In what she’s calling her “most exciting phase of life yet,” 31-year-old Chicago, IL resident Alyssa Grady just made an offer on “a cute little starter home” that the previous owners had lived and grown in for five generations.
How exciting!
“It’s a cute place to start out in,” said Alyssa about the home that had harbored the joys and tears, successes and strife of the same family for almost a century. “Definitely not looking to stay here for more than a year, tops. But I’m super excited to flip it and increase its resale value.”
Cheers to this next, brief phase of life!
The said “resale value” will come at the expense of the dining room where the prior owners had shared meals, told stories, and endured hardships together, as Alyssa plans to knock down that room’s wall to “open the space up” and “make it easier to gather.”
When asked how she thought the previous owners might feel about the changes, Alyssa jumped, seemingly startled by the realization that people had lived here before her.
“Oh, yeah, I guess the family that used to live here was priced out of the neighborhood,” Alyssa told reporters while deciding between beige and muted gray paint to replace the vintage wallpaper in the living room. “It’s sad, but I’m excited to breathe new life into this place!”
Replacing the original hardwood floors with gray vinyl planks, ripping out the antique vanity where somebody’s mom, grandma, and great grandma had done their makeup over the years, and landscaping the backyard where the echoes of familial laughter could still be heard was just the beginning of Alyssa’s effort to “breathe new life” into the home.
Yeah, that’ll definitely make the place feel newer!
“This used to be a really well-tended garden that somebody had spent their life caring for,” said Alyssa, who was in the midst of tearing up the delicate tomato plant that had just begun to ripen. “Now, it’ll be an electric fire pit that nobody uses, surrounded by a sea of pebbles where nothing can grow. Change is good!”
At press time, Alyssa had just finished sanding down the tiny notches carefully carved into the doorframe of the second bedroom – which had detailed the growth of five generations of children, dating all the way back to the 40s – in order to add a set of French doors to the Dutch Colonial-style home, and had deemed the place “resale ready.”
“Now, I’m onto my next adventure: find my forever home in a newly gentrified city, contribute to rising property values in the area, displace the local communities, and start putting some roots down!”
