Remodels, Windows We See Right Through

This window is now in our entry way.  It's funny to think that it once just sat in the antique store, waiting for a home and now, it's home.  We look at it every day, even if we don't see it anymore.

Filling the Void, but Losing the Dance Party Possiblity

When we did our remodel, a lot of our furniture got sent away. Sent away? Yes, I have a very sentimental husband (which, mostly is very cute and romantic) who has a hard time parting with things.

Look in our closet and you will find 20 year old pairs of drawers in his drawers. I am not a bad wife, I buy him new, fresh underwear, but for some reason he hangs onto the old scraggly underwear that has traveled the world.

Don't even get me started on the kitchen table. Before it was refinished, it was the running joke of all of my friends. It was noted on many occasion that the table wasn't fit to be accepted by the Salvation Army or resale. Now it is comfortable, beautiful and going to be around for a long, long time.

This leads me to our living room. It is an empty, cavernous dance floor kind of space right now. We've ordered new furniture, but it is verrrrry slow in coming. Piece by piece it is trickling in. Each piece was carefully chosen, but now as it's arriving, I'm having trouble parting with my potential dance party and packing staging space.

As each piece is carried in, I'm sizing it up in a weird, commitment phobe kind of way. Why? Well, number one, this is the last furniture I'm ever going to get. Ever. With my husband, this is it. I will never see another couch cross the thresh hold of our front door.

Each piece, I'm looking at as a long term commitment. Do I like it enough? So far, even though we picked it out, I'm not sure I like it enough to have it be that last thing that I see before I accidentally fall down the stairs and die.

My friends are funny. They say, "So what? If you don't like, you'll just replace it someday." Then I remind them about the kitchen table, and they quickly tell me how much they are sure that I will love all of my new beautiful furniture that is hand crafted in America and not by children in some third world country and that is why it is taking 8 months to get from showroom to my living room.

Not only am I being slow to warm up to the chairs and end tables that have arrived, I am sad to give up the idea of having the ability to throw a dance party. Not that I'm feeling up to throwing any party at this point, but I love the possibility.

I love having the blank canvas. I love having the possibilities. It's like a new found freedom right here in suburbia.

Now that it's filling with stuff, I'm not sure I want to give up my valuable living room real esate to just any sofa or chair.

Overdue Greetings from California: 9/2011

Dear Friends,

September is a high action month. We are on the go, and usually don't know where we are going. I have two calendars, one paper and one electronic. Wouldn't it be nice if there was a magic system that combined them flawlessly? Oh there is, it is called organiztion! Oops, clean out of that in my mental cupboard.

We are still in the one bedroom, one tent ark. It's all ok. Every once in a while I feel like I really have things under control. The next millisecond, things are falling on me in the closet and I know I absolutely don't have ANYTHING under control.

We actually have no furniture in our regular house. We have a big, expensive job ahead of us to try to fix that situation. Since we are all so bad at trying to choose things, it may be that way for a long while.

Kids are back at school...I think today made it the ninth consecutive day that we tried to get to school somewhat around the time it starts. We usually are a little more punctual at the beginning of the year and slide backwards to being Indiana Jones rolling under the closing stone door late. The pattern already set for this year scares me...if we are this bad now, imagine where we will be by Christmas?

I know that's not a lot of info. Add a broken computer and a smashed phone, and you get a clearer picture to why this blog is suffering.

That's all I can say for now.
Kindly,
Deb

Starting Construction, Again...

We are starting our third project. It is a remodel of the house that we actually live in, that almost overlaps with two other projects. One completed, one finishing up, and this one beginning.

Our belongings have been in a state of constant shuffle for over two years. I am pretty good with chaos, but now it seems like a sad fact of life that papers will always be everywhere, bins will always be half packed, I will always need more boxes and tape, and I can never find the mate to my husband's shoes.

We tackled the garage last week. Well, I tackled the garage with the help of my very excellent friend, our steadfast and patient contractor and his co worker. Not as many things as I was hoping went to donations and the dump. There is still enough stuff for at least three good garage sales.

Questions like, "Deb, where do you want the skulls?" and instructions like, "Be careful with the tombstone" scattered into the wind as we tried to organize years of, well, basically JUNK. We made progress, but it was only the first step in a sequence of total packing up.

Today, we are working on the attic. Luckily, my parents are here to help me haul stuff out of a sloped crawl space. However, as we work on these areas, the rest of my house is showing signs of spontaneous combustion.

You never realize how much your regular life demands of your constant attention until you focus on something else for a while. Well, the crew arrives today to start their part of the beginning, I'm here working on my part...and I'll keep you posted.

How Much Halloween Is Too Much?

We are just about to start a remodel. Perhaps the best thing about this entire project is that I am going to have to finally go through all of our JUNK and sort it out.

You know the 3 usual categories, right? JUNK, DONATE and KEEP. Yes, I know these categories, too, but I'm having a hard time with the most important ones: JUNK and DONATE.

As I spent hours this morning dragging bins out of the garage, I had to ask myself, "Just how many Halloween decorations does one family need?"

I have bins of skulls, jack o lanterns, costumes, candles, well, you name it, I probably have it in there somewhere. As I stacked the bins as high as I could, to eye level at least, I found none of the Halloween decor migrating toward JUNK or DONATE.

Maybe I will star in a special episode of Halloween Hoarders? I can't bring myself to give one little iota of my Halloween JUNK away.

Arson is On Purpose, Right?

Well, folks, it is the remodel project that has turned into a complete rebuild.

Throughout the phases of the project, we discovered many things that we could have discovered in a very bad way. This is includes a firebox that was almost non-existent and could have caused a MAJOR fire. Thank goodness.

This whole project has taken me by surprise. I kind of liked the place the way it was. When we were discussing it last summer, I never thought it would be completely gone by February...but it is.

Speaking of fire, they burned the last bits of it a week ago. Now the process of rebuilding begins.

The old dame, the lodge on the lake is no more.