This old house

My home was built before Oklahoma statehood. So she’s way over 100 years old. She’s had some renovations so from the outside she doesn’t show her age. However, the old rounded root cellar sitting beside her does give her away. I heard the man that built this for himself owned a lumber yard in town at the time. I can only imagine he built his own home using the best lumber, she’s definitely got good bones. When you come inside the 10 ft ceilings are a telltale sign of an older home.

My mom and dad first bought this house when I was in second grade. It was rough looking back then but my mother just fell in love with it. Of course they didn’t do much about insulation back then so winters were pretty chilly in here. The kitchen was very small and it had only one bathroom. It had an upstairs that my brother took over. There was an old water cistern that sat on the back porch with a concrete lid covering it. For some reason it always creeped me out. My daddy was a hard working man and was always working on and around the house so it wasn’t long before she was shaping up. It wasn’t until my senior year that my mom finally got to renovate the tiny kitchen. She extend it out five feet which covered the old cistern, I was glad for that! It was such a nice new kitchen, new cabinets, new 70’s style avocado colored appliances.

A couple of years later though my parents decided they wanted the country life and bought a home outside of town. So they put her up for sale. It was on the market for a while. During that time I was making wedding plans. I wanted to get married in my old home. Since it was empty we sat it all up and had the wedding and reception there.

Sadly it eventually sold. It was strange driving by seeing new people living there. It just didn’t seem right. Kinda like having a ex you still cared deeply for starting a new life with someone else. There is just something about this old house that always seemed to beckon us back to it.

The new owners parted ways and the house went into foreclosure. One evening my mom and dad came to my house and totally surprised me with a key to the house. They generously had put a down payment on it and now she was ours. I was so thrilled to have her back. At this time my own daughter was in second grade when we moved in. It was so fun raising my kids in the same home I was raised in. I’ve done my own renovations and after all these many years of fighting/ waiting on one bathroom, I finally got to add on another bathroom and laundry room. I just can’t imagine living or being happier anywhere else. Yes there may be newer, fancier, more modern places out there but this is home.

Sometimes I’ll go upstairs and sit and look out the window at the town. As I am I wonder if someone else was sitting here looking out the window over a hundred years ago at the then dirt roads, watching houses going up all around. Hearing the train just a short distance away bringing people, supplies and mail to this developing little town. I also wonder if she’ll stand for another hundred years and if someday someone else will be up here sitting at the window, looking out at the town wondering about me.