Living Spaces: Past and Present

Last updated on November 26, 2023

People like to control their spaces. We like to make our bedrooms “ours” as children. As college students, we decorate our dorm rooms or first apartments for our comfort and to signal our personalities and preferences to others.

Cultures consider spaces important, too. Feng Shui or geomancy are cultural beliefs in the “flow” of spaces, making them more or less inviting.

My wife and I have lived in three apartments and four houses. Like most couples, we upgraded with each house.

There is an Autistic Me Podcast episode on the topic of living spaces.

My wife knows… the Autistic Me is quite particular about my spaces. The arrangement has to be good. I don’t like things scattered, so storage and shelving are priorities. Flaws, imperfections, and damage cause stress, especially chips and cracks.

I am the reason “distressed” wood is a great idea for cabinetry, shelves, and flooring. The flaws are meant to be there. Potential wear and marks? They blend in with the intentional appearance.

Even now, I fixate on problems in our new home. I dislike that I cannot ignore things that bother me. (Of course, if I could ignore things… they wouldn’t be bothering me.)

Apartments

Apartments are… apartments. We lived in a gated apartment complex briefly, but the cost and pet policy led us to relocate.

We lived in our second apartment for many years. It was showing its age by the time we left California. The kitchen linoleum was torn and flaking. The stain on cabinet doors was peeling. The apartment was small, cluttered, and in need of maintenance. We lived in that tiny, aging apartment for more than ten years, I believe. It was too long.

We were poor, struggling, and things hadn’t gone well for us in California. That apartment symbolized our lack of forward progress. I felt like a failure in that space, and we had that space because I was failing at everything I tried. My mind and body were falling apart, like the space.

Towards the end, I completed my master’s degree, hoping to teach at a local community college. That wasn’t a bad plan, but in 2006 the colleges froze hiring. I applied to graduate schools. Off we went to Minnesota.

Getting a new start was important, and I’ll never regret leaving Central California. This was a reboot for my wife, for me, and for us as a couple. That doesn’t mean things went smoothly, but they moved ahead.

Our Bloomington, Minnesota, apartment was in a good location. I liked Bloomington and wish we had later found a house in the community or nearby.

We lived across from the Mall of America, which has a mass transit station. I could catch a train or bus easily. I used the transit system to get to the university, to get to medical appointments, and to explore the area. I also liked walking around the MOA, especially the third floor with fewer people.

Still, it was a tiny apartment with some issues. As I recall, we had a pipe leak within a wall and ceiling. Even though we knew that it was probable another move was ahead after completing my doctorate, we looked around for a cheap home. Sadly, in 2010, there were many cheap homes.

Our apartments were all upstairs units. I feel safer when people cannot see in to my spaces. I like privacy. But, stairs aren’t ideal for me. More on that later.

First Home

We bought a tiny home in Minneapolis. My uncle traveled to Minnesota and helped us renovate the kitchen to get the space habitable.

A house. We’d have control over everything. We could fix things! We didn’t have to worry about maintenance workers entering and not paying attention to our pets. Our space. I needed that.

The tile pattern wasn’t perfect in the Minneapolis home. A bit of the flooring was chipped when I was installing a ceiling fan. The basement, which needed to be updated and remodeled, was outside our budget to fix.

The garage needed to be renovated, too, with a sagging roof and aging wooden walls.

Everywhere I looked, I saw things that needed to be fixed. But, I also didn’t have a job. Contemplating the costs of fixing the house or moving to a less urban setting, I knew that moving was the better choice for my health.

The Autistic Me hated living in a city, in a tiny house, with repairs and upgrades forever out of reach. Even with improvements, I’d never relax living in a city. I dreamed of finishing the basement to make it my space, a quiet place to which I could escape.

When we moved from California, we discovered basements aren’t merely on television or in movies. Most basements aren’t creepy dark spaces with ancient coal or oil furnaces, either.

Pennsylvania

When I received a job offer in Pennsylvania, we bought another home in need of repairs and renovations.

I wanted to love that first PA house. The yard was huge and relatively flat. There was a massive basement area, complete with a shop area. The house had been expanded a few times. All the living space was on one floor, which I liked. The back room was wonderful, with a wall of windows looking out into the backyard.

The master suite was tiny and would need to be remodeled over time. Things can be changed, with a good contractor.

If only it hadn’t flooded within weeks of moving into the house.

Maybe, just maybe, without a flood, we could have slowly remodeled and updated the house into something pretty special. It was weird, yes, but it could have been remade into something cool.

That flood ruined the house for me. I could never think about anything except the flood. A home I wanted to like, ruined by one event. We had to have the garage wall reinforced. We had to have drains cleared multiple times. We had to have a tree removed that was likely ruining pipes in the front yard. Everything was going to cost a lot to repair, and most of the repairs related to water.

The Autistic Me cannot let go of bad memories. Every time I looked around the basement area, I saw those floodwaters. The water damaged a few things, including some work from college, but nothing that was irreplaceable.

That flood traumatized me. I’m sure it affected my teaching and more, too. I was in complete overload.

I went on a quest for a new home, nearby.

Once again, we had to fix up a home just enough to sell it. That would happen three times. Fix things “just enough” for the real estate agent to show the house and try to sell it.

Attempt Two in PA

The second house? Of course it had a leak the first night we lived in it, damaging the first-floor ceiling and the hardwood floor in the kitchen.

We were off to a less-than-perfect start.

One of the things I disliked about our second PA house was that I had to go up and down stairs constantly. The bedrooms were on the top floor, my office in the basement, and the family areas were on the ground floor.

I have a bad back and poor balance. Stairs hurt… and present a falling hazard. However, I liked that the stairs opened up spaces I wanted and needed.

Our last house had potential. I liked the floor plan and selected it even though there were plans with more space. The space was better designed, in my opinion. I had big dreams for the home in Pennsylvania.

We had a beautiful yard and a walled garden area. We had fruit trees, roses, hostas, and much more. I love plants. Because I assumed we would live in the house for decades, I persuaded my wife that we needed a stone patio, the walled garden, and a retaining wall against the hillside. The outside of the house was wonderful.

Assuming we’d be in Western PA for at least another decade, and hoping to raise a child (which became children), the yard would have been a justifiable expense. Lunches outside on the patio, the girls playing in the yard, will remain a good memory. We also had a swing set they loved. The girls were already outgrowing the slide and gliding rocker, sadly.

I hope every family to live in the house after us enjoys the patio and leaves the trees in place. But, I know that people change things. Still, that money now feels like an extravagance.

Inside, my favorite space was the basement. That space included my office. Home theater room. A large storage and utility room. Gym space. The basement was the space I always wanted to finish but never did. I could imagine it as a beautiful Art Deco cinema house… a dream for family nights.

The kitchen had a good layout, with an island and lots of storage. Baking, which I find relaxing, was much easier with counter space. That kitchen is why I wanted an island and extra storage in our next home.

We had to pay for some resurfacing of the island before selling the home. Even if we had remained, the island was in need of updating. The island was little more than three prefab cabinets with a laminated countertop.

The upstairs was nice, too. One room served as my wife’s office, with the window looking out into the backyard. The master suite was large and included a walk-in closet. Two more bedrooms meant the girls had plenty of space. There was even a storage room.

I dreamed of closet organizers, updating the storage room, and following the lead of some neighbors who converted the attic to usable storage space.

The house had potential. Lots of potential. (Of course, potential also costs money.)

The house was our space, in a beautiful wooded area near a large county park. But, that was also a problem because driving to work meant a dangerous winter commute. Winter also meant ice in the neighborhood and ice on our driveway.

Since leaving California, I’ve come to really, really hate ice and snow. (See previous blog posts on broken bones, ruined vision, and other misadventures.)

I hated that driveway, with a passion. That was one of the potential changes I dreamed of: a third space, flatter and off to the side of the existing driveway. Or, if I had secured a permanent teaching post, expanding the garage by a half-car or full-car width. A nearby family had a third-car garage built, adding space upstairs, for $20,000 — which is a minor expense for a home you occupy for 20 years or more.

Still, we left. The potential improvements gave way to “must-do” repairs and replacements so we could sell the house.

We left Pennsylvania for three reasons: the economy, our daughters, and the weather.

Selling a house in Pennsylvania wasn’t easy. That why we moved: it’s Western PA isn’t a destination for anyone who doesn’t have a connection to the region.

Western PA is shrinking, the stores are closing, and opportunities are dwindling. I worried about our daughters growing up surrounded by decline. I know too many people who embody where they attended high school.

Texas is Home

Moving to Texas was a good decision. It was the best move we’ve made, without question. The region is economically dynamic. The suburban schools are good. Expanding colleges and universities also suggest a promising future.

This house feels a lot smaller. It isn’t, but I’ll never have my hone theater or my office space again. Our bedroom is now the gym.

Yes, huge walk-in closets. The girls each have a room. No stairs. No steep driveway. Two cars fit in the garage.

But I still want my space. The missing basement space means no quiet area and no home theater. There’s no “refuge” for me, a space without windows, with less sound, with more privacy. Even an upstairs might feel more secluded. I want to be away from everything for a few hours a day, at least. That’s impossible in this house.

Cracked tiles in the master bathroom. Some scratches on the walls. Doors to my wife’s office I want to re-stain more evenly. Carpet? I hate the carpet, which is only in bedrooms but already showing age after one year. (It doesn’t help that everyone is home, all the time, during the COVID-19 pandemic.) The backyard is only grass. No trees, no flowers, nothing else.

Once again, I look around and see… potential. Things we can do to make the house a little better. I see ways to make the space more useful and less cluttered.

We ordered a craft organizer for my wife. We are going to get bookcases installed in the great room. I hope to install closet organizers in the master walk-in closet and more shelves in the other bedroom closets. We’ll add more shelving and racks in the garage area, too.

Order will be established, by 2022. The walls will be painted by then. The home will start to feel “finished” because I’m tired of never feeling settled into a space. (Yes, I swore the last house would be our final home and would be organized.)

So much needs to be done, it gets overwhelming. If I had a good teaching post or industry job, getting the home improvements done would be much easier. The home reminds me that I’m not earning a good income yet. Things have to wait. Projects have to be small enough to fit within a tight budget.

Spaces matter. No space will be perfect, but I need to have my spaces orderly. My wife can adapt. I can’t, no matter how much I wish I could be flexible.

Investing in this house won’t be money wasted. People want to live in Central Texas. For the first time, we’ve purchased a house that won’t lose value.