Sarah E. Kucharski photo
Christmas tree
It’s not too much above freezing outside, but in my living room a loaf of a cat rises in the warmth of the sun, the dog sleeps peacefully sprawled in front of the space heater, and my husband is clattering about in the bathroom where he’s patching plaster and scraping paint from the door frame. We bought our 1930s bungalow five and a half years ago, and as all old houses are wont to do, ours has yet to stop being a work in progress.
The previous owners spent 40 years in the house. The fact that the man of the house worked at the mill is evidenced by the overall care taken of the house, but from what we know, he passed away a decade or more ago. I’m not sure exactly when in the process it became the norm to paint over brass light switches, electrical outlets, and door hardware, but we’ve stripped all these things (tip: put it in a Crock-Pot set on low and add a bit of laundry detergent, soak for hours on end).
We’ve had the hardwood floors refinished, and my husband has stripped paint from eight solid wood doors, then sanded, planed, sanded, steel wooled, stained, steel wooled again, and varnished them all. He had a similar process for our kitchen cabinets, which now glean with enameled paint. We had the windows replaced, but kept with the bungalow style, and had a shower put in around the cast iron inset tub using white subway tile on the walls. We’ve replaced light fixtures and painted radiator covers. We’ve landscaped and put up a new mailbox (thanks to a careless driver who obliterated the original one along with a particularly nice Forest Pansy redbud).
All that’s left to do is to repaint all the exterior window trim and porch columns, refinish the massive front door with its original beveled glass and hand-wrought hardware, repaint the bathroom, rewire the entire house, add some more insulation … and … well, sell the place. It’s not that we don’t love our house. It’s not that we want another one on which to spend our time. It’s that we want more than two-tenths of an acre within the city limits, and by we, I mean he, my husband, who has dreams of never seeing a neighbor because in our jobs we deal with so many people that home is our place of solace. It is where we go to escape all of the day’s mandatory socialization. It is where we may be peacefully alone, together.
Of course, our home is also where our friends and family gather. We host several parties each year—most with a creative theme ranging from 80s night to ugly holiday sweaters—and on Christmas Eve we embrace the tradition of pea soup, pierogi, and nut roll that was passed down from my father’s Czech and Polish family. These gatherings have created so many rich and colorful memories for us all. The beauty of a memory is that its home is in the heart.
This issue of Smoky Mountain Living is dedicated to home, wherever it may be, however it is defined, and whatever its role in one’s life.