Tearing Down Walls

There's no perfect way to raise a family.  There are thousands of ways to produce great kids.  What you have to do is play your own game, and not play someone else's.

We live in a type of house which most in the Twin Cities metro are familiar with, a rambler.  These houses started to gain in popularity in the 1940's, as the first real suburbs in the Twin Cities took hold (St. Louis Park, Richfield, Roseville, Little Canada, Hopkins, Maplewood).  They all have a similar layout, with tiny differences to give each homeowner a feeling of uniqueness.  In the 40's and 50's, these houses might have been the beginning of mass produced homes, but they were very well built, far more sturdy and reliable than most homes assembled today.

The layout: on the main floor, a living room/dining room, kitchen, one full bath and three bedrooms, one of which was a walk through.  The basements were concrete squares with a wash tub, washer and dryer.  They were the epitome of 1950's opportunity, homes for the working class in an affordable modern suburbia!

When we moved into our house, our neighborhood had over half of the homes owned by the original owners.  They had raised their families, four, five, six kids, converted the basement into a family room, maybe a bedroom for the oldest, the driveways went from gravel to concrete to asphalt, the yards developed into a bastion of bar-b-ques, family get togethers, kids sports and gardens.  Trees grew up, now offering a shady canopy.  The families who bought these homes stayed, because it was all they'd ever hoped for.

Then came the 90's and 2000's.  Owners started to pass away, and homes started getting flipped.  The houses were a great buy, but the mid 20th century style made them a hard sell.  They became starter homes, houses you were meant to own for only a short period of time, just long enough for you to find some 4000 square foot mini mansion in one of the more 'desirable' suburbs.

When my wife and I found our house, it was in need of a lot of improvements.  We fixed what we could, on our limited budget, and the rest we saved for a later date.  After having three kids, when the living arraignments got too crowded, we built two bedrooms and a 3/4 bath in the basement.  It was needed relief.  Even though the changes made the house work better, it exposed a flaw these houses have; too many walls and too many doors.

We decided to knock down the center wall, open up a few doorways, replace the windows with larger ones, and added a sliding glass door.  Even though we're in the early stages, the house already feels so much bigger, more open.

Outside of the bathrooms, we don't have locks on the interior doors of our house.  We decided early on we didn't want our kids hiding in their rooms, rarely interacting with us, or their siblings.  Every lock was removed.  The TV went into the basement, not in the main room upstairs.  We didn't want every family conversation having to compete with it.  A rule was established; we respect their space, and they respect ours.  Although we failed miserably at limiting our kids screen time overall, we do make them put them down, encouraging them to read and talk with each other.  We've always strived to remove walls from our family's life, and now we're making our house match.

For awhile, we thought about moving to a bigger house.  What convinced me to stay put and remodel was a visit to a house where my daughter was having a play date.  It was a very beautiful house, but HUGE!  I was given a tour and even the owner chuckled as he couldn't validate half of the rooms.  Two were storage for Costco runs.  One for toilet paper alone.  The kids had their own wing, "away from us, so it stays quiet." Their bedrooms were on the complete opposite side of house from the parents, six rooms and a flight of stairs away, with their own playroom and television room.  I even noticed a microwave and mini fridge.  Why even interact with your children at dinner, when you can buy a 40 pound bag of pizza rolls and they can micro them when they get hungry.

In the cavernous space of this man's luxurious house, the walls were invisible but numerous.

Don't get me wrong, I understand some people treat houses like an investment.  Some people treat them as a place to build a family.  I think when you try to do both, or neither, you end up with a mess.

We're tearing down walls in our house, letting in more light and making it fit us.  It's becoming the house of my dreams.  I'm continuing to play my own game.  I kick ass at my own game.