FLIP....OR FLOP?

Louis' sister and her husband came to see us recently.  It was the first time they had come to our home in the 15 years we have been married. 

I had to work some of the days they were in town, but Louis had planned a robust sight-seeing agenda which included taking them to our Secrest Court house in Arvada to show them where we used to live.  But I happened to be home on that particular day, so I went along.  It has been awhile since we have driven by our old house--remember it was three years before I could even bring myself to drive by it the first time after we moved--but I wasn't prepared for how even more run down the property is.

It was Memorial Day.  The Griffey Family was home and all working out in the yard.  The dad was mowing the lawn on the riding tractor and some young adults were in the garage.  No one seemed to notice us.  But when Louis turned around at the top of the curve just south of the house, Kelly came running toward our car.  Busted! 

I wasn't in the mood to "make friendly" because even now when I think of how they changed the whole persona of our wonderful Nichols Family home, it makes me sad.

However, Kelly didn't seem to notice my lack of enthusiasm as she gushed in ebullient terms how much they LOVED the house .  How they had gutted it to the studs and redone the whole thing.  In nauseating detail!  She shared that their 12 year old son at the time wanted to be an architect, so their architect friend let him "design" the house.  Then they remodeled it.

In addition to the changes not being in keeping with the style of the neighborhood ( 21st century facade and interior changes in a 1970's neighborhood), the workmanship on the remodel is not really a professional job.  The details haven't been attended to as they should be in a total remake.  The driveway is still in the same place, and the new garage just has something like a cinder drive.  The windows are awkwardly situated, and the symmetry of downstairs windows to upstairs windows has been lost.

The fences are completely gone now.  The bushes and the one tree in the back disappeared a few years ago, but all three of the big cottonwoods in the front yard are now gone, too.  It is as bare as the day we moved in!  The grass looks deplorable--remember we didn't have the fanciest or most cultivated yard in the neighborhood, but we had the BEST grass--and the rocks in the front ditch that it took us so many years to finally put in place are all overgrown with weeds. 

It was a sad sight to behold.  Especially since Coleman was out in his yard working, and it still looks as great and as lovingly cared for as it did when we lived next door.  So, it's not that 25 years have eroded the property.  It's the people who bought the house "for the land" who eroded it.  And yet they haven't planted a garden or even kept what "land" we had in decent repair.

At her first invitation to go in and take a tour of the house, I murmured thanks but we were going out to Jeremy's grave to put some flowers on it.  Kelly persisted...anytime we wanted, we could just knock on the door and they would show us all the changes.  I didn't say anything.  Neither did Louis.  As we left, I thanked him for not agreeing to go inside.  He said he had kept quiet because he knew I wouldn't want to.

Still after 13 years, I feel like if I had known that the people who bought our house would want to "gut it to the studs and make it better" I would have waited for a different buyer.  A family who could see it was a special home where the house itself had figured in some great memories and experiences for nearly 25 years.  Some family who could see it had been someplace special and wanted to make it their "special" home, too.

Some cosmetic changes?  Yes.  New paint.  New carpet.  Even change the awkward sharp right turn to go down the basement stairs.  Yes.  But change the very appearance of the house in a flip?  Not!  The Secrest Court house deserved better than that.

Houses get flipped when they are unsalvageable wrecks, mutilated by people who didn't take care of their home because they didn't love it.  I see that channel on TV where the Property Brothers and other "flippers" go into a home and renovate it.

Sometimes the place IS a wreck.  But sometimes it isn't.  And I look at the houses like that and I think, "I wonder what that home's family would think about the horrible things the potential buyers and brokers are saying about the architectural features and room decors they are bashing?  Just ripping it all to pieces like it didn't have any personality at all."  I'm thinking that family might be feeling the same way I do about our Secrest Court house. Sad and disappointed at the outcome of a terrific property that was our home, our sanctuary, our holy place.

I always imagined there would be nostalgic pleasure in driving by 7328 Secrest Court and saying, "There's where we used to live.  Remember the good times we had there?  Wasn't that a great home!"

Instead, I think this "flip" was a "flop"!