Michelle (Basic) Hendry - Fine Artist & Author

Artist and Author - Landscapes and Ruins

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I have been a little remiss in keeping up my posts this week. The reason was a house….

My husband and I are at that stage where we have grown out of our first home and we are looking for something new – or at least new to us. Looking for the first house was challenging, but I am finding this search more difficult. Perhaps it is sentimentality, perhaps it is just that things have gotten so ridiculous in terms of cost.

Last week, we happened to find something we really liked. It was going to require an extensive (and expensive) cosmetic renovation, but we got up the courage to offer anyway. It was going to put us at the top of our budget. Our agent wrote up the offer. Then, we discovered less than an hour before our offer was to be presented that another couple saw the house that day and were going to submit a competing offer. My husband was in Vancouver on the other side of the country when we realized we were going to have to put our very best offer forward – immediately. We had an hour to get our ducks in a row and submitted. We lost it.

As disappointing as this was, we learned a lot from the experience and we know that means that something better would come along. We had, after all, been through this process before.

All this got me to thinking about how much more mobile we are than just a couple of generations ago. People built their houses with the intention of dying in them. I live in an area that was settled with high hopes and poor farming. Towns were established and quickly abandoned when news that the railroad was going to by-pass them. Homesteading was a risky and challenging practice anywhere, but on the Canadian Shield, it had special challenges provided by the very rock that attracts the residents of this place today.

Fraserburg Abandoned - Michelle Basic Hendry
Photograph, Michelle Basic Hendry (do you see the spray paint can?)

Houses were built with blood sweat and tears in an era of simpler tools and whatever was available. Families moved into these simple wooden buildings with everything they had in the world, which was often very little and scratched out their lives. I often wonder, when I pass an abandoned house, who was the family that built it? How did they live? What were their expectations for these unknown northern spaces? Did they die here? Or were they forced to abandon and begin again?

I expect that in most cases, I will never know the answers to those questions. Perhaps when we find our perfect house and our story ends, someone will drive by our home, 70 or 100 years from now, and wonder…

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Reader Interactions

Comments

  1. Hi Michelle, wonderful post. It reminded me of the houses I had bid on, and lost, in the past. You are right that it means something better will come along. When I think about those houses now, I feel like they definitely would have not been right. Time does provide an interesting and wholly new perspective!

  3. Hi Phil and Kinsey!
    Yes – I am certain something better will come along. It is only made more difficult by the fact that I love the house I am in but it is too small for my husband and my studio…! 😀

    So much of people’s stories are in their homes – I guess one must choose one’s home by where they want their story to be told.

  4. My Friend,
    My heart goes out to you. How sad that you can longer afford to live and function in your present home! It is a travesty that someone of your insight, talent and sensitivity must be troubled by such things. I envy you that in the darkest hour you find inspiration.

  5. Thanks Martin!
    Getting a bigger house means I have to start paying a mortgage again. What you get for your money is so much less than it used to be. Maybe I am just cheap.. LOL! This is a pain, but not a crisis. Not to worry! 🙂

    I am hoping for a space dedicated to art….

  6. The one thing I can truly tell by reading you is that you and your husband will make whatever house you find a real home. And ultimately that is the key. A home is a space dedicated to art – not just visual art but the art of the relationship and of love and movement and music and possibility. I think “Art” is always about possibility and when you walk into a home, a real home, I think you always sense that. You might walk into a house that is beautifully decorated or has incredible pieces of art around and still not feel that possibility. Your blogs are filled with possibility so I’m willing to guess your relationship also is and there is a house out there that just doesn’t know how lucky it is going to be.

  7. You lost that house because something better awaits, certainly! I hear you about modern mobility. I sometimes imagine how the Celts lived 2000+ years ago, in simple roundhouses, not always enclosed within the walls of a fort. We have it so much better these days than we seem to think!

  8. Thanks, Scott! That was a very lovely comment.

    Hi Lana – I can’t imagine how my grandmother survived 90 years ago, never mind 2000 years ago! She told me that when she was a little girl, her windows froze tight and her bedroom was so cold, chamber water would freeze. Plumbing was all outdoor. I have to say that I draw the line there! 😀

  9. Hi Michelle, I imagine you’re just making way for that perfect-for-you house. I agree with the others here, I’ll bet that no matter where you live, you will create a wonderful home. It is hard in this market, but it can be done if you want it. Good luck with your search!

    My husband and I owned two homes (one after the other) that were pretty old, back when we lived in Chicago. And I grew up in a 100 year old Victorian. They all had amazing history, and as we remodeled them we found so many interesting bits of it in the walls and other places. Plus the energy in them from previous owners was something too. Here in LA houses easily cost twice as much for a lot less space as what the Midwest has. When we are ready to buy again, we will probably buy a loft or condo.

  10. Kris – I would love an old home, but I worry about the amount of maintenance! I am sure the right thing is waiting for us around the corner! 🙂

  11. I’m sure you will find the home that has your name stamped on it Michelle 🙂
    having renovated two beautiful old style homes I’m now happy to live in a spacious modern apartment with all the mod cons….oh but I do miss those open fireplaces and big old fashioned baths….
    love the photo….
    I can see the red lid of the spray can in the doorway 😉

  12. Congratulations on being in the Top 101 Artist’s Blogs …!!
    I can understand why…I always look forward to reading your blog and the comments that your readers leave…you seem, on the average, to have very sensitive readers…

    I too saw the paint can but would not have known what it was without your guidance….Just like that paint can, what are we leaving behind that will say that we once walked here and will we want it to be captured for posterity ?? I am rambling ……..

  13. Hi Kim – I love the romantic idea of an older home, but I understand the work! A new one that looks like an old one might be good!

    Thanks, Donna. Yes I really enjoy my comments. They are a wonderful source of thought and inspiration.