This Old House

As Tyler and Jaci prepare to buy a beautiful house built in, as I recall, 1925, I'm thinking about the sort of things that would make an appropriate housewarming present.

I love old homes. I think they have charm, class, and a personality that modern homes just don't have. John's and my house on Irving Street, NW, was filled with charm and incredible paneling in the dining room and warmth and narrow strip hardwood flooring and personality and a sleeping porch and on and on. We never had a bit of trouble with that house except for when we decided to install air conditioning. When I sold, a year after John's death, I learned the a/c installer had put the unit in upside down. That cost a pretty penny to rectify!

So based on the love of that house and the romance of the dining room paneling, I decided to buy a 1951 house last summer. Then, the Thursday before New Year's we had a protracted rain, and my plumbing backed up. And the skylight leaked. Yesterday the toilet in the hall bath was on the verge of overflowing. And last night — I arrived home to a note from one neighbor and another neighbor coming around the corner as I unlocked the front door. The pipe on the backyard shower by the pool had frozen and blown the top off the shower. A geyser of water ten feet high had been spewing into the air for much of the day.

So back to the issue of a housewarming present. I'm thinking it starts with a heavy-duty plunger. Then a container or two of copper sulfate, to eat away any roots in the pipes. Beyond that, I think probably just a bucket of money earmarked for repairs. And maybe a rabbit's foot for luck, in the hopes that would keep that old house from falling apart.