Let the rebuilding begin

When we began looking for a house to buy in Belfast, we were very careful to look for something we could afford. One that I fell in love with, in Stockton Springs, was huge and old and beautiful, but while we could afford the mortgage, the heating bill would have bankrupted us - which is why it was on the market. My husband and I learned a lot about affordable housing in the area, and we decided to buy a little house in Belfast’s East Side (capitalization for cultural identity emphasis!). The East Side is strange by other states’ suburban standards; there are mobile homes falling apart with trash all over the yard right next to well-kept trailer parks and at least one huge farmhouse with a turret overlooking the river. There are also quite a few houses like ours - World War II era track housing, built for functionality rather than aesthetics.

Moving in here was disorienting and chaotic, because we had a month-old infant and were completely sleep deprived. I readily admit that I purposefully did not look inside of the cabinets as I shoved my kitchen stuff haphazardly into them. I was too tired to think about fixing anything. Then I had another baby, eventually a new job, and then another new job...

And now I am finally ready to look inside the damned cabinets.

They’re gross. But sometimes in this world, we all have to pull our heads out of our asses and take some responsibility for the gross truth in order to start the journey toward making it better. And we can’t do it without help! So in our family, I’ve managed to take all of the cabinet doors off their hinges, remove their respective hardware, and transport them into our garage. After consultation with our expert friends at our local Aubuchon, James and I donned gloves and opened the garage to begin stripping the paint.

Man, this stuff is caustic. One drop on my skin and it's a chemical burn. I made James take a break during the chemical pouring after that; once it gets to a certain point of solid absorption, it’s safer for him to help me putty knife all the crappy stuff off.

During this process, we’ve seen all of the half-ass patching and repairs previous homeowners have done to this. No one has ever gotten down to the naked bottom layer in order to fix it correctly and make it actually nice, because it required too much work and time investment.

I have energy, though, and so does my best helper, James. And we have a vested interest in making things good around here, not just making them LOOK good.

It’s how I feel about Belfast, too. It’s beautiful here, with so much potential for wonderful growth. My East Side is a significant part of this town, and we, too, have much to contribute to the unity and development of this town and it’s further beautification.

I’m invested. I have energy. Here we go!