Illustration by Bob Scott
You probably know the song. “Poor young grandson, there’s nothing I can say / You’ll have to learn, just like me / And that’s the hardest way / Ooh la la, ooh la la la la yeah / I wish that I knew what I know now / When I was younger.”
In 1973, The Faces crooned about the classic case of wisdom vs. age. If only I knew back in good ol’ July of 2016 what I know now about building a house, our lives would be a touch calmer. Before we get into all that, first a recap and update:
- November 2014: We closed on the lot.
- 2015: We hatched a plan.
- July 2016: Construction began.
- May 2017: We earned our Certificate of Occupancy (CO).
However, that is not to say we are complete. In May, local builders Josh and Brees Romano of Cobblestone Development debuted their renovation show, “Richmond Rehabbers,” on HGTV. In the pilot, after six months of nail biting and teeth gnashing, the homeowners arrived to a tear-inducing reveal of their home, finished down to the flickering candles and fruit bowl placed just so. In another case of reality-TV-isn’t-really-reality, we arrived home for our first night to a different kind of show … a s#&% show. And now we’re starring in it.
We first admitted sometime early last year that Christmas 2016 wouldn’t be our first Noel in the new house. We set our sights on Valentine’s Day, or, at the latest, Easter. Our builder, ever the Pollyanna, couldn’t bring himself to give us a realistic date, so we pressed on with move-in plans despite obvious signs that our house just wasn’t going to be ready. Instead of lounging in silk pajamas and binge viewing “Mr. Robot,” we spent Mother’s Day in latex gloves with buckets of Mrs. Meyer’s. My wife Amy Lee’s quote sums up that first shocking weekend of living here: “I don’t need fancy earrings, I need my husband to make coffee and clean my house.”
The Tesauros’ home is finally finished — well, almost. (Photo by Stephen Clatterbuck)
It truly was shocking. The lease on our apartment was up, but because the house wasn’t ready, we couch-surfed, sojourned, house-sat and otherwise traipsed about the city for two or three days here, six days there in a shell-shocked daze awaiting final inspections and the official CO. As I type this from my third-floor office, the vision has never been clearer. Lush, sweeping views of the river from my terrace make 3607 feel like an urban tree house, but turn the other way and it’s still festooned with boxes, power tools and works in progress. Lesson 1: It won’t be finished when you move in.
Until the CO came through, we were illegal squatters. Given how our builder overshot his projected completion date by two months, at some point we had to just move in and resume life amidst construction debris and brown contractors’ paper protecting our hardwoods from work boots. That first night, Amy Lee and I couldn’t fall asleep due to the jarring chirps of smoke detectors and choking drywall dust. We couldn’t wash clothes because the dryer hose wouldn’t reach the vent. We couldn’t blow off steam in the glorious master digital shower because — get this — it wasn’t properly connected to Wi-Fi. Our smart house started feeling a little dumb. Home sweet home, we laughed. And cried. Lesson 2: Your relationship will be tested. Hold on tight.
Two weeks later, we’re settling in. We’ve made an Ikea trip, and rooms are shaping up. The kids are mostly unpacked, and the kitchen is in full swing (minus a backsplash, shoe molding and a little paint). But the punch list — that last batch of “Honey, please do” tasks for the builder — is ridiculously long. There isn’t a single room that is 100 percent complete. Many to-dos are simple finishes: dimmer switches, molding, drawer pulls. Yet there remains a muddy front and backyard to be graded and planted with grass. The master bedroom’s closet systems were installed incorrectly; thus we continue to pull mismatched socks and hodgepodge outfits together from strewn piles of clothes until it’s fixed. On the plus side, it’s been easier to buy new shoes than dig out the old ones. Lesson 3: Be grateful, be patient.
Taking the house for a test-drive this past month, we learned many other things. One: builders are not artisans. An artisan blends craft with aesthetics so that things are both well-made and handsome. Builders, on the other hand, make strictly utilitarian decisions. Look around my house and you’ll spy light switches, thermostats, outlets and seams in awkward places. They shout “shortcut” instead of “custom.” Last weekend, I got down on a friend’s floor to examine their trim. It was perfect. Amy Lee says that for the money we’ve paid, details ought to be on-point. The bones of 3607 are solid — and that’s most important — but it’s as though our exquisite masterpiece is in some places being finished not with flourishes but with afterthoughts. No one will see my eco-friendly, hundred-year SIPs panels, but they’ll certainly see rushed patches of sheetrock and fixtures installed off-center. Lesson 4: Order it up, but let it go.
Friends stop by — and neighbors with fresh muffins — but we don’t have furniture, so we use lawn chairs and overturned boxes. We hang shelves and organize winter clothes. It’s not done, but it’s home, because that’s where our family is. We’ll spend summer making each square foot more and more ours, but we have already indeed occupied Broad Street. On life’s Richter scale, this moving experience of shifting forks and plates shook us at a seismic level. But it’s just what we asked for and now our family is tough enough to survive whatever tumult comes next. Lesson 5: Do life now … and fix it later.
About the Author
Jason Tesauro is a national award-winning booze/food/culture journalist and co-author of “The Modern Gentleman.” He and his family are building a modern house in historic Church Hill.
