My 19th anniversary gift: a washer, dryer and house

We used to joke that we would buy a house just in time for our oldest daughter's high-school graduation (which would make it her graduation gift, of course :)). We missed the mark by a little more than a year (making the house our middle daughter's high-school graduation gift :)).

We will close on our first-ever house July 19, 2008, the date of our 19th wedding anniversary. We are, in a word, thrilled.

I figure, roughly speaking, that I will have made 988 trips to the laundry mat since I married. (I calculated this number by figuring I averaged one trip per week; sometimes I went more, sometimes less, of course.) Oh, and for the last 10 years, we've lived on the second floor.

Imagine: 988 trips to the laundry mat, half of them involving a treck down and up stairs with your arms full of laundry ... laundry for five people.

Now, to blow your mind: We've spent roughly $15,000 in quarters doing our laundry. (I started out doing laundry for slightly less than $10 a trip; I'm up to more than $20 now. I split the difference, figuring $15 spent each of the 988 trips.)

After we close on the house, we're heading straight to an appliance store and buying a washer and dryer. As in, the ink won't be dry on the mortgage paperwork when we hit the showroom floor. Needless to say, I'm ecstatic! I'll be sending out "birth" announcements for the newest members of our family, Mr. Tony Micelli ("Who's the Boss?") and Ms. Alice Nelson-Franklin ("The Brady Bunch"). (Yes, I'm naming my washer and dryer after famous TV maids; they will make my life that much easier ;))

Bittersweet move

As thrilled as I am to be getting my own washer and dryer, I'm saddened by our impending move. You see, we've been East Siders for eight years now — the whole of our time as city of Milwaukee residents. We literally live half a block south of the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee Union.

We moved here deliberately in search of "college town" atmosphere. See, our fondest memories take place on the campus of Michigan State University, where we spent our early married years while I earned my journalism degree. We loved the youthful energy, intellectual and political aura, and racial, religious and socioeconomic diversity of the MSU campus.

When we moved to the East Side, we got all that and more. An August 2007 article in Milwaukee Magazine, "High Anxiety," described the East Side as well as any publication I can remember:

"The neighborhood is like a faculty lounge for the professional class, a sanctuary for the elite who are too urbane to move to the suburbs. ... The neighborhood has Milwaukee's greatest concentration of architects, intellectuals, wealth and cultural ambition.

"Lake Park is just 500 yards to the east of Downer Avenue. Newberry Boulevard to the north, a regal extension of Lake Park, gracefully trolls three-fourths of a mile to Riverside Park and the Milwaukee River. The parks and boulevard were products of the 'City Beautiful' movement at the turn of the century. The neighborhood narrows and flows south onto Lincoln Memorial Drive, a two-mile glide to Downtown along the lake, passing the Milwaukee Yacht Club, marina, beautiful beaches, the lagoon and the Milwaukee Art Museum. Bluffs rise on the west; the lake glows on the east.

"There may be no better five-minute drive to Downtown in any city in America."

Amen!

The article goes on to point out that the East Side also offers some interesting shops and services, such as the Downer and Oriental movie theaters. And, while we have a high concentration of wealthy professionals and intellectuals, we also live among poor students, artists and party animals.

Unfortunately, this diversity of neighbors and wealth of natural beauty come at a price — a price we can't afford, if we're to own in this lifetime. See, we're not wealthy; I'm a small-town journalist, and the hubby started out as a laborer in factories, working his way up into a white-collar career in geeky information systems.

We finally qualify for a mortgage, but certainly not an East Side mortgage.

The house in which we live, one of the stately East Side duplexes, is assessed at $360,500. Granted, it's an income property, but still! Built in 1915, it's got the original wiring, plumbing and windows; first-generation fuse boxes and gas furnaces; and an asbestos roof that slopes at rough 60 degrees and leaks like a sieve into my kitchen.

One of the few single-family homes on our block is selling for, oh, $284,900; a house on the block to the south is selling for $314,900.

We can't even imagine. My husband's father bought an entire dairy farm — about 250 acres, cows and farm buildings — in northern Wisconsin for $32,000. Granted, that was 20 years ago, and the farm was in foreclosure ... but you get my point. We simply can't imagine — or afford — a $300,000 mortgage!

So my family and I are moving to Riverwest, into an 85-year-old bungalow on a comparatively quiet block.

No settling here!

At this point, I must clarify: We will be settling in, but we are not settling. We love Riverwest, which is rich with artists, environmentalists and hippies. It's also more diverse than the East Side because it's not "isolated" the way the East Side is, with the river cutting it off from the rest of the city. Riverwest bumps right up against the Brewers Hill and Harambee neighborhoods, and people from all backgrounds flow in and out freely.

I think the Riverwest 'hood might actually suit us better than the East Side does; we sometimes feel like students who accidentally wandered into the "faculty lounge for the professional class" :)

Of course, only time will tell. What we know for sure is that our house is perfect for us — and we're knocking more than $100,000 off that unimaginable $300,000 mortgage.

Yes, I know: We're still spending a lot of money for a house. Indeed, I suppose, we are. But we know, from living in my current home, what we're getting.

Houses in Milwaukee's old neighborhoods are security in building form. They are built with old-world construction: solid block or stone basements; wall studs set every foot and original hand-laid plaster walls; brick wet walls; and hardwood floors, doors and door frames.

Our current house has a built-in hutch, brick fireplace, window bay, two built-in window seats and a pantry the size of a walk-in closet.

In my eight years in my current house, I've never been afraid during a storm. Yes, the walls creak and the windows rattle in strong winds, but I know they won't give in to the pressure. This house has withstood Mother Nature's fury for 93 years, and it's hardly worse for the wear. (The roof leakage is due to age, not damage.)

In some ways, in fact, I think it's gotten ... more secure. It's earned its stripes. All of our doors still open and close without sticking or rubbing against the frame; they aren't the least bit out of alignment. How many modern houses will still have perfectly aligned, original doors in 93 years? Not many, I'm sure.

Oh, and because Milwaukee buries its main power lines, we rarely have an outage. We're safe from flooding because the river is below steep banks, and the lake is at the bottom of the bluff.

During bad weather, I long to be in my living room, curled up on my sofa, safe from harm.

I have no doubt our new house will give me the same level of comfort and security.

It's a feeling for which my hubby and I will gladly pay a lot. Now we just have to figure out how to wrap it in a bow...