Recently, I read a Facebook post from a fellow preservationist I believe many can relate to.
"If people thought of old houses like classic cars - I would have so much "free " time . No 55 Chevy ever looked better by ripping off the fenders and replacing with fiberglass & removing the bench seat for an 'open' concept." *
I can understand the sentiment. Occasionally, someone asks me why I care so much. Comments and questions like "it's just a house" or "is it really worth all of this?" are not as rare as I might like. They do give me an opportunity for what I see as very simple questions that might open the eyes of another to the cause.
I can give anyone empirical evidence for why original is best (not to mention greener, cooler [okay, this one might be subjective] and less expensive) in many, many cases. What I had trouble with is finding a way to show why old houses should be saved whenever possible (hint: it's possible about 99.8% of the time).
This is it. Think about your favorite old car. Imagine the line of the pin striping and the curve of the glass. Consider the gleam of the body work and paint. Picture the upholstery, perfectly lined and waiting for the road trip of a lifetime.
You'd never let someone put a crowbar to it or send a sledgehammer through it because it was easier than repairing the damage done by the kid who ran a red light or opened their door too fast. You wouldn't rip out the upholstery because someone spilled their juice box or coffee. You'd never let sell the original window or mirrors or fenders to someone because they're not new.
The same things that make those classic cars special - something nearly everyone can agree upon - is what makes a classic home special. They don't make them like this anymore.
To someone, this home is historic - it holds their history. It holds memories of coming home from a hospital with a new baby, cleaning up scraped knees, checking under a bed for monsters, getting letters from 30 miles away because Grandma's on vacation and wrote home. They're the memories of day to day life for someone, good or bad, and the walls hold those moments and a few mementos to boot. To those people, it's probably not just a house.
This home has lived more than four times longer than me and is well on its way to outliving everyone on the planet. Isthmus House is 105, the oldest person alive is about 115. As one of the first homes in this neighborhood - one of the first neighborhoods in Madison - it qualifies as historic in my book.
Financially, this is a great investment but that's not usually what people are talking about when saying "all of this." They're talking about the late nights scraping sealant off of tile, long days of hunting down the right hinges and repairing a window frame or a faucet.
Those days and nights are worth it because I can rest easy at the end of them knowing that I did something good. I used my hands (that aren't naturally skilled at things like plumbing and carpentry) and my mind (that's not predisposed to great mechanical workings but is fine with hard work) to help something bigger than myself. I'm giving the next generation a tiny piece of history, complete with plaster walls, 7-inch baseboards actually made of wood, wavy glass windows and Douglas Fir floors. I'm showing them that older things can grow with us and can survive us and that the feelings they give aren't unique to an era or even a specific century. I'm giving a mom or dad a place to enjoy the home of their great grandparents knowing their kids can play safely while they cook dinner or make a sack lunch.
For me, it's knowing that this home and its past is someone else's future - everything it's meant to a family in yesteryear and everything it's seen. Anyone who knows me well would say I'm rarely sentimental but it's important for me to know that I'm saving the home some future family will love. That makes this old home's restoration completely worth every second of every minute of every long day. What more could I ask?
*That preservationist is Nicole Curtis. I try to always give credit where it's due and I have to credit her for setting me down this crazy path and thank her for contributing to my obsession over original anything and everything.
For the sake of artistic license and the need for a rhyme, we're calling today's post a tome. Thanks for understanding :)
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