The Pride of Rentership

When you own a house, you get to paint the rooms any color you want, remodel the kitchen with stainless steel appliances and fancy countertops, replace ugly light fixtures with quiet ceiling fans, hang wood blinds and lay down wood floors. You can create the home of your dreams. That's called the Pride of Ownership.

I love watching those home remodeling shows, especially the before and after shots. Now I get to really enjoy them. What freedom to watch the kitchen remodel, think about how beautiful it is, contemplate what I'd do differently, and then just turn off the television! That's it. Finished. That's called the Pride of Rentership.

Rentership is characterized by all the things you can't do. The paint isn't perfect; not my problem. The dishwasher really would have been better a little closer to the sink; no worries. With a little bit of demo we could really make better use of the living room and office space... But since we can't do a damn thing about it, who cares?

I'm ridiculously excited about living in this imperfect house. Admittedly, in part because it's pretty darn close to perfect for us. But a good portion of my excitement rests with the vision that I'll never find myself saying at breakfast, "Hon, should we go play at the park or pick up a new faucet from Home Depot this morning?"

Park, beach, farmer's market... here we come! See that circle of yard fungus in the picture? I don't even have to mow it.