By Melik
My favorite place was my apartment on S. Clemens, just South of Kalamazoo Street. It was a handsome place with hardwood floors and wood trim. Most of the wood trim in the house, thankfully, was not covered up with paint by someone that did not appreciate the natural beauty. I called it my New York place. I thought of my apartment as being an expensive socialite place that would be rented for thousands of dollars a month that I had the privilege of living in for a fraction of the cost. I was in my twenties. I did not have a lot of responsibilities other than making it to work and paying the few bills I had. It was the most carefree time in my life and I found it extremely enjoyable. That is, until a fire broke out in the apartment complex. Poof, there went my enjoyable, happy, content, quiet living in the middle of a noisy bustling area of city living.
During the aftermath of the apartment complex fire, I spoke to my landlord about my situation. I told him that I was tired of paying rent. I said that he should help me purchase a house. A strange coincidence as he was getting rid of his rental units that were within the Lansing City limits citing the difficulty of having rental properties in Lansing. He said that he had the perfect house for me. I visited this gem of a home. The kitchen seemed to have less room in it than my car. It had pink metal kitchen cabinets.
The refrigerator was stinky old. The floor was this strange plastic tile in a white, black and pink pattern. The walls were plaster painted with a disturbing green color that was similar to baby food peas. Have you ever tried to hang a picture on plaster walls? The floors had a layer of dirt that made it seem like I was walking outside. The bathrooms seemed to have been last updated by a tacky person in the early 1970s. One of the bedrooms was decent sized. Unfortunately I did not want to have to endure the noise of the street while trying to sleep at night. If I put my bed in either of the smaller rooms there would hardly be any room in it to maneuver around. The basement was full of leftover stuff from who knows how many tenants. There were clothes, furniture, baby pictures, diplomas, and other personal affects that could have only been left behind under a dire situation.
A few weeks and thirteen thousand dollars later I had an updated kitchen, updated bathrooms, a new furnace, a new hot water heater, and the two small bedrooms were made into one big enough to fit my bedroom furniture. I tried washing the hardwood floors but it seemed the more I scrubbed the more dirt there was. I finally resolved to the idea of stripping and refinishing the floors myself. I hope I never have to endure a task like that again. I pulled off in a weekend what should have been done in a week.
I have been in my fixer upper of a house for a decade now. It still needs some work done on it. I am noticing new cracks and crevices. I could stand to get some new windows and have siding put on it. Some of the fixes would just be cosmetic others would be economic, however those things do not seem important to me. What does is that it is mine and through adversity and misfortune I have a place that I can call my own.
Contact Melik at
melik_2001 @ yahoo.com.
