Life After Mother: Make it Simple, Make it Home

“Don’t remodel the kitchen and baths if you’re planning to sell, only if you’re planning to stay. If you’re selling, the buyer will want to remodel the kitchen and baths the way they want anyway,” a real estate agent advised me.

When I moved into my mother’s house, I decided I wouldn’t do any major renovation, only routine maintenance — and the house was in desperate need of routine maintenance. I’ve spent the last few years catching up — cutting down the tree that was damaging the roof, repairing the roof, painting the interior and exterior, installing new doors and windows and screens, replacing fencing and gates, getting new flooring in the kitchen, taking care of some inevitable issues with plumbing and irrigation and electrical fixtures — a few new switches, a few new outlets, a new kitchen-table light. The uneven loose brick driveway got replaced with an asphalt one, restoring the look the house held in my childhood memories. I got a new refrigerator. Before I knew it, I’d burned through more than $100,000, just on simple routine home improvement.

The house’s mid-century bathrooms remain cramped space — that can’t be changed short of major remodeling. The shower in the guest bathroom is like a phone booth with tile walls. The shower in the so-called “full” bath isn’t enclosed—try showering in there, even with a curtain, and you’ll get water all over. 

So I didn’t remodel the baths, but I freshened them up, starting with fresh paint. The front guest bathroom has always been “the brown bathroom,” and it’s now the same sandy sunny Southwestern peach as the living room. The back master bathroom has always been “the blue bathroom” and it’s been brightened up with a gentle shade of aquamarine.

In the blue bathroom, the wallpaper was flaking and peeling, and I faced three choices. I could repair the wallpaper, but that’d likely be temporary. I could select a new design — and not that many stores stock wallpaper these days. I had to search paint stores to find one with a wallpaper department. After looking at available designs, I went with my third option — just replace the old wallpaper with an extra roll of the same tropical-floral design, which I’d found conveniently stashed in a closet. A friend suggested I browse Yelp to find someone to install wallpaper  — I did, and one more home-improvement chore was done.

Several companies tried to sell me a complete replacement of “vanities,” new sinks and counters, but I just wanted to replace the battered mid-century-modern pegboard cabinets with new fronts. When I found a guy who was willing to do the job, I told him I wanted a tropical or Mediterranean look. The designs I selected for the cabinets and hardware turned out more Southwestern, but Southwestern means Spanish means Mediterranean. New towel racks and artwork completed the transformation.

So after three years, I’ve at last caught up on the home-improvement projects. I’ve kept it simple, and made it home. That’ll do, at least for a while.