Home Improvement

the slow work of sanctification

“Two weeks.”

The couple looked at each other with unexpected delight. Only two weeks? they thought. Surely the renovations for this house should take at least a month! And surely, they were all wrong—the subcontractor who promised a two-week turnaround and the couple who estimated a month-long project. It took much longer than anyone anticipated.

In 1986, two young couples bought stately older homes that just needed a little TLC (or so they thought). One couple were the fictional Walter Fielding (Tom Hanks) and Anna Crowley (Shelley Long) in the comedy The Money Pit. The other were my parents. I remember watching my parents watch that film. They were in tears, and I couldn’t tell if theirs were tears of laughter or delirium.

Walter and Anna’s miseries mirrored my parents’. As soon as one problem was solved, another popped up almost instantaneously. There were no short-cuts or quick fixes. Everything seemed to be falling apart. A little TLC turned into a significant undertaking.

As owners of a 40-something year-old home, Matt and I can commiserate with Walter, Anna, Johnny, and Linda. In fact, we just had our aging foundation repaired. We knew something was amiss when all the oil in the cooking pans pooled to one side, or when the beautiful white oak floors we installed seven years ago started waving like the ocean (I’ve since learned the technical term is “cupping”).

There are two hard realities of homeownership: everything takes longer than you think and something always needs fixing.