DIY should feel empowering, but it?s become another thing I expect myself to do just because I can When I was 5, my parents bought a house in Santa Rosa, California. It was a small bungalow with faded, peeling tan paint and not a lot else going for it. We didn?t have much money then, but we had enough for this house. So my mother, an interior designer by trade, rolled up her sleeves and got to work.
The first thing to go was that paint. She scraped and sanded and primered all day on a tall ladder. I have memories of her coming to play with me with paint splatters across her face like freckles. When she finished, the house was a perfect lilac. She planted fruit trees and put a trellis next to the sidewalk. The last time I drove by the house, it was still the same shade of purple. When I think about being a homeowner, that?s the memory that sticks out to me. My mom sweating on a ladder, wielding a paintbrush. My mom has moved to and rehabbed countless houses since then, but I never hear her sound so proud as when she talks about that purple house and all the hard work that went into it.
After eight years of living in an apartment, I?d amassed a long list of things I was excited to DIY when I finally bought a house. I?d retile the bathroom, put in new light fixtures, try my hand at stenciling, repaint every wall until it could never be mistaken for a rental. Paint would stain my clothes and my hair while I blasted Sarah McLachlan out of the open windows on a balmy summ...