My Mom's New Old Home

Well over a year ago, I reviewed My Mom's Temporary Home. My mom has since moved back into her old home, now rebuilt, so I'd like to officially give it my OK. (Official = on the internet.)

If you remember the review (it's OK if you don't, I didn't even remember most of if), I gave the old house a 9 out of 10 - granted, I may have been feeling nostalgic because it had just burned down, but even so it was a good house. And an extremely well-insured house.

Over the course of the past year and a half, my mom's boyfriend Tom, who owns the house, has been working diligently to make sure the contractors rebuild it properly, while my mom has been steadily building a collection of decor for the new set-up.

It was a long, long time coming, but the new and improved old house was finally ready for moving into a few weeks ago, and I came by for waffles one Sunday morning to see it.

It's fabulous. The new kitchen is humongous. My mom's a petite woman, but this kitchen almost makes her look like a hobbit. Except that it's so perfectly made for her that you would never guess she had ever had a different kitchen. Marble counter tops, beautiful hardwood cabinets, a fridge that would fit at least three of my moms inside, (well, that was creepy, Thea,) and one absolutely unnecessary Wolf stove with at least six burners.

It's a far cry from the kitchen we had when I lived with her in high school. We shared a one-room studio at 58th and Shattuck in Oakland. We could hear gunshots at least once a week. Tiny bugs were constantly infesting the kitchen - ants, moths, moth larvae, spiders... of course it didn't help that my lazy 17-year-old ass refused to wash dishes. But most noticeably, our kitchen was tiny. Like 3' x 6' tiny. And there were other places we lived where we had no kitchen at all.

So when my mom excitedly picked up a small remote control, pointed it at a (previously nonexistent) skylight, and said, "Watch this," it was little bit like watching her win the lottery. The skylight slowly opened up to the fresh morning air of the Berkeley hills, no giant-pole-with-a-hook-on-the-end required.

Also their new eco-friendly toilet has 2 flush options. Two.

Revamped old house: 10.5 out of 10. It's more house than I or my mom ever - realistically - expected her to live in.