Anticipating Porches

by Claire on Sep 28, 2009

Because the General was built in 1951, it's a bit different from modern homes. It has been painted almost annually for the last half a century, and all the seams (baseboard to wall and door-frames) are entirely non-existent and smoothed over. The doors are real wood with horizontal moulding. The bathrooms have cast-iron towel racks, one of which was built into the yellow-tiled shower. The tub is metal and coated in white enamel, which is chipped in a few quaint and artistic places. In the master bedroom, Ivy has almost completely obscured the window, save a few filtered dots of sunlight in the morning.


Though all of these aspects lend charm, the most exciting part of upgrading from apartment life to home-ownership are the porches that the General has: a small one on the front and a slightly larger one on the back. Not to say that apartments do not have porches, (ours does) but they are often unusable. We have been reprimanded on three different occasions. First, it was the wooden laundry rack. Apparently only energy-sucking dryers are okay here. Next, we were in trouble for the bag of potting soil. Should have kept it in a wicker basket. The third time was a bit of a stretch...we had started a compost (in an attractive little wooden wine crate), but the whole thing was banned before it even started to smell. Today, Nick and I were watching the sun set, and thought how nice it would be to lounge on a porch swing instead of lean on the pile of bicycles blocking the railing. Then we remembered the General. I think that will be project number one...

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