On Buying a —First-Time— House in Haywire America
How we got here + a view of the house and the start of renovations
I have started this piece many times in my head. Often, the tone was dark and pessimistic; other times, it was hopeful yet realistic. I am not so sure which one it’ll be now.
The thing is that when I had imagined this moment, I thought I’d be just sharing my excitment and my design plans, rather than talking about the contradictory feelings I have been experiencing throughout this process. Because I bought a house — a first time house — in the most debated country in the world.
For the ones of you that don’t know me yet, my name is Eli and I am a Spaniard born and raised in Barcelona. I have lived in different coutries and continents for years and since 2023 my husband Ross and I have found base in Boston, USA. Our relocations have always been temporary, so even though we have been happy so far here in Massachusetts, we knew this was not us settling down.
In general, we move when we feel we have stretched the place enough and we are ready to experience somewhere new. We are very fortunate that Ross has a job that allows us to live abroad and take on new adventures. But after two years renting here in Boston, we were not ready to move on yet. New England is beautiful, we are excited about the 4 distinct seasons (yes, even winter!), and even though there are many challenges, in general we have a good life.
So we were faced with a decision: should we keep on renting where we are (a beautiful yet not too practical apartment just outside of Boston) or find somewhere of our own? Neither of us had ever owned a house. Moving often, and therefore being renters, had been our lifestyle. But here prices are very high, and the rent would only raise (it had already done from year one to year two). So we thought that maybe it was time to find a house where we could live for 3-5 more years and build some equity.
We went to several open houses ourselves since the beginning of 2024, but started looking intentionally in October, when we found our real state agent. It has been a very draining process in which we have dedicated every weekend and also several week-days to house-viewing. We quickly realised the market was tough and we had to be ready to take action. We would view a house on a Sunday and make an offer by the following Tuesday. We bid on 3 houses, a couple of which we presented multiple offers for, and we lost all of them. Some by a lot of money. There were not many houses in the market, and people seemed desperate to get into one. Even if it meant they would overpay.
The time-frame we had given ourselves to find a house was getting shorter and we were starting to think maybe we should rent for one more year and decide if we wanted to try again later on. But finally, on February 16 we went to an open house that left a big impression on us. It was nice and ready to move in. I felt my heart sink a bit because I knew it would be difficult to argue against it, but if we went for it, we would be giving up several items of our wish-list.
We had been looking for a single-family house with a little bit of garden, 3 rooms, one of which would be close to the kitchen so it could become my photography studio. This one was a townhouse, had 2 rooms only and they were both in the second floor. I did grieve a bit the loss of my dream studio space, but realistically, it was a good house and at a much more reasonable price point for us. So we bid on it. And the 4th time was the charm!
The following weeks were both exciting and dreadful. We followed all the steps to get to the closing day (inspection, signing important documents, getting the mortgage, etc.) while we were surrounded by dreary news.
Semi-serious memes talked about people from the US pretending to be Canadian abroad so people wouldn’t pick on them, about grandsons of European immigrants wanting to now emigrate to Europe themselves to find a better —and more democratic— future. The place that we are calling home (even if temporarily) has been on the news unceasingly, and not for good reasons.
Mass deportations, unexplainable global tariff war, public fascist demonstrations, unlawful arrests, students having their long-term visas reboked and many more signs of weak democratic policies. How to let myself enjoy the excitment of buying a first-time home when the world around us looks like that?
Susana, my psychologist, suggests to focus on the here and now and let the noise out. It’s not always easy, and sometimes it feels like bad acting. My persona is split into someone who wants to be informed and alert, and into someone who just wants to think about color combinations for the walls. I don’t want to live continuosly anxious but I don’t want to be disconnected either!
We got the keys of the house on April 4, and we moved in two days ago. The good thing about April is that it has been so busy with us packing and taking care of some renovations that it has produced a sort of meditative-state in which I haven’t been able to worry about the world too much.
One day, I was in the house waiting for some workers to arrive and as I had nowhere to sit down, I went outside. We have a small garden, and the past owner left some patio furniture for us. I just sat down and looked at the trees and observed the birds. After 5 minutes I was feeling much more at ease, and after 10 I felt embraced by the moment of quietude and peace.
I don’t know if I will always be able to calm my nervous system down like that, but I want to try to enjoy this chapter of our lives. I don’t know what the future awaits for us. Maybe we will have to leave the United States earlier than expected. Maybe we will want to. But for now, we have a lovely little townhouse to make our own. And that’s a new —exciting!— adventure.
The house and renovations so far
After having that lifted off my chest, I can talk about the enjoyable parts! As I mentioned, the house was move-in ready, but there were a couple of things we wanted changed before actually living there. As we had about a month in between getting the keys and the move-in-day, we decided to go ahead and get it done.
All the images shown here have been taken by me with my Iphone and have not been edited to show the real colors as realistically as possible.
Removing the popcorn ceiling
Back in the 80s, when the house was built, it was common practice to spray a texture on the ceiling, and sometimes walls too, which was cost-effective but not too nice. In the US it’s known as “popcorn ceiling” as the texture may remind you of popcorns, although not in an appetizing way.
Nowadays, houses with this textured ceiling look aged and out-of-place. The texture is also very difficult to clean (as it’s a dust magnet) and to paint.
So we decided to ask a plaster specialist to take care of it. Instead of removing it by scraping it off, he sprayed an adhesive and then proceded to plaster on top, leaving a very smooth finish.
We will now have to prime and paint on top to finish them off, but that’ll come later, once we have figured out the design direction we want to take.
Taking out the carpet
I hate carpet, and thankfully, Ross (even if he’s English!) does too. So we knew the carpet in the 2 bedrooms upstairs had to go.
We got in touch with a flooring company and they told us they could install new hardwood floor to match the rest of the house, but if we wanted to save some money, we could rip the carpet off ourselves. So we went to Lowe’s and got ready!
Removing carpet is easier than it looks. You just need a utility knife with a good blade, a crowbar and protective gloves, mask and glasses. You first have to cut into the carpet and pull it to unstick it from the corners. We didn’t need to remove the baseboards, but sometimes the carpet lays underneath them and you have to.
Then, you roll it in sections to discard it better. After that, you have to do the same with the layer under the carpet, but this one comes off even without the knife. Then, you’ll be able to see the plywood underneath and all the staples that held the carpet in place. Those need to go, so you can scrape them with the crowbar or take them off one by one with pliers. As we only had one crowbar and Ross was using it to remove the spiky corners — where the carpet was nailed to— all around the room, I used the pliers to take the staples out. It was tedious but quite satisfying actually.
It took us two mornings to do both rooms, though it created about 15 bags of garbage to be disposed of!
Installing new floors and refinishing the old ones
Once the two rooms upstairs were free of carpet, they were ready for the new floors to be installed. Bruce, the floor specialist, had told us we have red oak everywhere so we ordered more red oak planks of the same width to match the rest of the house.
Red oak (Quercus rubra), also known as Northern red oak, is a native tree species from New England. It differs from white oak (Quercus alba) — which also grows in the area — for its coloring, as it has a reddish tone to the wood.
When an oil-base polyurethane is used on top of the red oak floors as a protective finish layer, the tone turns a deep orange. This was a usual finish in the 80s and 90s and it is still used today as the oil-based poly is very durable.
But we didn’t really want to put it on the new floors and have them orange, so this meant going for a water-based poly that would mantain the natural color of the wood. It is more expensive but it dries faster, has no odor and it is safer to use. Sometimes it’s said it makes the floors less durable, but if you choose a good quality product that shouldn’t happen.
This also meant refinishing the old floors as well so we could put the same water-based finish layer everywhere. I was a bit unsure I would like the floors in their natural color, though, and so we tried to come with a stain that would hide the pink undertone. We tried several samples, but they all came out orange (which is what we were trying to avoid in the first place!). The only solution was to go darker. Bruce had sanded a small portion of the downstairs floors to try the different stains while they installed the floors upstairs.
I slept on it, feeling confused. The next morning, I went back to the house and saw everthing was sanded down except for the area where we were trying the stains. The house looked so different! Much brighter and updated! I walked around mesmerized by the beautiful raw wood and I couldn’t find it in me to cover that up. I videocalled Ross, as he was away for work, and we both agreed we would leave them natural. No stain.
Bruce and his team applied a coat of Bona Traffic HD, the best water-based poly in the market, and after it dried I went back to the house. The color was more prominent and the pink was showing off more dramatically than it had done with the sanded floors, so Bruce suggested to add a sealer that would whitewash the floors a bit. He sanded the floors again (there had been some splotches in a few places), and went on with 2 coats of Bona NordicSeal. After that, he added a final coat of Bona Traffic HD in satin finish, which has a very slight sheen that will help hide imperfections.
As we had saved up by not applying a stain, we decided to remove the cork floor from the kitchen and lay red oak as well. It looks much better!
Changing the baseboards
As they had to remove the baseboards in the upstairs rooms to install the new planks, we decided to change the baseboards in the whole house as they were small and very thin, so in some areas you could see a gap between the floor and the baseboard. The new ones are 5 1/4 inch tall and they look really nice.
Next up
We have —literally!— just moved in, so we will live with it for a while. We want to see how we function in the space and what we need from it.
We have many ideas, though! We want to renovate the bathrooms (keeping the same layout but remodeling them), finish the basement and perhaps… make an ensuite bathroom in the massive closet space that exists in the main bedroom.
Those are big items, so we will start by making a design plan and painting the rooms ourselves! I am thinking about sharing the process here, so make sure you are subscribed so you don’t miss it! It will be an update-post every two months or so, whenever I have something to show. So in case you are not too interested, I promise not to bother too much. Most of the content will still be food-related!
A labor of love……congratulations….itnsill be lovely!
I love this home and its beautiful light. Congrats! Un abbraccio, M.