Finally Finished

Although I have an absurd amount of intriguing things going on in my life, I'm not talking about any of them today. Today's topic instead: I FINISHED PAINTING THE BATHROOM.

Okay, this may not sound like a big thing, and definitely not an ALL CAPS kind of thing. But seriously. If you knew how long this project has haunted me, you'd put it in all caps too.

I promised Miss G an underwater bathroom around um, age 7 I think. She's turning 14 this year. (PS, see how I typed that without throwing up? Awesome!) Granted, most of those years were spent as apartment dwellers where I didn't want to paint, then repaint any bathrooms. However, we've been in this house for four (4) years now. You'd think that'd be ample time to paint a bathroom.

Turns out it was just barely enough.

Oh, and I could not have finished this without my amazing artist friend Carolyn. You know those projects that sit so long they grow impenetrable skins across them? The bathroom was one of them. Carolyn helped me finally breach it by showing up with reference books, know-how, her paints and brushes, and her always-cheerful attitude.

So, on to the pics.

We call this "Seahorse Corner."

Carolyn's awesome clown fish. 

My very first octopus!

An octopus close-up, because I love him so much. 

The "cave."

A close-up of Carolyn's happiest-moray-eel-in-the-world 

Some jellyfish... possibly the most fun thing to paint EVER. 

So, there you go, Miss G. You are probably way beyond the age where an underwater bathroom is remotely interesting, but at least I finally finished the damned thing. Love you! xoxo

Staging Nicely

When we first told our realtor* we wanted this house, she looked at us like we were a little nuts. I don't blame her. The carpet was raggedy, the walls dingy, and the layout is super weird with two big bedrooms and one little closet-sized bedroom.

Now that we're selling the place, she came back to take photos for the listing. She's maybe been here once or twice since giving us the keys, but it's always been in various steps of remodeling. While taking photos of the (finally) finished product, she gave me the highest compliment a realtor* can give: "Your house stages really nicely."

Truthfully, the house really isn't much better than when we bought it. The living room ceiling is some kind of old, perforated acoustic tile that's a little bulgy in places. Our bedroom is not separated from our bathroom; we took the wall out because it was so close to the tub I had to turn sideways to get into the shower, and I am a pretty tiny person. Dan couldn't get in at all. And the layout is still weird.

Yet it stages nicely. It looks quality in photos. The wonky parts are easy to crop out or gloss over.

Like my house, I too stage nicely. I have yet to meet the person (including those who've known me the longest) who isn't surprised to find out I have anxiety issues.

"You seem so laid back!" is the comment I get most often.

Of course I do. Because I stage nicely.

I've decided, no one actually has their shit together. No one. We're all just in various degrees of staging nicely.




*Side note: Why the hell does my spell check think this is not a word?

Before & After

Entry

New IMPROVED entry!

Kitchen

"Tropicana Cabana" kitchen!

Boring corner (the husband is not boring)

Fun corner!

Another boring corner

Another fun corner!

Sad closet

Happy closet!

Dull wall

Magical wall!

Yuck bedroom

Yay bedroom!

After!

before

during

after!

Okay. This might not look like much. But here's the story:

A couple of the cacti there were blown over, poor things, and needed to be replanted. Meanwhile, Bermuda grass (which I'm convinced is a sentient species... but that's another blog post entirely) had taken over some sections of yard, including the cactus. And a nice feathery bush with little yellow flowers was planted too close to the fence, and getting squished.

So-- step one, moved bush. Step two, removed Bermuda grass. (This involves two solid feet of dirt and roots more than it sounds) Step 3, set cacti back upright with special rock supports.

Also, I arranged Dan's bone collection (and a very small portion of his rock collection) in pots along the rockway there.

It's only a tiny 'after'. But it's one more 'after' than I had at this time yesterday.

Before

View upon walking in the front door

Looking right from the front door

These are real bricks, but the faux paint job is so terrible they look fake.

We ripped these kitchen cabinets out over the weekend.

A bedroom

Nothin' but potential in this yard. Seriously. Nothing.

Wheelbarrow for Grandma

My in-laws are now officially relocated to Hawaii, as of this past Monday. They shipped some stuff to themselves, packed a couple suitcases, then sort of vaguely waved a hand at their house and told us, “Just get a big shovel for the rest.”

So, I slogged through this week hip-deep in dusty knick-knacks, knitting supplies and mismatched dishes, assembling everything into a pile for the nice charity pick-up men. It’s been very cathartic; there’s a real satisfaction in transforming clutter from disaster to tidy piles and empty rooms. A clean palette is good for the soul.

Dan’s parents keep apologizing “Sorry to leave you with this!” and we keep reassuring them, it’s no problem. And really, it isn’t. Sifting through almost thirty years’ worth of accumulation is, in fact, less overwhelming than dealing with our own house.

When we first bought our place, we did so with a flush bank account, two great-paying incomes and all the skills required for remodeling. We’d fix it up, live in it for a while, and sell it at profit to move somewhere else when the girls are finished with high school.

In the intervening three years, things took a crazy wrong turn. Jobs dwindled into spotty work and then unemployment, followed too quickly by lawyers and court fees. Then the housing market crashed; now whatever we put in, we’ll never get back. Our motivation has fizzled out, and so have our remodeling funds. I look around and I can’t see potential in this house anymore. Only unfinished plans and frustration.

So, when Dan’s folks begged us for the umpteenth time to please rent their house after they move, we finally agreed. It’s a terrible time to sell, and the house is only a few years from paid off; if we take it over, they won’t have to deal with renters or leave the place vacant.

But really, we’re the ones who win. In my family, we call it a ‘wheelbarrow for Grandma.’ That is, a present you give to someone else that’s really for you. We’re cleaning out the house and renting it which helps them out, sure. But in return, we get a huge break on our cost of living and a fresh start. We’ll fix it up, move our crap over there (it’s only 6 houses away from ours), then finish remodeling our current house. Then unload that chi-blocking albatross.

Whenever they thank us, I feel like thanking them instead. I love a plan where everyone wins.

Happy Birthday, me!

It's my birthday today.

To celebrate, my family descended upon me with Greek food from our favorite little place. Just right.

It was a relief to have a celebratory birthday for a change. The last few years, my birthday has coincided with some seriously crappy mojo. This year, it's coincided instead with the first glimmer of our house being suitable for company. I mean-- we have miles to go before we sleep and all that. We still walk on plywood floors. I can still touch both walls of the bathroom with my elbows if I'm standing sideways. And the front yard... oh god, the front yard...

But-- An evening of hummus and wine has gone a long way to making me feel less transitional. Maybe what the house needed was a party instead of another coat of paint.

Remodeling via the 90's

I finished coat #3 of mud on the ceiling today, thinking very uncharitable thoughts about whichever previous owner did such shoddy work. It’s taken almost a full box of mud to even out the horror of mismatched drywall seams and insane texture. A full box, for less than 10 square feet of ceiling. But, I like working with my hands. It’s satisfying, making ugly things disappear.

While working, I listened to old mix CD’s on an old stereo, both recently resurrected from my now-empty storage unit. Three notes in, and I was 17 again-- no, 15-- no, 22. I forgot to pay attention to the work I was doing, forgot everything but how to breathe through my nose while treading memories.

I wandered through the edges of highschool today, with a smattering of college thrown in. I listened to a midnight roadtrip, heard boxes packed for a cross-country move, and sang of climbing out my window to smoke clove cigarettes on the roof.

I’m exhausted. Mudding isn’t hard work, but the time travel wrung me right out.

One more project to start. And, worse, finish.

I hate our front yard. We tore up half of it in preparation for a veggie garden, but (as with most projects around the house) one thing or another got in the way of us actually finishing it. This weekend was a recital. That weekend was a swim meet. Next weekend family’s visiting, or we’re visiting them. Then there’s climbing/hiking/camping that has to be done, and a friend who needs help moving and shopping to take care of. You know how it goes. And eventually it’s 95 degrees at 7 am and there was no way I could work out there at all.

So our front yard, at present, looks like this: First, a warped picket fence which is shedding white paint all over the sidewalk. Beyond the fence, there is a sidewalk splitting the yard. On one side, a huge mulberry tree with grass underneath. That’s actually nice, except for the odd barren spot toward the back that needs reseeding. Then there’s the other side, which is all dirt and some rock-bordered planting areas with nothing in them. Well-- that’s not quite true. A couple have dead vegetables. And Dan planted some upright rocks in one of them, which I find charming on my up days and on my down days sums up everything that’s wrong with our entire life.

I don’t know if it’s the crazy unevenness of the yard-- lush on one side, dirt on the other-- or the unfinishedness of it, or what it is that makes me nuts. I knew it was bad, and I knew it needed to be taken care of at some point, but seeing it with fresh eyes after three weeks out of town shot it right to the top of the priority list. Pulling up to my house should give me warm fuzzies, not take me from zero to grouchy instantly.

The heat continued for another week after I got home, giving me time to formulate A New Plan. Replace the fence. Cover the neighbor’s ugly chain link fence with vines. No more veggie garden. Maybe someday, but not this year. No more little floating planters. Instead, one giant planter filled with desert-y things that won’t die when we go on vacation (I feel really bad about this year’s tomato plants). One of the desert-y things will be a desert willow, which is grey-green graceful and drips pale pink flowers. Another will be a mesquite tree-- a smaller version of the one we were married under.

The plan is not the problem, though. The problem is, how do I start a massive project and not get overwhelmed in the process? When we have a million unfinished house improvements started and every one of them is a priority, how do we focus on just one, unto completion?