Most people pick their friends based on sympathetic personalities, socio-economic similarities, common interests, or the age of their children. But we seem to be collecting friends who, like us, live in old and partially renovated houses. I can’t decide whether our rural roots or similar value sets are bringing us together or whether there is just a natural, bone-deep comfort with not having to explain the ongoing peculiarities and demands of the old houses that heavily influence our lives.
Regardless, here is my makeshift ode to friendship entitled: The Top Ten Things I Love About Hanging With Friends Who Have Old (and Unfinished) Houses. Cue the harp.
- I love that I don’t have to explain the Cheerios stuck between the floorboards that refuse to dislodge with a regular vacuum.
- I love that my friends just stoop over and reinstate the wonky door sill without missing a conversational beat. And I love that their kids ride that sill like a surfboard.
- I love that they never critique the half-finished wall. Instead they compliment on the miraculous nature of fitting that much completed work into an already jam-packed schedule.
- I love that they’re not put off by super-steep basement stairs that scare off others more accustomed to code compliance.
- I love that they all smell like their old houses, too.
- I love that they will have tea and remain in their seats without constantly jumping up like jackrabbits, worrying about whether baby is ingesting cobwebs or sneaking out the back door (an impossibility, incidentally, because EVERYTHING squeaks.)
- I love that somebody has that obscure tool, drill bit or crankshaft that I need right this very moment and is happy to lend it, assuming they can find it.
- I love that when they visit they’re already wearing an extra sweater and they bring their slippers and think it’s normal that wind whistles through old windows.
- I love that they’re not appalled by those curly golden no-fly strips and their inevitable attachments.
- And, finally, I love that no matter what unexpected physical circumstance has befallen our house this week one of our friends can always top it.