and later that same summer and then that one time the year before that— and actually you’re not really so great in the HVAC department now that I’m thinking about it… so maybe you could look into that…just a suggestion…) Never the less, we have celebrated several Christmases here with roaring fires and even snow once or twice, and I’m sure somewhere out in the yard are a few shards of plastic egg from Easters past. You have been the backdrop of our little life here and we mark the years on the calendar and in the slowly chipping paint on the front porch.But LOOK, we have to talk. You seem to have underestimated this family. Yeah, sure you may have gotten the raw end of the deal with two married kids who had only ever been apartment dwellers and weren’t always 100% certain how to light a pilot light. But we know that now. We can light pilot lights like a boss. True, we might have made a few mistakes along the way here and there. We probably should have done that whole kitchen cabinet thing differently, but we learned from it. (I’ll tell ya what we learned, never ever again– that’s what.) Maybe every single time we tried to install anything, it took multiple Lowe’s trips and heaps of patience.

But you’ve been our training ground for home ownership. And we’re getting better at this whole, taking care of a late 70’s fixer upper. Because make no mistake about it, we ARE fixing you up, little by little, so perhaps you could, um- get on board, like NOW.

There have been times that you’ve been a little* more than we bargained for with your drafty, beautiful, single-pane windows and monkey grass galore. I have long since stopped watching HGTV altogether because it just makes me irritable. Nothing ever takes 30 minutes. Except for Fixer-Upper. We still like Fixer-Upper. Love Joanna and Chip. She could whip you into shape in no time flat.

How about you ease up a little bit and not rebel every year at this time, when we start little projects. It’s really not very nice of you when we are just trying to make you pretty– and less problematic.

You should know that we have a little running joke about you, Blue House. We refer to you as that slightly odd, cantankerous family member— You know the one- Uncle Harold. Uncle Harold is always negative and doesn’t like change. He wears thick glasses and brown wool pants pulled clean up to his rib cage even in late july— AND he is always asking for money at family gatherings. That’s you, Blue House, you’re Uncle Harold. Everything is always more complicated when you’re involved, but we love you anyway —so we keep inviting you to Sunday Dinner and painting your walls, little by little.

Remember when we whitewashed the brick? That wasn’t so bad was it?

So how about this— we promise to keep loving you even when you don’t love us back. Because if we can help it, you are stuck with us.

And we wouldn’t have it any other way.

P.S. Your dining room paint looks so great! However, don’t get too attached to that old brass chandelier that blows light bulbs every third Sunday. We’re coming for it next.

Hugs and Paint Brushes (only the good kind, I promise,)– Your People