What is your house worth?

Real estate appraisers look at many things when they appraise the value of your home. Size, quality of finish, materials used, number of rooms and comparable sales in your neighbourhood.  Realtors have other things they consider- mostly the market and what buyers are looking for.

 

Sellers have their own considerations, things they think about when they try to figure out what their house is worth. They know what they paid for it and they want a return on their investment. Surely it’s worth more now than when they bought it. It’s worth the labour they put into landscaping, the time-consuming effort of building up the claylike soil with years of compost, the time spent nurturing saplings as they grew into trees and seedlings turned into flowers. It’s worth the many dollars they put into upgrades. It’s worth the hours they spent on cleaning and maintenance. It’s worth the good taste they put into renovations.

But when you sell your own home, how can you put a value on it? How much is your dining room worth- the place where hundreds of family meals have been consumed, the place where your lively book club has shared thoughts deep and shallow, the room where your entire family has gathered for Christmas dinners, the room filled with candlelight, laughter and love?  

The basement bathroom with its mural of tropical fish, painted by your daughters after a trip to Central America? How much is your living room worth- the site where your local arts presenting group Stage North was born, where local NDP volunteers strategized, the site of so many get-togethers? Where your dogs sit on the window seat and bark at Roxy and Annie and any other dog or child that walks by?

How can you put a dollar figure on the family room where you sit every morning watching the birds your husband lovingly feeds? The back deck where you drink your cocktails every summer evening, in your once-bare back yard, now surrounded by an impressive forest of  trees? How do you evaluate your big basement with its long bar and cozy fireplace, home of your fabulous Christmas parties? The apple tree that has grown to produce enough apples to feed the neighbourhood? And what about that basement door, the one your teenagers snuck through after a night of partying? How much are those memories worth?

 

There is another element appraisers consider when evaluating a house- something they call “best possible use”. Best possible use means the best way for a property to be used. Maybe the little house your husband grew up in is better suited for its new location as a summer cottage on a Saskatchewan lake instead of its former spot on a residential Edmonton street. The 50s split level he grew up in- on “the biggest lot in the district” as his mother says- maybe the “best possible use” for that property is for it to be split into two like so many other lots, the house replaced with two modern two story homes. Maybe the best possible use for the elegant arts and crafts bungalow my dad grew up in West Point Grey was for it to be torn down and replaced with a pink stucco mansion.

 

The bottom line is your house is worth what someone is willing to pay for it and in our case that number was a lot lower than I expected. But when I think about it, maybe now the house needs to be put to its best possible use. It’s a family home now occupied by two people.  It has rooms that sit empty year after year. Maybe its best possible use is for it to once again be lived in by a family. A family with kids that can run in the yard and hammer out tunes on the piano and sit around the fireplace and grow up to sneak in and out of that basement door. A place where a new family can make their own memories.

 

So I will say goodbye to our house.

 

A house that has given me memories worth more than any dollar figure, memories I will take with me to my new house, wherever that may be.

 

And I say welcome to this house, new family. May its fires warm you. May you harvest the apples from its tree. May your rooms be perfumed with flowers from its garden. May you share many dinners with candlelight, laughter, and love. 

And please. If it's not too much to ask. Could you feed the birds? They are going to miss us.

nicola vs chair

The chair wants to be pink.

I want it to be white.

For the past three weeks we have been engaged in a battle of wills- me as the aggressor and the chair as the passive-aggressive “victim”.

 

In the middle of moving, for some reason, I decided to refinish this chair. I tell myself that I do not want to move it if it isn’t worth fixing.  But I don’t think that’s the real reason. As I dismantle so much of the life I have spent the past thirty years building, part of me wants to hold on.

 

My parents bought the chair- a decrepit platform rocker- along with a matching loveseat, at an estate auction near Beaverlodge in the early 70s. At the same time, they bought the oak table that currently sits in my dining room, the 6 chairs now owned by my middle child, and a spool bed now owned by my sister. While every other item has been refinished, reupholstered and put to use, the chair has languished in basements, garages and storage sheds for the past 50 years. The upholstery has faded to an ugly green-gray. Pieces have fallen off. The wood seat, replaced at one time with plywood, is mildewed and rotting.  My dad tried refinishing it once and could not get past the red stain that someone, long ago, had applied. A stain that permeated the wood.

My friend Kelly volunteered her husband Bruce to rebuild the seat, so that problem was solved. He is a master at fixing things.

I decided to paint it white to go for a shabby chic look. 

I should have talked to people first but instead I gave it a good wash with mineral spirits and sanded it down lightly before I started painting. The stain immediately bled through. I painted it again. And again. My friend Sheila said to use Bull’s Eye primer so it covered it over with that. Again and again. Still pink. Whatever stain was applied is resistant to change. The chair wants to be pink. My English teacher friends said try shellac primer. So I used that. Better.  But still a little pink.

 

The painting gives me time to think. I think about our upcoming move. We have lived in our current town for 30 years and in our present house for 14 years. Why are we moving? Moving away from our dearly beloved house and a community where we have great friends? A place where we can go to the local brewery and always find people to visit with over a pint? But our kids have moved far away and we want to be just a little bit closer to at least one of them. I do not like the politics of this place and I know I can’t change it. I don’t like the long winters. After the fire, I thought I could help remake the town into something new and better. But it will always be what it is. Part of me feels that if we stay, I will become like this chair, gradually fading away to nothing. 

I need something to restore me.

 

When I move, what will change? Will a different life be a better life? After 30 years here, how much of me has been imbued with the culture and landscape of this place? How much of me will be resistant to change? We would like to move to the Columbia Valley. An acquaintance said, “Oh, then you’ll be mountain people.” We also thought of Vancouver Island, to which my brother’s partner said, “Oh, then you’ll be island people.” Are we mountain people? Are we island people? What would either of those identities entail? The only true geographic identity I have ever had is being a northerner. A northerner, with all the stubbornness, resiliency, “can-do” attitude, creativity, and self-sufficiency that entails.

Can I be something else?

 

I think I am winning my battle with the chair.

 

It’s almost white. But I’m not done yet.

 

I know that when I am finished, I will always see a little pink. I will always know that under the paint, there is a stain embedded deep in the wood. A stain that cannot be removed. Like the chair, for good or for ill, I will always be stained by my history and geography and all those who have impacted me. Whatever replaces the north as home will only ever be a layer over my true self. Underneath, I will be a northerner wherever I go.