Jul 21, 2021 3 min read

I think my house is slowly trying to kill me. It’s not like the Amityville Horror house or anything creepy like that. If that were the case, then the house surely would have tried to electrocute me a few months ago when I changed out a light fixture for the first time in my life. I double, then triple-checked the power was switched off and said a prayer before turning it back on and flipping the switch. No zaps, explosions or fires yet, so I felt a huge sense of accomplishment and am pretty certain the house didn’t have it in for me.

Now, I’m not so sure. It might just need some actual elbow grease and attention, or it could be pranking me by continually producing annoying problems and projects. Just when I think I’m done with my list, there’s always something that suddenly arises. It started about seven years ago when I was redoing the original bathroom. I chipped off the 1950s tile from the walls with a hammer and screwdriver and scraped off the 1990s wallpaper border. My contractors did the rest and it turned out beautifully. Next came new flooring in the basement and laundry, new drywall in the basement and me priming and painting the 1970s paneling a nice shade of light-blueish grey. A sump pump, new driveway, and new porch railings followed. I scraped off more wallpaper and border in the rest of the house and stairway. I painted that stairway and the laundry.

I was too exhausted to paint the upstairs myself, so I threw money at the problem. What would have taken me two weeks took my painter only two days. I cleaned out the shed and garage, including my dad’s old workshop, and then was left staring at the crumbling old concrete garage floor. A wonderful crew ground it down and applied a snazzy new epoxy coating. Again, I was finished… until I looked at the grubby, dingy garage walls. Sigh. I spent two days last week slathering paint on those walls and woke up so sore I could hardly move.

I have recovered and just finished repairing the peeling vinyl panels on my patio doors. All that’s left is to finish spray painting my old white wicker patio furniture. Just as I was thinking my projects were done… I walked through the living room only to gaze in horror at some paint bubbling on the ceiling! Luckily, the problem is not a leaky roof but apparently just new paint over old plaster. Sigh. I actually yelled at my house asking if it was trying to kill me with work and threatened to sell it once and for all.

Then I thought about how much work it will be to move. My painter has promised to fix the ceiling bubbles, so I’m not posting a “for sale” sign just yet. For now, my projects list is complete!

Kristin Emery can be reached at kristinemery1@yahoo.com.