Their old colonial New England home “needed some work” when my parents bought it 40 years ago.

By today’s standards, it was practically condemned. Fleas infested the grungy old carpets and wasps were living inside the home (and I don’t mean white Anglo-Saxon protestants, they would never have lived like that).

The roof was a mess, half the walls still had lead paint, and one room was accessed by a hole in the wall, since haphazard renovations had covered up the doorway.

But there was so much potential.

Slowly, year after year my parents chipped paint, moved staircases and walls, and redid the floors to return it to its colonial splendor.

I remember using the bare floor-beams in the kitchen as balance beams–lose balance, and plummet into the cellar.

It became a five bedroom, three bathroom, six fireplace house (and two of the bedrooms have their own fireplaces).

A couple of years ago my dad redid one of the last parts of the house, creating an amazing 18th-century tavern, and custom wood-panel ceiling.

But one project leads to another, and it turns out the wood was all rotted on the outside of this section of the house.

This was one of the first repairs he did on the home 40 years ago, and there he was at 63 years old, in the biting November wind, doing it again.

The roof also needs replacing. The squirrels are back in the attic, after being once evicted. And there are still a couple of nooks that never actually did get renovated.

As much as he and my mom love the old house, he doesn’t want to do the same repairs he already made, even if he had another 40 years to do it.

Plus, the town has made it basically impossible to retire there, with massive property tax hikes. And the Massachusetts state government isn’t making it any easier.