Our House

I just love our little house on Pleasant Ridge.  Having rented for 23 years before I owned my own home, our house on Valentine Road is my first.  It was quite the fixer-upper when we bought it, but I’m married to a man that can build or repair anything, so that wasn’t a problem for me.  For Kory, though, it’s been a non-stop retirement project. He likes to quote some “famous” Chinese proverb that says, “House done when man die.” It’s not far from the truth. 

On Valentine’s Day, 1998, shortly after we bought our house, Kory was setting a beam across our porch to support the roof.  The beam was a little too long and when he went to cut it off, he had second thoughts.  Instead, he left the protrusion and then whittled the stub into two interwoven hearts.  On one side he carved KS+MB and on the other, 1998.  It was the best Valentine I’ve ever gotten.

Even after 15 years, our list of house projects never gets shorter.   As soon as one project gets done, one more gets added.  A few years ago we finally put a tile surface on the porch, having lived with just the plywood underlayment for over a decade.  As it turned out, Kory was setting the tile the week of Valentine’s Day, so in 2010 I got a new Valentine – this time carved into one of the tiles.  The new one says, KS+MB=KS, since Kaleb has now joined the family.   Kaleb quickly pointed out, mathematically, the equation means “MB equals zero.”  What a lovely thought.

We aren’t always in agreement with when house projects should be done or exactly how they should be done, so at the beginning of each year we have a little meeting to map things out. 

This year the goal is to finish the unfinished portion of our basement.  A little sheetrock and paint go a long way toward changing the feel of a space.  Some portions are already finished as Kory put in a sauna a few years back.  He also wanted to add a shower and put a drain in the floor of the sauna, but I nixed those ideas.

When we bought it, the only solid thing about our house was the foundation.  I couldn’t see any reason to punch a hole in it, especially when our septic tank sits higher than the floor.  I was sure we couldn’t get a permit anyway, so it didn’t happen.  Kory, sweet as he may be, is also very stubborn. 

Kory went ahead and framed in his shower stall, just to keep his dream alive, but it now functions as a closet.  And when he was building the sauna, I just happened to go downstairs when he was setting the floor insulation.  There was a large hole cut into it in the exact spot he wanted a drain.  I asked him why he’d cut that hole and he just said, “In case I live longer than you.”