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The Mystery of the Kitchen Cabinets Nobody Could Reach · Repcolite Home Improvement Show

0:02
Speaker 1: Hey everybody, thanks for tuning in. You're listening to Home
0:04
Speaker 1: in Progress by Repco Light Paints, sponsored by Benjamin Moore.
0:08
Speaker 1: And I want to start today's episode with a question
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Speaker 1: for all of you. You know, we're just jumping right in.
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Speaker 1: I've got a question. What is the weirdest thing in
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Speaker 1: your house? And I don't mean people. I don't mean people.
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Speaker 1: I mean things. What is the weirdest architectural element or
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Speaker 1: the most unusual thing in your house? You know, something
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Speaker 1: that you can't explain. You can't figure it out. A
0:29
Speaker 1: door that opens the wrong way. You know, you wonder
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Speaker 1: why did they do this? Why does it do that?
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Speaker 1: Maybe it's a patch in the floor where something used
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Speaker 1: to be, but nobody really knows what it was. Can't
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Speaker 1: figure it out. You wonder about it for years. Eventually,
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Speaker 1: you just forget about it and you just live with it.
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Speaker 1: What is that weirdest, most unusual thing? Another question. What's
0:49
Speaker 1: the coolest or the weirdest thing? that you ever found
0:51
Speaker 1: in your house, you know, something unexpected in a wall
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Speaker 1: or under a floorboard, you know, something that you found
0:57
Speaker 1: when renovating, you know, anything like that. If you did
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Speaker 1: find something, what was it? And what did you think
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Speaker 1: when you found it? You know, did it tell you
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Speaker 1: anything about the house, about the people who were in
1:07
Speaker 1: it before you got there? Because I think most of
1:10
Speaker 1: us live in a place that had a whole life
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Speaker 1: before we showed up and we almost never think about it.
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Speaker 1: I didn't. And then, and then I did. So today
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Speaker 1: I want to talk about my old house in Zeeland.
1:22
Speaker 1: It's Zeeland, Michigan, for all of my podcast listeners from
1:26
Speaker 1: around the world. I've got like three of them, maybe
1:29
Speaker 1: four of them. You know who you are. For all
1:32
Speaker 1: of you podcast listeners around the world, it's Zeeland, Michigan.
1:35
Speaker 1: That's what I'm talking about. My first house, built in 1928,
1:39
Speaker 1: bought by me in 1999. Now we moved in. We
1:44
Speaker 1: were super excited about all the work that the previous
1:46
Speaker 1: owners had done. You know, that was a huge selling
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Speaker 1: point of the house. They'd redone the entire main level, right?
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Speaker 1: You know, beautiful wallpaper in the dining room, beautiful original trim,
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Speaker 1: all cleaned up, painted throughout some of it, stained and
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Speaker 1: varnished in the bedrooms, new crown molding, new carpet. The
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Speaker 1: whole thing, that whole main level was absolutely beautiful. And
2:08
Speaker 1: we were so, so happy when we bought it, when
2:11
Speaker 1: we moved in. The house was perfect. You know, it
2:13
Speaker 1: had a screened in front porch, I basically lived there.
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Speaker 1: You know, three seasons out of the year, I was
2:19
Speaker 1: out there, you know, sitting there early in the morning
2:21
Speaker 1: with coffee, late in the evening, reading, reading. I was
2:25
Speaker 1: going to say reading books, but I guess that could
2:28
Speaker 1: have been said, right? We read other things. Anyway, I
2:31
Speaker 1: was out there reading late into the evening. I love
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Speaker 1: the sounds of the neighborhood, you know, the screened in porch.
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Speaker 1: I could hear everything. The great breeze is blowing through.
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Speaker 1: You know, you hear dogs over here, people talking over there.
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Speaker 1: And yet I'm in my own space. That was really
2:45
Speaker 1: important to me. I'm participating in the life, the collective
2:50
Speaker 1: life of the neighborhood, but I'm still in my own space.
2:53
Speaker 1: There's an element of privacy to it. I loved that porch.
2:57
Speaker 1: I miss that porch in a big way. Anyway, being
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Speaker 1: in an older house, the whole thing, it had its
3:03
Speaker 1: share of weird little quirks, things like that. One of
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Speaker 1: those quirks, probably the most intriguing and probably the most frustrating,
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Speaker 1: if I could say it that way, was our kitchen cabinets.
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Speaker 1: I think I've talked about them before on the show,
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Speaker 1: but we had uppers and lowers around two walls of
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Speaker 1: the kitchen, just like normal, but a third wall had
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Speaker 1: just uppers. And man, let me tell you, they were uppers.
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Speaker 1: I'm not a tall person. I'm a little bit on
3:33
Speaker 1: the shorter side of average, let's say. But still, even
3:36
Speaker 1: to tall people, these things were nuts. You know, I
3:39
Speaker 1: could literally stand up underneath them without hitting my head.
3:42
Speaker 1: I could stand up underneath them and jump a little
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Speaker 1: bit and not hit my head. I needed a ladder,
3:47
Speaker 1: and I'm not being, you know, funny here or sarcastic.
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Speaker 1: I really did need a ladder, literally, to get to
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Speaker 1: the second of the four shelves, right? The top shelf,
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Speaker 1: it was veiled in mist. You know, it seemed so
4:02
Speaker 1: high up, like the peak of Everest, right? It was
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Speaker 1: up there. I don't know what we ever put up
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Speaker 1: there or why we would ever put anything up there
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Speaker 1: because we're never going to get it down without an
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Speaker 1: extension ladder. Kitchen cabinets. Everybody who came to the house
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Speaker 1: had a theory about them because they all noticed them.
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Speaker 1: It's not like something that you had to be there
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Speaker 1: a while to really notice. People would walk in. Oh,
4:24
Speaker 1: what a nice kid. Whoa, those cabinets are high. That
4:27
Speaker 1: was pretty much how every interaction went for people first
4:30
Speaker 1: visiting the house. And everybody had a different theory about them. Now,
4:34
Speaker 1: for me, the best working theory that I could come
4:36
Speaker 1: up with was that the first owners were monstrous, right?
4:41
Speaker 1: Incredibly tall. Amazons. You know, they had to be. It
4:45
Speaker 1: turns out that wasn't, in fact, the case. And I
4:48
Speaker 1: found out literally what was going on because about 10
4:51
Speaker 1: years after we moved in, I met a lady in
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Speaker 1: her 80s who walked into our kitchen one Saturday afternoon
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Speaker 1: and explained exactly what why they were built that high
5:02
Speaker 1: and in that manner. And she was really confident, you know,
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Speaker 1: in the reasoning behind, you know, what she was saying
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Speaker 1: because her dad was the one who had built them
5:09
Speaker 1: and she'd grown up in the house. That was such
5:12
Speaker 1: a great opportunity, you know, to meet her, to walk
5:16
Speaker 1: through my house and hear all the stories that she
5:20
Speaker 1: remembered from years and years back, you know, growing up
5:23
Speaker 1: there as a little girl. I ate all of that
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Speaker 1: up and I ate it up because I'd been thinking
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Speaker 1: about all of these stories and wondering about these stories,
5:31
Speaker 1: not just the cabinets, for years. You know, thinking about
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Speaker 1: the people who had lived there before me, what they'd done,
5:37
Speaker 1: what they'd been like, all of that stuff. And I
5:40
Speaker 1: was thinking about all of those things, partly because the
5:43
Speaker 1: cabinets get you wondering, because it was so strange. But
5:47
Speaker 1: mostly I was thinking about those things when that lady visited,
5:51
Speaker 1: because like a year or so after I bought the house,
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Speaker 1: There was this old dingy room in the basement, you know, far,
5:59
Speaker 1: far reaches of the of this old Michigan basement. There
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Speaker 1: was this little room. It had a workbench of sorts
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Speaker 1: against one wall. And then it had floor to ceiling
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Speaker 1: wood shelves that ran all along an adjoining wall. You know,
6:10
Speaker 1: like I said, it was this creepy old basement, old
6:12
Speaker 1: Michigan basement, whatever you want to call it. So at first,
6:15
Speaker 1: when we moved in, we didn't really do anything with it.
6:18
Speaker 1: You know, we just kind of, yeah, the basement's there. Yeah, unfortunately,
6:21
Speaker 1: that's where the laundry is. And let's just not spend
6:24
Speaker 1: a lot of time down there because we don't know
6:26
Speaker 1: what's lurking down there. It was a creepy old basement.
6:30
Speaker 1: But once I got there and, you know, we started
6:33
Speaker 1: living in the house, I really soon began to need
6:36
Speaker 1: a dedicated, you know, room or workshop, you know, for tools,
6:41
Speaker 1: for things like that. Since there already was a workbench
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Speaker 1: in that room and the shelves were already there, I
6:46
Speaker 1: decided that was the room for it. So I started
6:48
Speaker 1: working down there to get it all fixed up. And
6:51
Speaker 1: it was so much fun at that point. You know,
6:53
Speaker 1: it's a new house. It's my first house. This is
6:56
Speaker 1: my domain, right? And I'm making this little space that
7:01
Speaker 1: I'm going to, you know, largely be the person working
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Speaker 1: in it. I'm making it exactly the way I wanted
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Speaker 1: it to be. I remember just completely on top of
7:09
Speaker 1: the world. My kid has his first house right now.
7:12
Speaker 1: Same thing. You know, once you get to your second
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Speaker 1: and third, now the work, it's not quite as exciting
7:18
Speaker 1: when you see that you get to do these things.
7:19
Speaker 1: But in the beginning... It's like, oh, wow, you know,
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Speaker 1: I can do this and dad's not going to take
7:24
Speaker 1: the sander out of my hand and do it for me.
7:26
Speaker 1: I get to do all these things. The world at
7:29
Speaker 1: that point was my oyster. I really, really remember those days. Anyway,
7:34
Speaker 1: I worked at Repcolite back then. I was already doing that.
7:37
Speaker 1: I was working in the Lakewood store in Holland. And
7:39
Speaker 1: so many of the conversations that I had with customers,
7:43
Speaker 1: you know, all through those times revolved around exactly that.
7:46
Speaker 1: what I talk about on the radio now, making your home,
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Speaker 1: your space, exactly what you want it to be. And finally,
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Speaker 1: I was able to do that with my own home.
7:55
Speaker 1: The previous owners had made that main level almost perfect,
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Speaker 1: and that was really nice. You know, it was a
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Speaker 1: big selling point to the house. But God, you know,
8:04
Speaker 1: just after a little bit of time there, I realized
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Speaker 1: that I really had the itch to do something, but
8:10
Speaker 1: everything seemed to be done. I could tackle the upstairs.
8:12
Speaker 1: The upstairs needed work, but it needed A lot of work.
8:15
Speaker 1: I needed a mid-range project to kind of get me
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Speaker 1: moving because I hadn't done a lot of this before.
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Speaker 1: You know, I'd done some furniture refinishing and things like that, but,
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Speaker 1: you know, not taking on rooms and stuff. So that
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Speaker 1: upstairs was going to wait. This workshop was perfect. You know,
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Speaker 1: this was my way that I was going to put
8:30
Speaker 1: my stamp on the house. And I know it was
8:33
Speaker 1: just a workshop. You know, nothing that exciting. But anybody
8:36
Speaker 1: who has one knows there's really no such thing as
8:38
Speaker 1: just a workshop. They're like man caves with a purpose.
8:42
Speaker 1: You know, a purpose beyond TV and lounging or whatever
8:45
Speaker 1: man caves are for. These are creative hubs, these little rooms.
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Speaker 1: This is where maintenance gets done. You know, you do
8:53
Speaker 1: tool stuff. This is where Pinewood Derby cars get, you know,
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Speaker 1: built and painted and stuff like that. This is where
8:58
Speaker 1: dollhouses are painstakingly glued together and painted and wallpapered and
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Speaker 1: prepared for Christmas presents for daughters. This is where bookcases
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Speaker 1: are constructed. That's workshops. It's a great space. So I
9:11
Speaker 1: was super excited to make this space, this workshop, mine.
9:14
Speaker 1: So I got to work in there and I started
9:16
Speaker 1: with the floors and the walls, spent some time getting
9:19
Speaker 1: them all cleaned up, you know, getting rid of the
9:21
Speaker 1: spider webs and the dirt and all of that stuff.
9:24
Speaker 1: And in the process of doing all of that, you know,
9:27
Speaker 1: while constantly brainstorming what I was going to do with
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Speaker 1: the room, I found some writing on one of the walls,
9:32
Speaker 1: you know, real writing, you know, not, not figurative writing
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Speaker 1: on the walls, real writing on the walls. And it
9:37
Speaker 1: was all done in pencil and It was all cursive.
9:41
Speaker 1: And at first I absolutely thought I'd struck it rich.
9:45
Speaker 1: I really did. It was tough to read in the
9:48
Speaker 1: light that I had. I didn't have very much light
9:52
Speaker 1: in there. And so it was tough to read, tough
9:54
Speaker 1: to notice. And in fact, I only noticed it in
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Speaker 1: the first place because I was moving a work light
9:59
Speaker 1: around the room. so I could actually see what I
10:01
Speaker 1: was doing in another corner. And as the light played
10:04
Speaker 1: across it on the wall, I noticed it when I
10:07
Speaker 1: did that. Anyway, I started looking at it. It was
10:10
Speaker 1: tough to read. And as I stood there with my
10:12
Speaker 1: light against the wall, I really did feel a little
10:15
Speaker 1: bit like Indiana Jones. I was not nearly as mature
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Speaker 1: as I am now back then. I had dreams of grandeur.
10:24
Speaker 1: You know what? I just had dreams. The dreams quit
10:27
Speaker 1: after a while, but back then I still had them.
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Speaker 1: You know, anyway, I felt like Indiana Jones and I
10:32
Speaker 1: was sure that I was going to read on the
10:34
Speaker 1: wall at some point, you know, something that said five
10:37
Speaker 1: paces west from the giant maple. There we buried the
10:40
Speaker 1: great treasure. You know, something like that. Like I said,
10:43
Speaker 1: like Sam joking, but I was really convinced there was
10:46
Speaker 1: something pretty good out there. You know, there's a reason
10:49
Speaker 1: somebody wrote this this cryptic stuff on the walls. and
10:53
Speaker 1: it's going to be treasure, and I'm going to find it,
10:55
Speaker 1: and oh my goodness, every dream I've ever had is
10:58
Speaker 1: going to come true when I'm looking at all that gold.
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Speaker 1: That's what I was thinking. Something like that. Anyway, I
11:04
Speaker 1: leaned in close. I started working out the faded words,
11:07
Speaker 1: and I could see 1940. I figured that out, and
11:11
Speaker 1: a great big line underneath it, and I was so excited.
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Speaker 1: This was old stuff, right? Old treasure. I was wondering
11:18
Speaker 1: where my shovel was. so I could get out there
11:21
Speaker 1: and start digging right away. But I needed the exact
11:23
Speaker 1: location first, so I kept reading. In 1940, four, what's
11:28
Speaker 1: that word? Four quarts of pickles, five quarts of peaches,
11:33
Speaker 1: eight quarts of green beans, and so on. So no treasure,
11:38
Speaker 1: just a list of foods that the people back in
11:42
Speaker 1: 1940 had canned. And I was a little bit bummed,
11:44
Speaker 1: but it really wasn't too bad, right? It was still
11:47
Speaker 1: pretty interesting to read all those things. And when I
11:50
Speaker 1: kept examining the wall, I found more lists, the same
11:53
Speaker 1: thick cursive strokes, but this time for 1941, 1942, 1943,
11:57
Speaker 1: ending in 1944. Quarts and quarts and quarts of pickles
12:00
Speaker 1: and beans and tomatoes and peaches and jams. You name it,
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Speaker 1: they canned it. So I stood there a long time
12:07
Speaker 1: reading over all of these things and then, you know,
12:10
Speaker 1: looking at the shelves against my other wall and I
12:13
Speaker 1: started imagining them. full of these jars, you know, mason
12:16
Speaker 1: jars lined up, you know, two deep, three deep, you know,
12:20
Speaker 1: I could picture it all. And I started thinking about
12:23
Speaker 1: the work that somebody put in all those years ago
12:25
Speaker 1: to stock those shelves. And then I started thinking about
12:28
Speaker 1: the kids coming down to get a jar of peaches.
12:31
Speaker 1: I could hear the pop of the lid when the
12:33
Speaker 1: seal broke, you know, that little, you know, that Pop,
12:37
Speaker 1: I can't do it, but you know what I'm talking about.
12:38
Speaker 1: You know what mason jars sound like when you break
12:41
Speaker 1: that seal and open them up. Pretty good stuff. You know,
12:44
Speaker 1: I bet those kids snuck peaches. That's what I kept thinking,
12:47
Speaker 1: because I would have snuck peaches. I bet they did.
12:50
Speaker 1: I thought about all of that stuff, and it was
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Speaker 1: a little bit strange to think about how my home
12:56
Speaker 1: wasn't really mine. This should not have been a newsflash
13:00
Speaker 1: to me, and I don't know really why it was,
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Speaker 1: and I don't really know why it still plays out
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Speaker 1: in my mind as such a Such a big deal,
13:08
Speaker 1: you know, but I could clearly picture that that was
13:11
Speaker 1: one of the first times that it hit me that
13:13
Speaker 1: this isn't really, you know, mine, not solely mine anyway.
13:17
Speaker 1: I'm kind of moving through here. The house had already
13:20
Speaker 1: seen so much by the time I got there. You know,
13:24
Speaker 1: that was the first time I really appreciated its age
13:26
Speaker 1: and its history and all of that. I think it's
13:29
Speaker 1: just so easy to get focused on the changes that
13:32
Speaker 1: we're going to make or the upgrades that we're going
13:35
Speaker 1: to do to this space because it's our house. You know,
13:39
Speaker 1: we get so focused on it. This little discovery made
13:41
Speaker 1: me realize how much bigger things were and how much smaller,
13:45
Speaker 1: you know, my part in the house's history really was.
13:49
Speaker 1: I don't know. It was a little strange, and for
13:51
Speaker 1: some reason, I really enjoyed reading all of that and
13:53
Speaker 1: connecting with the people who'd been there before. But that
13:57
Speaker 1: turned out to be just the start. There's way more
14:00
Speaker 1: that happened, and we're going to dig into that right
14:02
Speaker 1: after this. Home in Progress is brought to you by
14:05
Speaker 1: Repco Light Paints and Benjamin Moore. You know, people often
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Speaker 1: think of paint as just another line item on the
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14:22
Speaker 1: You're listening to Home in Progress by Repco Light Paint,
14:24
Speaker 1: sponsored by Benjamin Moore. And we're talking about my first
14:28
Speaker 1: house in Zealand. It was a nice little house in
14:31
Speaker 1: town built in 1928. And I mentioned last segment, but
14:35
Speaker 1: after about a year or so being there, I decided
14:37
Speaker 1: I was going to convert this old dingy room in
14:40
Speaker 1: the basement into a workshop. And when I started doing
14:42
Speaker 1: the work, I found several lists of food items that
14:46
Speaker 1: the previous owners had canned and stored down there dating
14:49
Speaker 1: all the way back to the 1940s. And that was
14:52
Speaker 1: super cool. But there was way more to be discovered,
14:56
Speaker 1: you know, because after finding those lists on the walls,
14:59
Speaker 1: I went and finished the cleaning and I painted the
15:01
Speaker 1: walls and the floors. I painted all the areas on
15:04
Speaker 1: the walls except the parts with the writing on them.
15:07
Speaker 1: You know, I left those alone. I couldn't paint over those.
15:10
Speaker 1: I left them alone. But when I got all, you know,
15:12
Speaker 1: everything painted, the floors and the walls, I turned my
15:15
Speaker 1: attention to the shelves. Because like I said, there was
15:17
Speaker 1: an entire wall of shelves that needed some attention as well.
15:22
Speaker 1: You know, they were empty, but they needed to be cleaned,
15:24
Speaker 1: and I wanted to get them painted. So I started
15:27
Speaker 1: working on those, and I discovered very quickly that the
15:30
Speaker 1: top shelves were all lined with newspapers that were all
15:33
Speaker 1: from October of 1943. Now, they weren't in pristine condition.
15:37
Speaker 1: You know, they weren't inherently valuable items. but they were
15:40
Speaker 1: so interesting to read through. You know, I was reading
15:44
Speaker 1: them and there's news regarding the war. You know, of course,
15:47
Speaker 1: that was the big story throughout all of the little
15:50
Speaker 1: paper sections that I had. American troops were fighting their
15:54
Speaker 1: way through Italy at that point. Bombers were being sent
15:57
Speaker 1: over Germany. So all of that was the big news
16:00
Speaker 1: of the day in those newspapers that I found. And
16:02
Speaker 1: I'm reading that in that little room. But right alongside
16:05
Speaker 1: all of that There were the normal ads and the
16:08
Speaker 1: ordinary local stories you'd expect to find. It was so
16:12
Speaker 1: crazy interesting. I sat there, I don't know, I sat
16:17
Speaker 1: there for probably a good couple hours, I would think,
16:19
Speaker 1: just reading through the stories, looking at the ads and
16:22
Speaker 1: thinking about how all these people had no idea where
16:26
Speaker 1: anything was going, you know, in terms of world events.
16:30
Speaker 1: I was reading it, you know, 60 years after the fact,
16:33
Speaker 1: and I knew how things turned out. But back then,
16:36
Speaker 1: Of course, this isn't rocket science, but of course, they
16:38
Speaker 1: were living it day to day, paper to paper. All
16:42
Speaker 1: of that discovery in my home happened in one single day.
16:46
Speaker 1: And I remember that day so vividly. You know, it's
16:49
Speaker 1: one of the days that just it's emblazoned in my
16:52
Speaker 1: memory for some reason. I don't quite get it. But
16:55
Speaker 1: I know it was a Saturday morning. It was December.
16:58
Speaker 1: There was snow on the ground. Snow was coming down.
17:01
Speaker 1: kind of hard. We were getting a storm coming in later.
17:03
Speaker 1: I was watching it continue to pile up outside the
17:05
Speaker 1: window of that little room. I had a little space
17:08
Speaker 1: heater going. The work light was hanging from a hook
17:10
Speaker 1: in a corner. And I was sitting on the top
17:12
Speaker 1: step of a stepladder so I could get at the shelves,
17:15
Speaker 1: reading old newspapers and thinking about life and about how
17:19
Speaker 1: life moves. I was thinking about the people who were
17:23
Speaker 1: living in the house at the time, the same people
17:26
Speaker 1: who were canning all those vegetables and all that fruit
17:29
Speaker 1: and all those pickles and You know, they'd sat down
17:31
Speaker 1: one night with this exact paper, kept thinking about that.
17:34
Speaker 1: They were holding it probably, you know, exactly like I
17:37
Speaker 1: was holding it right now, holding it in the same spots.
17:40
Speaker 1: Their hands were in the same spots as they read
17:41
Speaker 1: through these stories. But they weren't reading them, you know,
17:45
Speaker 1: and feeling the interest or the excitement that I was feeling.
17:48
Speaker 1: They were literally living those events. You know, I'm looking back.
17:51
Speaker 1: I knew the outcomes. But for them, each story they
17:54
Speaker 1: read ended with a giant, you know, unspoken to be
17:57
Speaker 1: continued story. There was no guarantee of any given outcome.
18:01
Speaker 1: Nobody knew what was coming. I sat there wondering if
18:04
Speaker 1: they had a son in the fighting or a nephew
18:06
Speaker 1: or a grandchild. If so, did he come home safely?
18:09
Speaker 1: Did they lose him? How worried were they when they
18:11
Speaker 1: read the stories? You know, did they have kids in
18:13
Speaker 1: the house? Were they telling the kids to shh, just
18:15
Speaker 1: be quiet a little bit because I'm reading through this.
18:17
Speaker 1: You know, they needed a little more peace and quiet
18:20
Speaker 1: to get through a stressful report. I don't know. But
18:23
Speaker 1: as I flipped through those papers, I realized I did
18:26
Speaker 1: know that whatever happened and however they experienced the news
18:29
Speaker 1: in the war, they kept going, right? I had lists
18:32
Speaker 1: of all the canned goods that they produced and stored
18:34
Speaker 1: down there a year or so after the date on
18:36
Speaker 1: this paper, and I'm sure they did that work beyond. Anyway,
18:40
Speaker 1: I remember just sitting there and realizing that this wasn't
18:43
Speaker 1: just my house, right? That was the real heavy point
18:46
Speaker 1: that landed on me. So many other people had been here,
18:49
Speaker 1: laughing and crying and living in all these different rooms.
18:52
Speaker 1: It was so interesting. And it got in my head.
18:55
Speaker 1: And really, there's just tons more that I want to
18:57
Speaker 1: talk about. So we're going to do that right after this.
19:01
Speaker 1: Home in Progress is brought to you by Repco Light
19:03
Speaker 1: Paints and Benjamin Moore. Think about it. You spend hours prepping, sanding, taping,
19:07
Speaker 1: and then finally painting. Don't throw all that work away
19:10
Speaker 1: with an inferior product. The paint isn't just another supply.
19:13
Speaker 1: The paint is the project. Make sure it's the best.
19:16
Speaker 1: And we're back. You're listening to Home in Progress by
19:18
Speaker 1: Repco Light Paints, sponsored by Benjamin Moore. And we're talking
19:22
Speaker 1: about houses. More specifically, I guess, we're talking about some
19:25
Speaker 1: strange or interesting things that we found in our houses
19:29
Speaker 1: and what they say about the people who lived there
19:31
Speaker 1: before us. And I was focusing mostly on my own
19:34
Speaker 1: home in Zeeland, my first house, and how I found
19:37
Speaker 1: some interesting stuff from the 40s in the basement when
19:40
Speaker 1: I went to renovate a room down there. I found
19:42
Speaker 1: lists of goods that had been canned in those years.
19:45
Speaker 1: And I found some newspaper articles about World War Two
19:48
Speaker 1: that had been kept on some shelves. But those weren't
19:51
Speaker 1: the only things that we found in the house. You know,
19:53
Speaker 1: I found an old screwdriver in the walls when we
19:55
Speaker 1: were doing some electrical work and we had to pull
19:58
Speaker 1: the boxes out. That was super cool. You know, it
20:00
Speaker 1: was fun to imagine the story behind that. You know,
20:03
Speaker 1: I assume somebody dropped it and either tried and tried
20:05
Speaker 1: to fish it out or they didn't know that it
20:08
Speaker 1: had slipped in and they spent a couple hours looking
20:11
Speaker 1: for it. Right. You know, trying to figure out where
20:13
Speaker 1: in the world did I leave that? I thought that
20:15
Speaker 1: was kind of fun. You know, so I found that.
20:17
Speaker 1: I also found more scribbled writing behind some cabinet doors
20:21
Speaker 1: that were just fakes, you know, in the kitchen. They'd
20:24
Speaker 1: been installed over a run of ducks or something like that,
20:26
Speaker 1: and they were just nailed in place with hinges. So
20:29
Speaker 1: it looked like they were cabinet doors. I assumed they
20:31
Speaker 1: were just painted shut. I didn't put it together that
20:35
Speaker 1: there was nothing behind them until we were doing some
20:37
Speaker 1: work in the kitchen. We were painting everything. And I
20:39
Speaker 1: pulled the doors off, popped them off finally. And rather
20:43
Speaker 1: than new storage space, which is what I expected to
20:46
Speaker 1: discover there, I was so excited to find new storage
20:49
Speaker 1: space for the kitchen. But instead of finding storage space,
20:53
Speaker 1: I found a bunch of writing on the wall behind
20:56
Speaker 1: where those cupboard doors were. And this time it was
20:59
Speaker 1: a map or at least instructions to find some item
21:04
Speaker 1: in the yard. You know, if you remember the first segment,
21:06
Speaker 1: I talked about the canned goods and all of that.
21:08
Speaker 1: When I first found those lists, I didn't know what
21:10
Speaker 1: I was looking at because I couldn't read them in
21:13
Speaker 1: the dark down there until I got lights on them.
21:15
Speaker 1: And at first I thought I was going to find
21:17
Speaker 1: a treasure map down there because I live in a
21:21
Speaker 1: kind of a crazy reality in my head, you know.
21:25
Speaker 1: I'm always looking and expecting to find something amazing just
21:28
Speaker 1: around the corner. Some buried treasure or something like in
21:31
Speaker 1: the movies. But this time when I pulled those doors down,
21:35
Speaker 1: I could see it literally was a map. It was
21:37
Speaker 1: giving coordinates and instructions west, east, this many steps. It
21:42
Speaker 1: was super exciting. I was pumped. And I don't think
21:46
Speaker 1: I've ever told anybody out loud. I've talked about this
21:49
Speaker 1: find before. But I don't think I've really stressed how
21:54
Speaker 1: literally I believed something valuable was hidden in the yard.
21:59
Speaker 1: I've always kind of made a joke about it that, oh,
22:02
Speaker 1: I'm going to go find treasure. I 100% believed I
22:06
Speaker 1: was on the verge of a treasure find that people
22:10
Speaker 1: were going to be talking about for years. You know,
22:13
Speaker 1: the pirates who came to Zealand and buried treasure and
22:16
Speaker 1: little Danny Hansen found it on his yard when he
22:19
Speaker 1: was remodeling his kitchen cabinets or something like that. Anyway,
22:22
Speaker 1: I found those instructions. I followed them to the T.
22:25
Speaker 1: I went out in the dark at night, which I
22:28
Speaker 1: thought was smart at the time. I thought that was
22:32
Speaker 1: smart because people wouldn't see me digging because I'm very
22:35
Speaker 1: self-conscious about things like that. And I didn't want to
22:38
Speaker 1: look dumb. You know, I don't know why digging my
22:42
Speaker 1: yard would look dumb. Digging in my yard in daylight
22:46
Speaker 1: doesn't look dumb. It doesn't look suspicious. It's just a
22:49
Speaker 1: guy digging in his yard. I should have thought that through.
22:52
Speaker 1: But instead I went in, you know, at night under
22:55
Speaker 1: the cover of darkness and I dug then and I
22:59
Speaker 1: didn't stop to think that that's really weird. That is
23:02
Speaker 1: something that will draw attention. Guys digging in their yard
23:05
Speaker 1: in the daylight, who knows what they're looking for, but
23:07
Speaker 1: nobody thinks twice. Digging in your yard at night, you're
23:10
Speaker 1: burying something. right? Somebody, maybe. Fortunately, none of that played out.
23:18
Speaker 1: And I did my little digging and dodged all those
23:21
Speaker 1: bullets of what the neighbors might have thought, at least
23:23
Speaker 1: as far as I know. But I didn't find anything.
23:27
Speaker 1: But I did learn what those instructions were for. You know,
23:30
Speaker 1: I mentioned that a lady visited my house. I mentioned
23:32
Speaker 1: that in the first segment, like 10 years after we
23:34
Speaker 1: bought the house, a lady visited and she had lived
23:38
Speaker 1: in the house. Her dad had built the house And
23:40
Speaker 1: when she visited, she explained that what those instructions were
23:44
Speaker 1: for was probably for what you've already guessed. It was
23:48
Speaker 1: the property line, you know, or the corner where the
23:50
Speaker 1: property lines meet. So that's what I was digging for. No,
23:54
Speaker 1: no treasure. And I wasn't burying bodies or anything like that.
23:57
Speaker 1: It was kind of a big letdown. But I did
23:59
Speaker 1: find that in the house. Anyway, those were some of
24:02
Speaker 1: the things that I discovered in the old house. But
24:04
Speaker 1: let's get back to that visitor, right? Because we've got
24:07
Speaker 1: to deal with this. I had this lady stop by.
24:10
Speaker 1: You know, I'd been in the house for, like I said,
24:13
Speaker 1: probably 10 years, maybe less than that at that point.
24:16
Speaker 1: And I'm working. It's a Saturday and there's a knock
24:19
Speaker 1: on the door. I open it up. There's our neighbor lady.
24:22
Speaker 1: And there's this lady that I didn't know. And I
24:25
Speaker 1: don't normally get visitors. I'm not socially good, I guess,
24:27
Speaker 1: is maybe the It's not the best way to say it,
24:34
Speaker 1: but you know what I'm talking about. I'm socially awkward.
24:36
Speaker 1: I stumble a lot. And so I was very nervous. Oh,
24:41
Speaker 1: there's new people here. Oh, my goodness. I've got to,
24:44
Speaker 1: you know, entertain or, you know, just have a normal conversation.
24:47
Speaker 1: And I struggled to do that. But I stumbled through
24:50
Speaker 1: and it turned out that this lady who I didn't
24:53
Speaker 1: know was a friend, obviously, of my neighbors. And she
24:56
Speaker 1: was visiting for the weekend. And that she'd love to
24:58
Speaker 1: walk through our house because her dad had built it.
25:00
Speaker 1: And that was really exciting to me. And, you know,
25:02
Speaker 1: who in their right mind says no to something like that?
25:05
Speaker 1: You can't come through. So, of course, just please come through.
25:09
Speaker 1: Walk through the house. That'll be great. So she came in,
25:12
Speaker 1: walked through, and that's another day that I remember so
25:16
Speaker 1: vividly that Saturday afternoon. She was so happy. She walked
25:19
Speaker 1: from room to room. She told a story after story.
25:23
Speaker 1: It was absolute gold to just be walking through and
25:26
Speaker 1: listening to everything she said. I can't recount all of it.
25:30
Speaker 1: It would take too long. But I remember a story
25:33
Speaker 1: about the dining room. We walked through the dining room.
25:36
Speaker 1: She pointed out the three big windows that are above
25:38
Speaker 1: the table. And she explained how one day they were
25:41
Speaker 1: eating dinner. Her mom, her dad, her brother, they're all
25:45
Speaker 1: sitting there eating dinner. A storm's coming through. and lightning
25:48
Speaker 1: literally came in through the window, is how she described it,
25:51
Speaker 1: flew across the room, you know, along the wall, and
25:54
Speaker 1: then shot away into the kitchen somewhere and left the
25:57
Speaker 1: house in one way or another. But she pointed out
25:59
Speaker 1: a corner in the dining room. It's all covered with
26:01
Speaker 1: wallpaper now. But she pointed out a corner that she
26:04
Speaker 1: said was completely scorched after that. They had a line
26:08
Speaker 1: across it where the lightning had gone. She described all
26:11
Speaker 1: of that. It was so interesting to sit there and listen.
26:14
Speaker 1: And then every time we had a storm... We all
26:16
Speaker 1: hunkered down a little bit lower. Didn't know, you know,
26:20
Speaker 1: I know lightning doesn't strike twice in the same place.
26:23
Speaker 1: That's what they say. But, you know, when you're me,
26:26
Speaker 1: you plan on it anyway. So that was interesting. Then
26:29
Speaker 1: we went to the porch, you know, my front porch.
26:31
Speaker 1: I talked about that earlier, how I love that porch.
26:33
Speaker 1: That was my porch. She talked about how this was
26:36
Speaker 1: her brother's porch. And he was a year older, maybe
26:40
Speaker 1: a couple years older than her. I can't remember anymore.
26:42
Speaker 1: But that's where he slept all summer long and into
26:46
Speaker 1: the fall. He loved it as much as I loved
26:48
Speaker 1: it all those years ago. You know, it was his
26:51
Speaker 1: makeshift room because his usual room upstairs was way too hot.
26:56
Speaker 1: So she talked about that. She talked about how all
26:57
Speaker 1: the porches up and down the block usually had somebody
27:00
Speaker 1: sleeping on it through the summer months to stay cool.
27:03
Speaker 1: So we talked about all of that. Then we made
27:05
Speaker 1: our way into the kitchen and she talked about how
27:07
Speaker 1: her dad built all of this, you know, the whole house,
27:10
Speaker 1: but the cabinets and all of that and how he
27:12
Speaker 1: laid it out himself, you know. And finally, I couldn't resist.
27:17
Speaker 1: I had to get these answers. So I asked about
27:19
Speaker 1: the cabinets because if you remember the cabinets in the kitchen,
27:22
Speaker 1: I had two walls that had normal upper and lower,
27:25
Speaker 1: you know, basic cabinets. And then we had this one
27:28
Speaker 1: section where the uppers, that's all there were against this
27:31
Speaker 1: one wall, were uppers. And It was crazy high, crazy high.
27:36
Speaker 1: I could stand underneath them and not bump my head.
27:39
Speaker 1: You know, we couldn't reach the shelves. I talked about that.
27:42
Speaker 1: I needed to know why that was there. Why was
27:45
Speaker 1: it like that? You know, why so high? And her
27:48
Speaker 1: answer was so crazy simple. You know, I don't know.
27:52
Speaker 1: Maybe you thought about it. Maybe you guessed at it.
27:55
Speaker 1: But when they built the house, they had a huge
27:57
Speaker 1: chest freezer that sat right there. As simple as that,
28:01
Speaker 1: as practical as that. Her dad wanted to make sure
28:03
Speaker 1: that when you open the lid... You know, when his
28:05
Speaker 1: wife would open the lid to get something out, it
28:07
Speaker 1: could completely open without bumping into the cabinets above it.
28:11
Speaker 1: That's it. As simple as that. That's why they were
28:13
Speaker 1: that high so that the lid, you know, the, yeah,
28:17
Speaker 1: the lid, the door could be opened up. And then
28:20
Speaker 1: later when that chest freezer was moved out and life
28:23
Speaker 1: moved on and different appliances came in, the cabinets, of course,
28:26
Speaker 1: remained and they just stayed there just like that. And
28:30
Speaker 1: eventually the whole meaning behind the architectural, you know, weirdness
28:34
Speaker 1: of it, was completely lost and people were just wondering
28:37
Speaker 1: about it. I'm sure other people who've lived in that house,
28:39
Speaker 1: the people in there now, have to be wondering why
28:41
Speaker 1: they're that high. I know. If they're listening to the show,
28:45
Speaker 1: now you know why they're that high. If you're on
28:47
Speaker 1: Park Street in Zealand, you got high cabinets, that's why. Anyway,
28:51
Speaker 1: when the lady left, she told us that she was
28:53
Speaker 1: going to send us something special as a thank you
28:56
Speaker 1: for letting her visit. And I figured we'd get a
28:58
Speaker 1: card Or something like that. You know, if she even
29:01
Speaker 1: thought to send anything, you know, that's me. I'll send
29:05
Speaker 1: you a thank you. Oh, I can't wait to send
29:06
Speaker 1: you this or that. And I completely forget. People never
29:09
Speaker 1: get anything from me. I mean, well, it's not that
29:11
Speaker 1: I'm lying when I say that I want to send
29:14
Speaker 1: these things. I do want to send them. I guess
29:16
Speaker 1: I just don't want to send them bad enough to
29:18
Speaker 1: actually send them. So anyway, I wasn't really expecting anything
29:22
Speaker 1: from her. She lived in Texas or something like that.
29:25
Speaker 1: I assumed she'd forget she was older. She was older.
29:29
Speaker 1: Not sure. Well, her memories seem pretty good, though, so
29:32
Speaker 1: I guess I should have expected something. But anyway, blah, blah, blah.
29:36
Speaker 1: I didn't expect to get a little thank you or anything,
29:38
Speaker 1: but a couple weeks later... something did show up. A
29:41
Speaker 1: little note with a box. And I'll tell you what
29:43
Speaker 1: she sent, and we'll wrap all of this up right
29:46
Speaker 1: after this. You're listening to Home in Progress, where the
29:51
Speaker 1: projects are real, the mistakes. They're educational, sometimes painful, mostly educational.
29:58
Speaker 1: And the only thing more stubborn than that old wallpaper
30:01
Speaker 1: on your bathroom wall is your determination to get it fixed.
30:05
Speaker 1: Proudly sponsored by Repco Light Paints and Benjamin Moore. Paint
30:08
Speaker 1: with a purpose, people who care, and everything you need
30:11
Speaker 1: to get the job done right. You're listening to Home
30:14
Speaker 1: in Progress by Repco Light Paints, sponsored by Benjamin Moore.
30:18
Speaker 1: And I'm just kind of talking about some experiences that
30:20
Speaker 1: I had with my first house. You know, how it
30:22
Speaker 1: was an old house, how I found cool things in
30:25
Speaker 1: it that dated back decades and decades, and how those
30:28
Speaker 1: things that I found kind of connected me to the
30:31
Speaker 1: people who lived there before me. You know, it was
30:33
Speaker 1: just a really interesting experience. And last segment, I talked
30:37
Speaker 1: about how I met the daughter of the guy who
30:39
Speaker 1: built the house. She had grown up in the house
30:42
Speaker 1: and she had so many stories about it. and all
30:45
Speaker 1: the time that she spent there. You know, she loved
30:47
Speaker 1: it as much as I loved the house. Anyway, when
30:49
Speaker 1: she left, she promised to send us a thank you.
30:52
Speaker 1: And a few weeks later, this little package with a
30:54
Speaker 1: note showed up. And the note, you know, it was
30:58
Speaker 1: a nice thank you. And then it mentioned at the
31:01
Speaker 1: bottom of the little note that in the box, there
31:03
Speaker 1: was something that as a little girl, she really had loved.
31:07
Speaker 1: And when we opened up that box, what we found
31:09
Speaker 1: was a globe for a ceiling fixture. And she explained
31:12
Speaker 1: in her note that this was the globe that was
31:15
Speaker 1: positioned over the light in her room all the time
31:18
Speaker 1: that she lived in the house. And she'd taken it
31:20
Speaker 1: with her when she left the house. And now she
31:23
Speaker 1: wanted to have it back in the house. It was
31:25
Speaker 1: such a cool series of events for me. You know,
31:28
Speaker 1: I love that old house because of what it was
31:31
Speaker 1: for us and for my family. You know, the story
31:33
Speaker 1: that we told when we were living there, the story
31:35
Speaker 1: that we lived when we were living there. But I
31:37
Speaker 1: also loved being part of the house's story. Right. You know,
31:41
Speaker 1: I tend to think of a home as something that
31:44
Speaker 1: moves into and out of my life. You know, I
31:47
Speaker 1: keep my focus on me and my family and so on.
31:50
Speaker 1: But all those events with that old house, all the
31:52
Speaker 1: things that I just talked about kind of made me
31:54
Speaker 1: rethink that a bit. And it really changed how I
31:58
Speaker 1: look at houses and all of these things. But let's
32:01
Speaker 1: just keep it to houses specifically from that point on,
32:05
Speaker 1: you know, that the house was there for all these people.
32:07
Speaker 1: It wasn't just for me. It wasn't just my place.
32:11
Speaker 1: It was there for all these people, you know, all
32:13
Speaker 1: these families and through all kinds of situations through all
32:16
Speaker 1: those years. You know, it was built 10 years after
32:19
Speaker 1: World War I ended, just years before the Great Depression started.
32:23
Speaker 1: It was there through World War II, Korea, Vietnam. You know,
32:26
Speaker 1: at some point in the mid-60s, Beatles songs were bouncing
32:31
Speaker 1: off the walls, you know, coming out of a record
32:33
Speaker 1: player or a radio or something like that. The house
32:35
Speaker 1: was there through the 70s, through the 80s. We bought it,
32:38
Speaker 1: like I said, in 1999. Raised five kids there, or
32:41
Speaker 1: at least started the process of raising them. I changed
32:44
Speaker 1: my first diapers. You know, the first diaper, not my diapers.
32:49
Speaker 1: Changing my own diapers. That's an interesting thought, but I'm
32:52
Speaker 1: not going to think about that. I'm just going to
32:53
Speaker 1: move on. I changed the first diapers of my career
32:57
Speaker 1: in that house. You know, dealt with babies crying, with
33:00
Speaker 1: kids laughing, with the TV blaring. I remember watching the
33:03
Speaker 1: Tigers go to the World Series in 2006, standing just
33:07
Speaker 1: feet away. from where the lightning came through the window
33:09
Speaker 1: and scorched the wall back in 1952 or whatever year
33:13
Speaker 1: it was. And that's just my home, my experiences, and
33:17
Speaker 1: the 20 or whatever people who've shared that space since
33:24
Speaker 1: 1928 with me. I don't know how many there were,
33:26
Speaker 1: but those are the things that we've kind of shared,
33:29
Speaker 1: whether we know it or not. We've kind of collectively
33:31
Speaker 1: shared those things. It's just my home, that home, that
33:36
Speaker 1: one place. So many stories. in that one spot. And
33:39
Speaker 1: all of our homes are like that. That's what I
33:41
Speaker 1: think is so interesting. They've either got a past, you know,
33:44
Speaker 1: a history, lives lived and experienced long before we bought them.
33:48
Speaker 1: They've either got that or, you know, maybe we built
33:51
Speaker 1: them and we're the starting point of all those stories.
33:55
Speaker 1: But even though that may be the case and you
33:57
Speaker 1: built the house that you're in, not to be all,
34:00
Speaker 1: you know, rain cloudy here. or it's not really pessimistic.
34:04
Speaker 1: It's not even meant to be dark, but there's coming
34:06
Speaker 1: a day when somebody else is going to be wandering
34:09
Speaker 1: those halls, right? You know, heading to go feed a
34:11
Speaker 1: new baby at three in the morning, hoping to get
34:13
Speaker 1: two more hours of sleep before the day starts, right?
34:16
Speaker 1: That's all coming. Maybe you're the first people to have
34:20
Speaker 1: that house, but more are coming. So what in the
34:23
Speaker 1: blazes am I saying about all of this? And I
34:26
Speaker 1: really don't know. I just got thinking about this because
34:30
Speaker 1: of a story that I ran into last week. about
34:32
Speaker 1: this guy who was doing renovations and he found a
34:35
Speaker 1: first edition of the first Superman comic that came out.
34:38
Speaker 1: You know, the first Superman comic. He found it in
34:41
Speaker 1: his walls and it sold for $ 175, 000. He found it
34:45
Speaker 1: in a house that he paid $ 10, 000 for in 2013.
34:49
Speaker 1: And it had that wonderful little find tucked away in
34:53
Speaker 1: the wall somewhere or on a shelf. I can't remember
34:55
Speaker 1: the details. It doesn't matter. He found it in the house.
34:58
Speaker 1: What's funny is, is that he lost, they estimate, about $ 75, 000
35:01
Speaker 1: from the value. He sold it for $ 175, 000, but it
35:07
Speaker 1: could have been $ 75, 000 more, except when he found it,
35:11
Speaker 1: he and his, I believe it was his mother-in-law or
35:15
Speaker 1: his wife's aunt or something like that, an in-law of
35:19
Speaker 1: some sort, they kind of went back and forth tugging
35:22
Speaker 1: on it because they were both intrigued about it, and
35:24
Speaker 1: it ripped a little bit. So lost a fair amount
35:27
Speaker 1: of value because of that, which is kind of funny.
35:30
Speaker 1: Kind of funny if it's not you, you know, and
35:33
Speaker 1: probably if you like that kind of thing, a lot
35:35
Speaker 1: of people are nice and wouldn't find that funny at all.
35:37
Speaker 1: I found it a little bit funny. Anyway, that story,
35:41
Speaker 1: I found that story and I was going to focus
35:44
Speaker 1: on that on the radio. And I was going to
35:46
Speaker 1: make this one single segment about that. I was going
35:49
Speaker 1: to start with my little nothing find of canned good
35:51
Speaker 1: lists and old newspapers. And then I was going to
35:53
Speaker 1: transition to stories about really valuable things that people have discovered,
35:57
Speaker 1: you know, when they're doing renovations. But as I was
35:59
Speaker 1: working on all that, I realized that my find in
36:03
Speaker 1: the house was pretty valuable to me. You know, it was,
36:07
Speaker 1: I can't say priceless, but it was really valuable to
36:09
Speaker 1: find those things. It connected me in spirit, at least,
36:13
Speaker 1: to people, you know, strangers who lived long before I
36:17
Speaker 1: was even thought about. You know, there was a really
36:19
Speaker 1: compelling human connection between And a strong feeling that while
36:24
Speaker 1: I'm making this space suit my needs at this point,
36:27
Speaker 1: the house is going to go on. And it's going
36:30
Speaker 1: to adapt to meet other people's needs in the future.
36:32
Speaker 1: There was just something profound about realizing that. And also
36:36
Speaker 1: in realizing that as much as I loved my home,
36:39
Speaker 1: people ahead of me, people who were no longer living,
36:41
Speaker 1: in fact, also had loved my house, you know, really,
36:44
Speaker 1: really dearly. So at the end of the day, at
36:47
Speaker 1: the end of all of this, what's the point? I
36:50
Speaker 1: really don't know. One thing that's clear to me as
36:53
Speaker 1: I've worked through this is that the walls in your home,
36:57
Speaker 1: your home itself, the rooms in your home, the spaces
37:01
Speaker 1: in your home, whatever you want to say, they tell
37:03
Speaker 1: a story, right? They listen to your story. They're a
37:06
Speaker 1: part of it. They're recording your story. You're recording your
37:10
Speaker 1: story with them. They catalog everything that they're seeing, and
37:13
Speaker 1: they're a part of it all. And no matter what
37:16
Speaker 1: your home looks like, you know, no matter how perfect
37:19
Speaker 1: it isn't, you know, how perfect it isn't, how much
37:22
Speaker 1: you wish you could change it, no matter all of
37:24
Speaker 1: those things, it's still your home. And it's beautiful for
37:27
Speaker 1: that reason. You know, it's beautiful because it's capturing your
37:30
Speaker 1: memories and helping you create those memories. It was important
37:34
Speaker 1: to other people before you, and it's going to impact
37:37
Speaker 1: other people beyond you. And it has dignity and value
37:41
Speaker 1: because of that. You know, if a thing can be
37:43
Speaker 1: said to have dignity and if it can be said
37:47
Speaker 1: to have dignity, a home has dignity because of the
37:50
Speaker 1: role it plays in what it does for all of us.
37:53
Speaker 1: But that little old lady who toured my home, she
37:55
Speaker 1: never once complimented the beautiful updates that were accomplished after
37:59
Speaker 1: she had left. I don't think she even saw those
38:02
Speaker 1: beautiful updates that the people who had the house just
38:04
Speaker 1: before me had brought to the house. I don't think
38:08
Speaker 1: she saw them at all. She saw the house as
38:10
Speaker 1: it was years and years ago as she wandered through it.
38:12
Speaker 1: That's what she was seeing, and she loved it. With
38:16
Speaker 1: all of its warts and all of its blemishes, she
38:18
Speaker 1: loved it. So often in my business, I get on
38:23
Speaker 1: the radio or wherever I do, I talk about the
38:25
Speaker 1: importance of updating and changing and beautifying your space. And
38:29
Speaker 1: all of those are really good things. All really good things.
38:32
Speaker 1: But I think it's possible that when you can't swing
38:35
Speaker 1: it economically, because we can't all swing those things economically
38:40
Speaker 1: all the time. When you can't do that or when
38:43
Speaker 1: you can't find the time or the energy to do it,
38:46
Speaker 1: when that happens, there's a low level guilt that we
38:49
Speaker 1: start to feel. Maybe not you. I feel a little
38:51
Speaker 1: bit of guilt when, you know, I hear talk about
38:55
Speaker 1: when I talk about it, making these changes in your homes.
38:58
Speaker 1: I should be making them in mine. And there's low
39:00
Speaker 1: level guilt that I start to feel. I should be
39:02
Speaker 1: doing more. Next week, I'm going to get back to
39:04
Speaker 1: encouraging projects and updates and painting. But for this week,
39:08
Speaker 1: just all of us appreciate your home for what it is,
39:11
Speaker 1: not what it could be, what it is and what
39:14
Speaker 1: it's been for all the people through all the years
39:17
Speaker 1: who've called it home or all the people in the
39:20
Speaker 1: future who are going to call it home. Just appreciate
39:22
Speaker 1: that space for what it is and what you've got.
39:25
Speaker 1: And if you've got you know, an interesting story of
39:28
Speaker 1: something you found in your house, you know, I asked
39:30
Speaker 1: that question at the beginning. What's the weird thing in
39:31
Speaker 1: your house? What's the craziest thing you ever found? If
39:34
Speaker 1: there is something, let me know. Radio at RepcoLite.com. Just
39:39
Speaker 1: send your emails. I'd love to read about it. All right,
39:41
Speaker 1: that's going to do it for this week. If you
39:42
Speaker 1: want to catch this one again, you can find it
39:44
Speaker 1: online at repcolite.com. Whatever you do today, you don't have
39:47
Speaker 1: to make paint a part of it. I'm not going
39:49
Speaker 1: to cry if you do, but if you don't, that's okay.
39:52
Speaker 1: Just appreciate your home and have a great weekend. I'll
39:55
Speaker 1: see you next week. For Home in Progress, I'm Dan Hanson.
39:59
Speaker 1: Thanks for listening. do do