Glee

Two years ago, I bought a house that was built in the 1860s. It is solid, it is beautiful, and there isn't one right angle in the entire place. When I arrived, I began to peel back the wallpaper. Two years later, I think I have just hit layer nine. And it only happened so I could open my bookstore in my house instead of in the outbuilding attached.

I bought six rolls of a paintable, 3D textured wallpaper. I painted all the molding and trim. I scraped a few layers of wallpaper, but when the new paper fell off, the same day, I discovered this wall was not only home to several layers of wallpaper, but also at least two that were textured. And painted. Even when I thought I'd gotten down the paint directly on the drywall (which must cover the original plaster), it soon became obvious there was another pattern below the paint.

This house was telling me that it had had enough. It wasn't going to take even one more layer of wallpaper. I quickly deduced I would need to panel it. Believe me when I tell you, the temptation to panel it like a 1970s basement was overwhelming. But I intend to resist it.

I also attempted to gold-leaf the ceiling. What I did looked so cool, but my arms hurt and my back hurt and so I bought gold paint. When it arrives, I will carefully cover my floor and tape my walls. I will try to create the ceiling I keep seeing in my warped mind.

When I left my life behind in another province and bought this house, I was living in my father's rental townhouse. He had just passed away four months after his wife, my stepmother. Uprooted from my career and home in a larger city, I sat isolated in my stepmother's world and understood very quickly that if I sat in London, paying rent, paying bills, unable to get a job during COVID, I'd soon run out of what actually was a nice inheritance.

It was interesting to spend four months trying to care for and comfort a father from whom I was often estranged. To have found myself willing to give up my home and my job to care for him should have been more surprising, but I had been experiencing trauma. A lot of it. While I scarcely understood the nature of my 17-year relationship with my boyfriend, it was taking its toll. At work, I always felt like I was under a gaze of disapproval, and when a narcissistic bully at work set her sights on me, I barely knew what was happening. I came to realize that it was as difficult to explain what my work bully was doing to me as it was to explain to my boyfriend how poorly I felt he treated me. All of this was shocking because while I'd been in romantic relationships where there was no balance of control, I hadn't even considered that such a relationship could exist in a workplace.

At home, I was gaslit and belittled. At work, I was belittled and gaslit. At some point, I lost it and that's when I went home, on stress leave.

It's 2022 now. It's been over two years since my father died of COVID. It's been almost two years since I picked up and started over here. I found this house. This house is so old. This house is so broken. This house is about to have its dreams come true as is its owner.

The gold-leaf? It's excellent for masking mistakes. By the time it's applied, I realized I'd have done it even if there hadn't been an unfortunate imperfection on the wall, ceiling, baseboard, or otherwise. And the house with all its quirks and issues is really the only place I've ever belonged, so she and I are in it for the long run.