There are a multitude of interesting origin stories of various things tucked away in my old home.
From the moment you walk in, you are greeted with an antique boot scraper that I inherited from my grandfather.
He in turn had inherited it from his grandfather, keeping the antique within bloodlines for countless generations. Then there are the Picasso reprints in frames hanging throughout the house. Some capture his earlier days while dabbling in realism all the way up to his long period of innovation with cubist surrealism. You might think that this old house is worth more than it is just from the way my wife and I decorated it. The truth is that there are some not so great stories as well, with the notable one being the installation of our central HVAC system. When we bought the house, it needed massive remodelling and lacked central heating and cooling. Although my wife and I handled most of the easy renovations, we had to call in outside help to install a split system HVAC with custom ductwork. We found a company that seemed great and we made the appointment date. But, when they arrived, they insisted on putting the air handler in a coat closet next to our guest bathroom door. This also meant that the air return where everything is pulled into the ventilation would be located directly next to the entrance to that bathroom. For obvious reasons, you generally don’t want to put your return next to a place that is inevitably a source of natural odor. My wife and I are not happy at all about the location of our air conditioner’s return vent.