Falling in Love With a House

I stood on the weathered front porch eagerly awaiting the opening of the front door. Once the lock was undone the door creaked open revealing a dust-filled entryway. The air was dry and chalky. Subtle beams of sunlight drifted down from the windows up above. I stared up at a beautiful spiraling staircase. At that moment, I fell in love with the house. I didn't need to see anything else, standing in the entryway, essentially the heart of the house, I knew that it was perfect.

It didn't matter that the house tried to choke you with dust or that their were pigeons flying around in the attic. Even in its state of disarray, the house was captivating. There weren't any lights in the house, there was barely even any sunlight on the lower floors due to the boarded up windows. There wasn't a faucet to rinse away the dirt that would quickly settle into your skin while walking down the halls. A tub without a water supply, an unidentifiable kitchen, windows without views. The house was empty. Its walls had been stripped of their plaster, all items that once made it a home removed. What remained was the opportunity for dreaming, of what the house had been and what it could one day become.

The heart of the old house was still there, that spiraling staircase seemed to hold everything together. It evoked thoughts of grandeur. It is what the homes original owner would have looked at when he first stepped over the threshold. He would have taken those same twisting steps up to the tower where he could gaze out at the mountains. Those spiraling steps are incredible. They wear out your legs if you make too many trips on them, they somehow cause confusion about which floor you are on, they let you dream and can make you instantaneously fall in love with a beautiful old house.


-H