Home recap (Part four...This time with pictures, yo. )

So...In case you were curious, we bought a house.  Ours is still on the market, but it took us a long time and many offers before we found our place.  (Which only happened because the other offer made fell through and we got the call.  And we were *just* about to quit for a few weeks and focus on our own home.  Funny how that works)   The net we cast was to include Northeast, Golden Valley, St. Anthony, and eventually Columbia Heights and New Brighton.  (CH is going to mess things up for people when it locks the gentrifying post-collegiate set after the current home owners age themselves out.  We found some scorcher looking beauts in there for not much $$$)

 

NB has the schools we wanted (diverse) and is still close enough to our friend-family who still lives close by.  I'll miss having the coffee shop and bakery so close (and my co-op, and restaurants, etc) but we fell in love with this silly, mid-century home with butcher block countertops and spacious basement to let our kid roam and run.  So KEEP your OLD Brighton, suckers.

 

For you amusement, pics of the new digs at the bottom, and a pictorial history of my family homes.  The only set back so far was a dead ass bloated bunny in the back yard.  That's good luck, right?:

"Closingggg tiiiiime"-  When I closed on my NE home, it was a 4 hour process and my wrists hated me.  We were in and out of our title company in 30 minutes and they insisted on posing with these sign props.  Missus P and I thought "We said YES to the Address" was on brand, but went more traditional MN.  It is also our least favorite picture of the two of us.

"I need a picture in front of the SOLD signage.  I didn't get one here, and I won't miss my chance this time."/"Well, the seller's realtor is taking it out today."  I burned ass early this morning to take this, you're welcome New Brighton.

69th and Colorado in B.P.  Current Zillow image, but what I remember most was running into the old cornfield that butted up to our tree-lined back yard.  That, and we had one of the most Famous Tae Kwon Do teacher's in the nation that lived down the street.

This was my Childhood home in BP from 1980 until I moved out for good in 1997, then back home in 1999, the out for good until Mom and Dad left for their Plymouth townhome in 2005.  Not pictured is the barn that was in between our house and 2nd garage, which makes it seem more rustic/pastoral than it really was.  In that porch was the hot tub, which my mom and dad encouraged me to use if they were out of town and bring a date.  In my late father's own words:  "I'm okay if you wanna go in bare ass.  Your mom and I do all the time".  Hashtag scarred for life.

Never mind the child with the chicken on his head.  Behind me was my neighbors house.  I wouldn't find out until *years* later there was a fairly contentious relationship between my folks and them.  Why I share this is because between 1992 and 1996 I house sat for their snowbird butts while they left for their Hawaiian condo and I took care of their menagerie consisting of: 5 cats, 3 Greyhound rescues, an elderly Yorkie named Tahlulah, and a Gray Parrot that swore and faked the doorbell/telephone. 

 They had a water bed and one of those orthopedic bendy beds which were both less fun than you think you'd have as a young person.  They also had a room *full* of creepy dolls lining the wall. 

100% NOT how this So. Mpls/Harriet bungalow off of Aldrich looked when I rented it for a year.  It's a 4/4ba now, but it was a 1 story 2 BR/1 BA home when I was there.  Garish, and it's Zestimate is almost 900K.  Ok.

 

And here we have the family mansion from 2005 until 2021.  It's off market while we move, but if you have people interested in a charming 3 BR/1 BA NE home with built ins, significant upgrades and a tremendous yard. (With additional plumbed sewer basement which is DRY as a bone, thank you.)  Just check our listing on social media.  Picture 2 is my vicious attack Bean, keeping eyes on you.

 

 

 

Okay, Ramblers...let's get rambling.  Say hello to the new Ranch.  There are sour cherry and Zestar apple trees in front.  I'm floored.

 

 

 

Deck, or as they say in New Zealand "Dick", flops down onto a paved patio.

White picket fence?  Check.  Right now the stairs at the bottom are flanked with lillies and hostas and it's a Perennial Paradise.

 

 Never mind I don't want anything on the butcher block ever.  No scuffs or wine stains or I will scream.  

I promised my wife and family I had something in mind as a symbolic first decoration for the built in cabinetry.  I figured the sand-to-glass statue from our wedding ceremony was where this needed to live.

 

We brought my in-laws and my kid over for dinner and a walk-through after closing.  Izzy's in the 3-season leading out to the deck which had bespoke furnishing when we showed up.  It's...it's really lovely and has a great view of the pond out back.  Dead bunny not included.

 

Home sweet Home part 3...it's where you make it, after all.

 16 years.  1/3rd of my life.A 100 year old house has been my home. 

 

 I didn't think during all my past daydreaming that my first "adult" purchase would have caused this much stress, otherwise I would likely still be living half in a storage unit and/or in an apartment.  Or my first home would have been my late parents townhouse.  Hand me downs have been my life, as a 2nd child.

I'm reflective because of how much I've changed during this phase of my life.    After the first year of remodeling this home, my life upheaved and after a very plaintive "roommate wanted" ad on the local theater chat room I found myself with a roommate who turned into one of my dearest friends who was my mother's escort during my wedding.  

8 years later my wife moved in.  I've lost pets, seen relationships and friendships end and discovered and nutured others.   I've nursed recurring nightmares about this place, hangovers, had plumbing dissolve, roofs collapse, sewers back up, furnaces stall, gas lines replaced, a teeteriing and moldering rotted garage replaced, dead trees removed, bats, bees, and eventually a baby all happen in the span of 16 years.

And the two people that were proudest of me- my mom and dad? Are no longer with us.  I'm remembering Mom with her little dance she did in the dining room the day I was handed the keys.  Dad, beaming that his son got his first home with all the character and the big city lot (and the inexplicably fertile vegetable garden)...standing and giving me a hug while staring at my home with this strange reverie while saying he was proud of me.  He said that to me on his last day on earth.

  This blog started because of this place.  I no longer possess the energy to revisit the 700 posts.  Apparently I had a lot to say in 2006.  In 2017 I had nothing to say.  And based on how awful that year hi, it's probably for the best I didn't.

We love the beating heart and soul of this area.  This neighborhood.  The culture. The restaurants.  The Northeastness of it.  And if we could have the kind of home (and space) we think we  needed to raise Izzy we'd destroy this place and build and we'd stay forever.  

Except daddy is 46.  And I am pushing myself to be an energetic, dynamic, and positive force in my kids life.  And I just think I'd be aided with not having to traverse stairs to let out a dog or warm some milk when my kid is crying at 2am.  And basically not have to go upstairs to go potty or to bed or to watch TV.  Yes.  I'm complaining about stairs.  So after a lot of searching and offers in one of the craziest home sale markets since 2007, we found an incredibly lovely place in New Brighton not 10 minutes north of us.  I call it NE adjacent, since it's on the confluence of NE and St Anthony and Columbia Heights.  It's a cute rambler that's nothing like the family homes we had been looking at, and fits our needs and space to a T.

We closed on our new home together.  Another landmark in our lives together and the beginning of Phase four or something in my own.  As we frantically box and pack I've found room to admit to my wife that I don't think I've ever *not* worried about this place.  From my weird recurring nightmares about home invasion and floors collapsing and the house flooding to just general..."Now what's going to go wrong?"  You get used to that stress over time and stop thinking about it, but it's there.  Like thousands of weighted burrs picked up on clothing after walking through a field.  Our new house is half the age of our present house.  Has a finished basement to let my kid run and romp.  Has a large park and nature preserve nearby.  An upstairs and downstairs.  A deck and patio.  Tended perennials.  And on a quiet cul-de-sac.  No sidewalks.  No 100 ft footpath to my alley garage. Just us and the neighbors and an adjacent pond that fields ducks and heron.

I have a new neighborhood to get into my body and new neighbors to greet and say their names over and over in my head and write down so I don't forget and assign nicknames to that I'd never share. As I type this, my child is sleeping for the last night in her first bedroom.  After rocking her to sleep my wife reminded me of that.  And I found myself a bit overcome with emotion.

And yet people move all the time, you say.  

I say homes have life.  Urban city's have life.  They feel pain.  Joy.  They expand and breathe and exhale with the energy of the residents.  I have placed a considerable amount of my time and energy in this home.  Audubon.  Waite Park.  Windom Hill.  In NE, these are our neighborhoods and we've given them names.  And I will miss this part of my life as terribly as I won't miss the constant shoe-dropping worry.  

Now we just need someone to come in and love it as much as we did.

 

Home sweet home part 2

 If I may wrap this up...

Fillmore...Lincoln...Buchanan...Northeast is awash in streets named after US President's ending with (I think) McKinley right before you hit Stinson.  In 2004 standards it was a far drive for my partner, commute-wise, to head to their bread and butter gig... but my guts and my dad's voice and my heart was pressing unconventionally toward NE Minneapolis.  We'd bid on a few places and fell in love with 2 specifically- however fate was great and handed-us an inspector/appraiser that was honest and transparent and...weird....

  He was elderly and dotty, armed with a toolbelt and kit and telescoping ladder.  He was tanned and blinked a lot like a camera had just flashed, and made weird jokes and analogies about homes being like people.  He managed to talk us out of two offers because of damage he discovered while scampering up his telescoping ladder and explaining the cost analysis of rot and damage around windows you may not have seen..  It could have been a complete blast of bullshit, of course. My father would insist on being there for the inspections having been an inspector himself.  They'd chat amiably afterwards, for too long, while we all stood on a lawn watching them have their chinwag.

I liked them a lot.  He'd make a weird comment and blink, then say "I guess you could say I have a weird sense of humor...".  Occasionally he brought his niece/apprentice with.  SHE was pretty gorg and laughed at his weirdness, and would go up on roof tops that were too steep for him to navigate.  Her demeanor, I wouldn't realize until later, reminded me of the staff at the hospital that helped deliver my kid.  Hair up.  Tan from the elements.  Fantastic laugh. "All so pretty" as my wife remarked.

When my realtor and I made an appointment and eventually walked in to the (President) Taylor St property, there was a family of four living there- technically six (If you count the two pugs)- It was early September and it was an older house.  It ticked off a list of things we believed we wanted, in spite of having a strange pet smell about it and cracking in the walls and...filth.  The kitchen was old with a 50 year old antique stove, no dishwasher, rusty pipes and the bathroom (Last updated in 1979) tiny.  And maybe you *could* rough in a bath around that basement toilet on the floor, but does that really count as "two bathrooms?"

When the inspector came by, of  course he blinked a lot, scribbled a lot in our homeowners book, and chatted with me...he said: "Well, she's from 1918.  If *my* back looks this good when I'm 90?  Then I'd be happy to take up gymnastics.  But I have a weird sense of humor."

The roof was new.  Furnace.  Electric.  A/C.  Even the model-T garage with swing out counter-weight doors and leaning like a parallelogram was fine.  Offer made.  Offer accepted.  Neither of us made enough to support a zero-down loan, but we split it between a HELOC and 30 year.  My credit passed.  

We had a house.  *I* now had $180K of debt to my name.  I would raise this amount by $20K taking out a box store home-improvement line of credit.  And tens of thousands of dollars to maintain the place after that.  I didn't think this would be the one I share... but I have a very intense memory of my dad and I raking in the fall before I moved in...the silver maple in the back yard had dumped 45 bags worth of leaves and we were thigh deep trying to get them all in piles.  

"This is the best part, Mikey! Welcome to home ownership!"

It's a very warm Fall day....  I'm sitting on my back stoop off 46th and Lyndale.  It's November, and I had just spent 4 hours at the closing and my forearm was tired from signing so much.  I remember the former owners were only there to sign off and leave, and they chuckled in a formidably sinister way.  I was in debt with a mortgage and HELOC,  I was home from my 2nd job at the formal wear store and it was 9 o'clock at night and I was almost entirely through an entire magnum of Bella Sera Pinot Grigio and feeling the weight of the enormity of the debt pressing on my body.

 I was drunk.  I was unhappy.  I was hyperventilating and hearing the airport traffic. I was now a homeowner, for better or for worse.

 

Home sweet home part one

In Spring, 1980... I have a very specific and vivid memory of my experience moving into my childhood home

The house looks gigantic to my five year old eyes.  I'm running around the back into a second driveway leading to a 2 car garage.  (It has TWO driveways!)  There is a long row of lilac trees at the back border separating the yard from the other neighbors.  Between the back yard and garage is a gigantic BARN....gray and brown with a sliding front door.  It is the COOLEST THING EVER with an UPSTAIRS and you can hear the skittering of squirrels on the roof.  I want this home.  I want this to be our home.  Our old home off 69th and Colorado, just down the street from the Lee's and Gerulises backed up to an enormous cornfield that had recently been blocked off for a *development* and my parents didn't want us to have to walk across the busy four way intersection of 69th and Zane to go to school.  

My big-kid eyes make me feel my dad doesn't like it, but the storage alone had my mom's tail wagging.  (I didn't know that hoarding was a problem.  I just saw places to *play*) Our neighbors:  The Peterson's, Illgen's, and Johnson's all seem like nice people and it was a quiet cul-de-sac.  As a cop/HCSO deputy, the neighbors are welcoming.  I know Dad likes the energy and the idea of importance.  

I'm starting kindergarten in the Fall.  This is my childhood home in Brooklyn Park.

It's Christmas, 1994, and I am a newly minted 19 year old.  I normally live in a tiny sublet apartment in NE Minneapolis but I'm house and pet-sitting my neighbor's for the third year in a row in Brooklyn Park for the Winter.  Today, we're gathered at my Gramma Pat's in Robbinsdale for Christmas dinner and  I'm in their cool cold basement on a bed, the smell of turkey and cooking and menthol cigarettes wafting throughout the home and I'm daydreaming *hard* - I think about owning this house someday.  About using Killz to cover the smoke-smell, about replacing the curtain in front of the 2nd bathroom in the basement with a real door...I'm essentially using the logic of a child that sees a pile of cushions or boards laying around and I'm building a fort.  I'm thinking about hosting party's with alcohol and being able to fool around in privacy and my best friends being my roommates.  I talk to my dad privately after subsequent gatherings about the idea of my moving in after my grandparents moved on or go to assisted living.  I sell it to him by saying I'd carry on the tradition so we can all still gather around the holidays.  I know he thinks it's a good idea. My dad can't live without these kind of traditions.

Gramma passes in early Winter, 2001. My older sibling is gifted the house which they eventually sell  for a profit in 2005.  I never cop to this out loud.  I never argue.  Of course it goes to the older sibling.  

We never hold another family Easter, Thanksgiving, or Christmas with my extend family on my dad's side again.

In 1987 my dad explained to me the idea (in Robbinsdale) of the boomer homes that sprouted up on the Parkways between 1945-1950's.  He familiarizes me with the idea of land and property being "the only investment that consistently increases in value*."  In doing so, he plants the seed of home ownership being a "sure thing" and I have no reason not to believe him.  In fact, by Christmas 1994, I've got the "why pay rent when you should be paying a mortgage on an investment" threaded through my mind.

After high-school, I'd been either living at home, house-sitting, or living in that tiny NE Minneapolis sublet.  In the mid-90's, I had been spending my nights with my girlfriend in the room in a 4 BR Camden rambler shared by their weekend warrior roommates.  I pestered the owner about home ownership and all he would say was:  "Don't do it.".  My first full year as a student at the University of MN I was still committed to housesitting my Brooklyn Park Neighbors for the 5th year in a row, but as  student at the U it made no sense I lived so far away, so I made the move to Uptown (after my father insisted I pay an exorbitant fee to rent my own room.**)  Even then, I dreamed of owning my own home without having to bang on walls to quiet down my neighbors.

It's 1997 and I'm working at Target Financial Services off 394 and Penn. I'm a caretaker of a small building in Uptown off 33rd and Lyndale.  I love it. I pretend it's my home.  I vacuum, mow, shovel, wash windows.  I still find things to hate about it.  I hate being called by the management company.  I still daydream about a home.  I start a habit at work on Sunday's where I grab a free newspaper on my break.  I read the Variety (comics), theater employment (the 550's for auditions), and the real-estate section.  My dad has been talking about NE Minneapolis for years- how much he likes it, how it's old school.  He means white, without saying it.  Polish.  Czech.  He wants me to buy a fixer-upper.  We occasionally go on car rides together.  It doesn't matter that I have never re-wired a home or used a saw outside of a tree-saw.  He thinks I can buy a $40K property and turn it around in 6 months.  That the price will double based on my occupancy.  I buy the hype.  Why would I not believe him?

Our weekend IT help desk supervisor, Geno, sits next to me on break as usual.  He says he's a part-time realtor and asks me the usual questions like "where are you looking" ("Northeast is cool") and how much money I have ("None?  Well ,you might qualify for blah blah blah").  He then asks me: "Well, if you're planning on staying here for the next 5 years you should be good..."

5 years.  I'm 23 years old.  I don't know where I'll be in 5 weeks much less five years.  That question terrifies me.  The "What If's" crash on my head.  I don't know the ideas of privilege or how to even save for this.  I like going dancing on Friday and Saturday night's.  I have $343.00 in credit card debt.  Five years would be 2002.  Jesus.  That's a cold-hearted question, to me.

I wind up in NE Minneapolis for another year, after spending 3 months at age 25 living at my parents and feeling like a failure.  I wind up working in Western ND for the Summer of 2001 as a singing/dancing cowboy***.  I come home and my parents and the parents of my partner secure us an Uptown apartment next to Bde Mka Ska for $825 a month.  The world and the US goes tits up in September of that year.That's the absolute last time I would live in  an apartment after I turned in my keys in the late Summer of 2003 and moved to a rented house.  

 It's September, 2003 and mom and dad take a picture of us on the front stoop after a long day of moving.  We're paying $1,200 a month for a 2.5 room bungalow in the Lake Harriet neighborhood.  And after about  6 months and a wedding proposal, my partner and I decide we are wasting our money and should find a house if we're spending so much money.  I have 2 credit cards now.  I feel poor all the time in spite of working 2 jobs

The house right next to us opens up for a rehab sale.  It's a pig sty, but we're optimistic.  The realtor asks us what we do and we tell them we're actors and their demeanor cools.  "Maybe you should find a nice apartment or townhome?"  Fuck you.  We find an ambitious new realtor and spend the Spring 2004 looking in earnest.  We're shot down dozens of times.  I spend so much time on a mortgage calculator figuring out what we can afford with no down payment and come to a figure of $180K.  We take the Summer off.  After searching Hopkins, Saint Louis Park, South Minneapolis, and Golden Valley...I ask if we can start looking in Nordeast.  

Our realtor starts emailing us potential NE Minneapolis homes.

*I love my dad.  It took me a while to start finding flaws in his arguments, but there'd be none bigger than realizing my dad didn't understand real-estate in the contemporary sense.  Dad saw it as a post-depression/Eisenhower-era gratification investment.  It's here, when sifting through their investments I learned my father strayed away from anything that held a lot of risk and shoved it all into REIT's.   This, I'd like to say from my own simple experience, was just fucking dumb.

**I know my dad was doing it to keep me out of the home and foraging my own path.  I also know he would have likely kept my checks or paid me back with interest from an account as a "gift".  What I never understood is the cold-hearted way he (and my at-the-time GF's dad) thought, in 1995 dollars, charging $800 a month in rent was a reasonable ask.  I don't think any of us were even clearing $450 with working part time and being full-time students.  Shit, my rent at the sublet was less than half so I was paying $175 of the $375 total.   

***It's late-August 2001 and I'm working part-time at the local coffee shop in Western ND.  My co-worker is very pregnant and runs the shared shop space that sells pottery.  She lives in Eastern Montana, about 47 minutes due West on 94.  It's their second child.  We've a flirty, polite friendship that's grown over 14 hours a week for the last 3 months.  She asks about my new Minneapolis big-city place with my girlfriend.  She knows how relieved I am to have found someplace sight unseen.  She asks how much rent is.  

"$850 for a one-bedroom.  $825 if we choose to do a one-year lease"

(I hear coughing and choking)  "Are you okay?"

"Are you SERIOUS?  My MORTGATE isn't even $450 a month and we have a 4 bedroom HOUSE!"

Yeah...it's Eastern MT, but you get the idea.