Thomas W.P. Slatin

I’ve been a freelance photographer for a long time (long before the digital photography era, mind you), and as such Angie and I would travel.  We would often travel to various places all over New York State, stay in hotels for a week or so, and fall in love with the place.  Often times we would wonder what it would be like to live there.  There is a big difference in being a resident as opposed to a visitor or tourist.  We would dream of staying, and on occasion, we would.

Angie and I rented many apartments before finally settling down and buying our own place.  Everywhere from New York City to Plattsburgh, and every place in between.  It was a good life, but one that was faced with uncertainty.  Uncertainty about where we were going, both in life and in our careers, and in where we would end up moving to next.  But if I had to do it over again, I probably would, I’d just hire professional movers to move us instead of loading and unloading another moving truck by myself.

The places we lived generally had similar rules and regulations concerning the care, upkeep, and acceptable modifications to the apartment.  By modifications, I am referring in general to things like decor, hanging things on the walls, and paint.  In NYC, our lease stated that nothing could be changed at all; no nails in the wall, no paint, no phone wiring, NOTHING.  I hated this because I like to play around with things customize my surroundings to gain efficiency and organization, though the outcome isn’t always what I had envisioned.

On the other hand, we rented an apartment from a nice lady near Plattsburgh who pretty much let us do whatever we wanted with it, as long as we got her approval first.  We lived there for quite some time, and eventually were pretty much given the run of the mill.  She treated us well, and we became friends with her, and would babysit her children on occasion.  But unfortunately, this too didn’t feel like home.  Despite the fact that everything was perfect, it wasn’t ours; we were, in a sense, borrowing the space for a small fee.

We finally settled down and purchased our own house.  At the time, we felt as if the world was ours (a really really tiny speck of it was), and that we could do anything we wanted to with it.  It felt like our own little piece of heaven.  Two years of new home bliss passed, and things started to be…  Not so heavenly.  Things started to need repair, updating, and attention.

First, in the dead of winter, one our pipes broke.  Since it was PVC pipe, I fixed it in no time.  The next day, another pipe broke, then another.  Soon, a chain reaction of pipes started breaking.  Apparently, PVC wasn’t as reliable as I thought it to be.  I broke down and hired a plumber to replace all the pipes in our house.  A little piece of [almost] heaven was back.

Suddenly, one morning, I decided to have my septic take pumped because we were getting annoying and stinky gas bubbles in our shower drain.  I called in a septic service who told me that my tank had to be replaced come spring time, but they pumped it out and I waited.

Then, in the spring, the electrical needed some attention, but I decided to put this off as long as I possibly could because electrical work is expensive.  Very expensive.

When the septic people finally replaced the septic system, they needed to install wiring to run a pump to send the excess water to a leech field.  This unfortunately required wiring to be done in the house.  In came the electrician at a time when I was already broke trying to get the septic system replaced.  I ended up giving in again and having the whole entire house re-wired once and for all with state-of-the-art breakers and surge protection.

Our little piece of heaven was beginning to become a little piece of reality.  But it’s okay because when Angie and I feel like changing something, or doing something, we do it.  Nobody can really stop us from making subtle changes to our place because as I like to say, we bought this place fair and square, and we’ll do whatever we want with it.

Just recently, I started painting the place, because it hasn’t been done in over 10 years (according to a neighbor who has lived here for most of his retirement).  Although wiring and plumbing makes sense to me, simple things like paint, primer, and brushes are still a mystery.  For example, what is the purpose of primer when paint sticks to wood (and my hands, my clothes, my dog, etc.) really well on its own?

Painting is a very boring, mundane, repetitive and messy process.  It begins with going to Wal-Mart or Home Depot or Lowes and buying paint.  I might add that the paint shown here is ColorPlace Antique White, which is very old-school for the retired 1-Room School House we live in; Wal-Mart sold me a gallon of this paint for $15 (with tax), while the other places (Home Depot & Lowes), wanted much more.

So, after painting trim around the house for an hour or two, I realized that when I’m done with the paint, I’ll need to hang two doors, and then put a roof on my tiny house.  It’s always something when you own your home, regardless of the size.  When Angie and I first moved in, folks thought we were crazy and wondered why we didn’t want a bigger place.  It wasn’t until recently that energy prices went sky high that we were thankful that we lived in a small home with electric heat.

I don’t live in a shoe like the lady with 12 kids, but where I live suits my needs.  In comparison to the multi-million dollar estates I see on MTV’s Cribs, there are still some places that are small when compared to my place.

Posted under Photography, Writing