Home Improvement

Shortly after Eric and I got married we started to look for a house to buy and spent many weekends driving through neighborhoods. One of our favorite areas was in Long Beach. Eric lived in Belmont Shore for a couple of years before we met and I had been there quite a bit myself. It is a great Long Beach neighborhood with homes blocks from the beach and a charming downtown you could walk to. (Walk to? In Southern California? I know!) Belmont Shore is a very expensive neighborhood - so we were dreaming. But just a little north and a little inland is Belmont Heights! Almost like Belmont Shore; it has the word Belmont in it, and you could still walk to Belmont's cute downtown AND, umm, get into really great shape doing it. We had found our place. We contacted a real estate agent to show us some homes in our price range. Not a range so much as the absolute maximum amount the bank would give with a more or less traditional mortgage structure (no 100% financing or negative amortization b.s.). The homes we saw that day were 1,000 sq ft total teardowns. And you know what? That would have been ok, because it was in Belmont Heights! But there would be no money for a remodel; it would have taken everything just to get into the house.

The weekend after we crossed Long Beach off of our list, we drove around Irvine and looked a new construction neighborhood right by UCI. I wanted to look because I love looking at the model homes that are built to sell the homes that haven’t actually been built yet. I thought that new construction would be much more expensive than older homes, because, you know, they're new. Well, not always so! We checked out the models, loved the location, made the quick calculation that we should go for the three bedroom vs. the two bedroom and made an offer the next day! We moved in five months later, almost one year to the day of our wedding - aawww.

With a new home, everything is well new, so there really are few of the hassles that come with home ownership. Nothing is broken, nor will break for a while. We really just had to decorate and put up bookshelves and such after we moved in.

One afternoon after a lovely trip to IKEA, Eric started to install a shelf that would double as a small desk in our guest bedroom. Since the shelf needed to be pretty sturdy, at least strong enough to hold a laptop, and stand up to some regular use, solid installation was important. Unexpectedly, there was trouble finding the studs, and some trouble getting the shelf straight and some stripped screws, and some holes in the wall and some cursing, then some more cursing... at first was kind of funny, then I offered to help, then I realized staying out of the way was the way to help, then I was starting to get annoyed, I heard more frustration from upstairs, and I couldn't believe that a little shelf was causing all this ANGST, and I was starting to get agitated and my blood pressure was going up and finally I just yelled to Eric "STOP OVERREACTING!!!". Silence.

What happened next could have gone a lot of different ways, but we both starting laughing because, you know, I was the one who had clearly overreacted.

We learned a lot that day. Mostly importantly we learned that Eric and I are not people who enjoy home improvement activities. That is why someone else will be designing and installing our new bathroom shower, tub and tile. And why I am SO FREAKIN' THANKFUL, we did not attempt a full home remodel in our first year of marriage.