I changed the apartment to my own house

2024 Author: Seth Attwood | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-16 15:55

An interesting story of one person who moved to live from an apartment in a country house. How is he doing now?

1. Life before …

This interesting and informative story was told by one person who once decided to radically change his life. Already at a fairly mature age, a typical city dweller, who had lived all his life in city apartments and got used to the noisy bustle of the city, one day changed the stone walls of his dwelling for a suburban wooden cloister. Here is his story, told in the first person …

“I was born and lived all my life in a big city. I got used to its hustle and bustle and the hum of cars. My early morning as a child began with the creak of trams leaving their depot for work on a voyage. Our house, a five-story "Khrushchev" building, was located next to the tram fleet. Still lying in my warm bed, barely opening my eyes, hearing these characteristic sounds of the rattle of tram wheels on the rails, I reluctantly recalled that morning was beginning and soon caring parents would wake me up to take me to kindergarten.

Having already become an adult, having got my own family and children, having changed my place of residence from my parental "Khrushchev" to "Stalin" in the city center, my morning also invariably began with the creak of trams. Tram lines were laid along our avenue. Trams in our city began to work at 5 am. Hearing a grinding sound familiar from childhood through a dream, he reluctantly accepted the beginning of a new day. The city wakes up early … When I was having breakfast, watching the bustle of cars on the crowded avenue, its noise was already rushing into the kitchen through the half-open window.

After breakfast I hurried to the parking lot to my car - my working day began. On the way, I greeted my neighbors, my acquaintances, who were also in a hurry to go about their business, and the constant mistress of our yard, Baba Masha, the janitor, who got up with the first trams to put things in order in the local area. In winter, with a crowbar and a shovel, she chipped off the frozen ice from the sidewalks and shoveled snow to the side of the road, in the spring she used a rake to collect leaves left over from autumn and garbage thrown over the winter, which, after the snow thawed, spoiled the appearance of still bald lawns, in summer she swept sidewalks and generously watered the flower beds with a hose with flowers, in the fall she raked up the fallen leaves, burned hills of withered yellow-red leaves and a light smoke hung in the air and the characteristic smell of burnt foliage was heard.

In the evening, returning home after a hard day, I habitually drove my car into the parking lot. The city was plunging into twilight and lanterns were lit in the streets. My neighbors were also in a hurry to go home, to their apartments, to their concrete shells, to turn off the regime of the city crowd and bustle and plunge into the peace of their home. At home, despite the high ceilings of my "stalinka" and thick walls, I was aware that the neighbour's children upstairs had returned from school, had done their homework and were now playing the ball around the room. The downstairs neighbor takes another careless student from her music school, giving him additional lessons, and I, having involuntarily learned all the scales of her wards, heard where the next pet of our "music teacher" was out of tune. Toward late evening, a wayward and restless daughter, who could not be put to bed by any persuasion, was loudly naughty at the neighbors behind the wall. Behind another wall, on Friday nights, my neighbor and good friend had a tradition of "throwing a glass" and singing in karaoke if the mood was right. Sometimes neighbors knocked loudly on the radiator if the neighbor was in a “mood” until late …

2. Life after …

… How I built a wooden house from a log outside the city, how I settled there with my family - it took several years and I will tell you about this another time. And what has changed in my life after I changed my place of residence, having moved from an apartment? From an apartment, where everything is in common, except for the walls of your habitation, replacing it with a private house with its own piece of the planet - a house territory and a personal plot? Has it become easier for me and do I regret that my life has changed so dramatically?

Physical housework

I will say right away - life has not become easier! It's just that all the difficulties are now of a different order. If earlier, after work, I sometimes went to the gym to warm up a little, not to lose shape from a sedentary lifestyle, now I have no time for that. It’s even ridiculous to imagine that I, having gotten away from chores around the house, around the site, would go somewhere else to “stretch”. And I always have a lot of things to do on the street!

In winter, you need to remove the snow, in the spring to rake garbage from the ground that is bare from under the snow, in the summer to mow the grass, and in the fall to remove the fallen leaves. When I lived in the city, it never even occurred to me to think about it. I perceived our good old woman Masha the janitor as a necessary attribute of the microdistrict. All year round, all season long, she habitually lived on the street, greeted everyone, sometimes scolded the children or undisciplined residents of the house if they littered and I took it all for granted.

Surprised to myself, now I realized that on my personal "piece of the planet" there is no such ubiquitous woman Masha. Baba Masha is now myself! Then I had to master this hard work of the janitor, comprehend the basics of this skill, equip myself with the necessary tools, acquire shovels, brooms, a lawn mower and much more …

Now I rarely manage to drink tea leisurely, sitting melancholy by the window. In the morning I need to have time to get ready not only for work in this noisy city, which still feeds me, but also have time to do something around the yard. If fluffy snow falls on the street in large flakes and covers the street with an elegant white downy shawl, then this is not only beauty, but also a signal that I have a lot of work to clean up this snow trap. In the morning, before work, armed with a shovel, I vigorously remove snow from the road. If I have time, then throughout the local area, if not, then at least the main approaches to the house and the road from the garage to the gate. Now my car doesn't stand like an orphan, abandoned in the parking lot. My iron horse has its own place in the garage.

The rest has to be postponed until the evening. Needless to say, having recharged in the morning with a portion of physical activity in the fresh frosty air, I feel cheerful all day and generate energy like a nuclear reactor? And how the anticipation of the fact that in the evening I will also have to wave a shovel in order to remove snow from all over the territory of the house stimulates life! After that, with a smirk, I glance at those who go to the gym in the evening to “stretch their muscles” and think: “Uh-uh, darling! Your energy, but in the right direction, to my site … I would work, stretch my muscles for good, and not waste energy from hamburgers into the air. " simulator "is my home.

The wife is in the house

Popular wisdom says: "from a man should smell like wind, and from a woman like smoke." Well, does a city dweller understand the rationality of this saying? Only after living, how from time immemorial the people lived in their houses, huts and huts, do you understand how sensible this proverb is. To simplify the meaning of what has been said, this means that the peasant's work is outside the walls, on the street, he is a breadwinner and organizer of the outside world, outside the hearth. And the mistress of the hearth, the caretaker and ruler of this world inside the walls of her dwelling is a woman. And the harmony of the coexistence of these two components is the basis of the well-being of all the inhabitants of the house. When everyone knows their business: the woman is in charge of the house, and the man is outside the house. It also happened with us …

In the morning, the wife gathers and takes the children to school and kindergarten, then she fusses around the house all day, until the evening, she, like any mother and housewife, is never “bored” and “has nothing to do”. And even if a modern housewife, unlike her predecessors from past centuries, now does not knead dough and bake bread in a Russian oven (for this she has a bread maker), there is still enough work around the house and with children …

Does my wife compare life in an apartment, in a large high-rise building and in a separate house, apart from the bustle of the city? Yes, she compares and not in favor of the first, despite the fact that her life has also changed in some way after the move.

Many years later, now we remember with humor how we celebrated with friends the first day of settling in our wooden house … At a set table, having noted, as befits new settlers, moving to a new place of residence, we turned on karaoke and sang our favorite songs. Out of habit, my wife began to turn down the sound, she always did this in our apartment, not allowing us to roam, otherwise the neighbors will start knocking on the battery from above, from below and from all sides … I stopped my wife with the words: “Who will knock on the batteries for us now? ? Mice in the basement? " The wife did not immediately get used to the idea that there was no one around: neither schoolchildren with a ball upstairs, nor a "music teacher" with a piano and students downstairs, nor neighbors with their non-laughing daughter who did not want to go to bed, nor a good friend, a solo lover singing on Fridays. Now we are alone around! And in order to ask someone for salt in a neighborly way, you need to go out of the gate and walk the path to the nearest house.

Neighbors and personal plot

We communicate with neighbors on the site more in the warm season, when the snow melts on the personal plot. Our territories are separated by a low mesh-netting - this is so, for order and purely symbolic. All the same, my neighbor and I made a gate in the fence so that we could walk to each other, you never know what things we might have in the garage …

My wife used to plant flowers in tubs on the balcony. Now she owns a whole household plot, and this is a rather large territory, I must say … Every spring I have to dig up flower beds, where she plants her numerous tulips and gladioli and beds on which my wife grows fresh greens for the table. And also, having gained experience in growing various edible plants, she swung at the greenhouses in which she wants to grow her own tomatoes and cucumbers. She even tries to carefully talk about a winter garden for her home lemons, which grow in her pots, dreaming of growing pomegranates and persimmons that are exotic for our places. I am still skeptical about this venture - not enough work for me! but my hostess “the kingdom is not enough, there is nowhere to roam,” which is why she needs a winter garden, in order not only to cultivate the land in summer, but also in winter …

The space of the apartment and the territory of the house are different levels of the economic approach

I now remember with irony my wife and I sufferings over the endless repairs in the apartment. How heatedly we discussed which wallpaper tone is more suitable for the room and whether it will be combined with the color of the curtains, and God forbid, if there is a discrepancy in some nuances! The wife's friends will condemn her for bad taste and the renovation will lose its meaning. Now the spouse has become less scrupulous. How can you be sophisticated in combinations of shades, if you do not have the limited space of an apartment box in a city anthill, but a whole house and a piece of the street - and this is all yours, and you are responsible for the roof and walls of the house, for every tree that grows with you, for every blade of grass. If the roof is leaking, then there is no one to complain, hire builders, let them fix it. Hit the fence with your car? Repair not only the car, but also fix the rickety fence. Broke a pipe, blew off a tap? Climb into the well and block it urgently - you won't flood your neighbors, but you will dilute the dampness under the house, and the housing and communal services workers will not rush to your house like an ambulance. And so in everything. Everywhere he himself should be able to fix problems and know their cause: whether in construction, in water supply, sewage, electricity, etc. You live as if on a separate island, behind a fence, where your own "kingdom-state" and this "empire" you must be able to manage himself. And if you can't cope, then move to an apartment, where your possessions will be limited from wall to wall, there is nothing to worry about: re-paste the wallpaper, and change the curtains on the windows ….

But I no longer want to go back when I lived in my own house and felt myself the owner of my land. I will already be cramped in the zone of the apartment, where everything is common and everything is nobody's. There will not be enough space, the feeling of being the Master. And not only to me, but also to my family, even to my pets.

The dog is in the house

It was interesting to watch how our faithful dog - a shepherd, now an old man, took root in the new conditions of a country house. After all, he is also the “owner” of his small but beloved home: a good-quality booth, which I have built for him from planks, insulated with sawdust between the planks and laid a large pile of straw. Now our dog is not threatened by any frost: sheltered from rain, snow and wind in his dog house, he buries himself in a heap of hay and thus calmly survives the bad weather. Initially, out of habit, the shepherd lived with us in the house, slept in the hallway at the doorstep on a mat and came to my wife's bedroom in the morning to wake me up for a walk. Accustomed from childhood to wake up (I have always had dogs), when a dog pokes a cold wet nose into your hand, and whines, calls out to the street, I got up and half asleep went for a walk with the dog. Sometimes the dog quickly did "his business" and we returned home to get some sleep, and sometimes he wanted to take another walk. Once the dog and I walked as usual, but the dog was stubborn and did not want to return home. Then I tied the leash to a birch that grew nearby, and went to fill up. And then I began to do this all the time: the dog woke me up in the morning, I took it for a walk, tied it to a tree on a leash, and went to fill it up. There was already a bowl of water for the dog and he "walked himself" to his heart's content.

Over time, our dog all the more reluctant and reluctant to return home. I had to leave him "walking around" for the whole day. The wife quickly noticed that now there was much less hair from the shedding dog. They also began to feed the dog on the street. Previously, the wife grumbled at our pet that he eats very sloppily, scattering food around his bowl and after each feeding she had to remove the leftover dog food from the floor. Now these problems have disappeared by themselves. At first, I still continued to bring the dog home at night. And then one day my neighbor and I got down to it, and we put together a solid, warm booth for Sobachevich. Our shepherd - an intelligent beast, immediately realized that this was his house and happily settled there. The wife wanted to put a mattress for the pet, but the neighbor said that the best thing for the dog would be an armful of hay. So our favorite took root in his own house, on his own territory, vigilantly guarding our entire "kingdom-state" from the fence to the fence, from the garage to the gate. The old one has just become completely…. The time will come and it will be gone. Are we going to have a dog again? Sure, we will! I got used to dogs since childhood. Only now I won't take the dog into the house. The new dog will now live on the street, in the booth. I have already lost the habit of walking the dog every morning and I like to watch my morning dreams to the end. All the more so when the rattling of trams on the rails, habitual since childhood, does not remind that a new day has begun. Outside the window, there is complete silence, only a neighbor's rooster somewhere in the distance occasionally notifies that morning has come.

Children love to play with our common pet in the yard: running, tumbling, throwing sticks and balls for the dog to bring “aport” in his teeth, and in winter to dig “caves” in the snowdrifts near the fence, in the summer to dig holes. Our shepherd has a habit of digging something in the ground, and then, finding some root, gnaw it out and bring it, burying his wet nose smeared in sand and clay into his hand.

Cats and home

Our cats are the ginger cat Chubais and the cat Anfiska. When they moved to their own house, they realized even faster than the dogs that in private ownership life is much better, more interesting and freer. How they guessed that the land along the perimeter of the fence from the inside is their land, and that of the neighbors outside the fence, outside, is alien, it is not clear. But the adjoining territory and the personal plot are not only our possessions, but also “theirs” too. Chubais and Anfiska are strictly vigilant so that not a single foreign representative of their tribe crosses the borders of our section. If the cat still allows cute neighbor's cats to walk around his territory, then Anfiska, like a fierce beast, rushes at any cat or cat, if they suddenly come across her eyes. An exception is made to cats only during the mating season, when Anfiska allows their presence near the house. She simply hides in the house from annoying gentlemen, pushing her "duties" to protect the borders on Chubais, the dog and us.

New traditions in our family

In our new home, we quickly developed new traditions, which we now observe annually and rigorously. For example, we began to decorate a Christmas tree in the yard for the New Year. Of course, we put up a big Christmas tree at home, and put gifts for children "from Santa Claus" under it on New Year's Eve. But now it's an artificial tree. The wife is happy that now there is no need to remove the crumbling needles from a real tree, because before she came across needles almost until summer, in one corner of the apartment, then in another. After all, then I wanted to have a real living Christmas tree at home, with the scent of pine needles. And now a real tree grows in our yard near the house, spreading its shaggy paws in different directions. We hope that several more years will pass and the tree will resemble the Kremlin one. Then you can't do without a stepladder to dress her up. We must somehow put a star on the very top of the head, hang garlands. The house and part of the street outside the gates are illuminated with multi-colored lights for all New Year's holidays, until the old New Year. Perhaps for children, and what to hide - and for us, adults, this is the most favorite part of the "program" of preparation for the New Year holidays, when the whole family, dressed warmly, go out into the street to decorate the Christmas tree and the entire adjacent territory. In addition, if the winter turned out to be snowy, we sculpt the Snowman, Santa Claus with the Snow Maiden, and the children then paint them with paints. How could we have imagined such fun, living in an apartment in the city?

In summer, the wife's birthday is a holy holiday for all family members. My birthday falls in late autumn and is most often celebrated modestly with my family. And in the summer, preparation for the wife's holiday is stormy, troublesome - this is now also our established tradition. From year to year, before the wife's birthday, garlands are pulled in the courtyard, a bowl of meat is marinated for barbecue, a bucket of okroshka is being prepared, red wine is bought for numerous guests: relatives, friends and neighbors, well, a little vodka, for us - for men. A table is put up on the street, benches that my good friend-neighbor helped to put together, all sorts of things are put up. Men make a fire in the grill and grill kebabs. The summer day is long and until dark we have music playing, children having fun, adults singing and dancing. In the evening, when the sun sets over the horizon, everything calms down, the garlands are lit, and my old friend at the institute takes a guitar, we sing our songs, which we sang as a student. And it’s so good in your soul that you understand - and after all, how great it is to live when you have a home and a family, children grow up, your wife is a clever beauty, old parents are still alive and old comrades don’t forget you. What else does a person need to be happy? Friends, build your house and you will understand what I mean ….