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Wednesday, May 07, 2008

I need an intervention.

I am determined not to live 12 years in this house with blank walls like we did in our last house. For a long time, I've planned to use a chunk (but not a HUGE chunk) of this economic stimulus tax rebate thing that we've just received to buy prints for our walls. Some will be of my own photos (OK, most, because hello, cheaper). We have a Jack Vettriano print that we absolutely adore but I'm thinking it might reside long-term in our bedroom which is not the main focus of my effort right now.

Anyway. I NEED YOUR HELP. That's what I came here to say today. Hi, my name is Rachel and I am clueless about decorating. Mainly, I need your help with two specific problems.

First, remember this view?

It still looks like that. (Chain/cord ensemble and all, although I am begging on bended knee for my husband and his electrician friends to please please direct-wire things to light switches sometime this millennium. Or maybe for Mother's Day even. But I'm not holding my breath; they're all very busy. Moving on.) There's that big blank yellow wall that's just aching to have... something on it. It's the first wall you see when you walk in the front door, so a big nice statement might be appropriate, and yet we all sit there and stare at that spot while we eat, so we don't want something on too grand a scale. The thermostat interferes with the possibility of some kind of nice wide print of something, don't you think? Or maybe something panoramic could go above the thermostat and there could be a row of smaller somethings beneath? The other thing I've thought of for that space is a wall with a lot of different prints in various sizes (family pictures maybe?), but that seems to have the potential to look really badly cluttered. DO YOU SEE HOW CLUELESS I AM? PLEASE HELP.

You know what I think would be fun for that spot, would be a good-sized print of a work with overall eye appeal as well as a lot of interesting little details. Not quite a giant Where's Waldo, but maybe something like The Fall of Icarus, only less depressing. Any ideas?

OK, so that's the first problem. For most of the other areas of the house, I have some idea what I want to do -- what size prints I want, how many, etc. The thing is that I don't know which ones to use. Obviously there will be some family photos involved, from different eras. And I'm planning to use square prints of a few of my animal shots (maybe this one, definitely this one, but not this one, obviously) in the guest/children's bathroom. Mainly I'm wondering (finally she gets to the point) if you could maybe meander through my old photo blogs and my flickr photostream and point out any shots that you think might be good for just general-purpose art on walls, in varying sizes. This is not an ego-stroking exercise -- I'm certainly not expecting any screaming-fangirl THIS ONE THIS ONE OMG IT'S THE BEST PICTURE I EVER SAW kind of comments. But with my own stuff, it's hard for me to look through it and know what other people might find appealing, or even blandly inoffensive in an "oh, has that picture been there all along?" kind of way.

Also, if you know of any art prints that might be nice, send along ideas if you want. I'll be looking at places like Michaels and Target and Costco this weekend, and then there are online sources too.

Comments are (as always) open, and I think linking works, but maybe I'd better check. Thanks in advance for any help. :)

Saturday, February 16, 2008

But THIS time it will be different.

I feel all homeownery and grown-up. Not only do I have a veritable novel-length projects-to-do list, divided by priority and subdivided by expense and whether it's something I can do on my own with the kids* or whether it's something that requires a Man, but I am actually planning a vegetable garden. It is so much fun. I love planning, and I love vegetables, so yay! a garden! Maybe even a homemade greenhouse! This particular project was initially more T's idea than mine, but once he presented it to me, I kind of took the idea and ran with it, with a typically excited New Project attitude**.

Please note that now, in the height of my enthusiasm, is not the time to remind me that All Green Things I Touch Must Die. And anyway, maybe my record will improve. To adapt a quotation from Philippa Gordon (is that her last name?) in Anne of the Island, "when I begin in good earnest to learn to cook [garden], don't you think the brains that enable me to win a mathematical scholarship [um, keep a blog sporadically? get good grades as long as I only take six units at a time? read lots of novels?] will also enable me to learn [gardening] just as well?"

I can hope, anyway. And hey, if I fail, I will probably do it in a spectacular and possibly humorous fashion, which always makes for good blog fodder. So stay tuned.

*LT is oh my gosh such a helper. Everyone should have an eleven-year-old son to help with outdoor projects. And C makes up in enthusiasm for what she hasn't quite yet gained in skill, especially if she picks her own projects -- she loves cleaning the lawn, for example. Which, with a dog*** on the property, becomes very important.

**See also: Why I get halfway through a knitting project and then let it linger all lonesome on the needles while I giddily start a new project, at which I work doggedly until I get halfway through and let it linger all lonesome on the needles... and so on ad infinitum.

***She's doing a lot better but I'm still not sure she was a good idea. She still has a tendency to poop indoors if she isn't taken outside at pretty much precisely the right moment, and now that she sees the kids and me as Her People and the house as Her House, she barks and pseudo-growls at T whenever he enters a room where she is. She settles down when he gets close and touches her, but it is annoying and a little unnerving. OK, OK, dog, maybe a good-sized guy with a beard abused you in your past or something, I dunno, but how long exactly is it going to take you to differentiate between that bad man and this very good one, who, hello, built you a doghouse for when you're outside, and funded your vet visits and all the other VERY EXPENSIVE THINGS you have needed, and just wants to be your friend? T has started to carry treats in his pockets to give to her every time he sees her. He figures it works for the crooks in all the mystery stories, so why not.

Wednesday, January 16, 2008

ok, a FEW pictures.

I finally realized why I thought I had taken more Before pictures of the house than I had. I SWORE I remembered looking at pictures of the kitchen and the bedrooms as well as the very memorable two-kinds-of-linoleum-plus-stained-smelly-carpet 'great room' area, but they were nowhere to be found. Then I remembered that I was thinking of the pictures that were in the real estate listing. I wonder if the realtor still has them? I truly do wish I could show them to you. Hmm.

Oh! I just found them on the Internet (who knew there were SO MANY MLS sites?). The problem is that they are embedded in a slideshow, and I can't just link to the thing here because it will give everyone in the world my physical address which is not a great idea. (Although I recently discovered that many of my halfhearted efforts at privacy are in vain, thanks to whois. You'd think I'd have thought of that. Oh well.) So if you're a person I know, and not just a random Googler, leave a comment or drop me an email and I'll email you a link, if you're interested in the infamous Before pictures. I won't even bother with the couple of lame ones I have of my own.

OK, without further ado: the After (or, erm, maybe During) shots:

The living room from the front door. Notice:

• The kids are watching The Love Bug. Y'all, we know what's good.
• Bookshelves! (they were built in, but I painted them. Of course.) Spot the Annes? Also, the fabric-y mess in the middle section is the curtains for the kids' rooms (let's see: who gets the camouflage and who gets the purple?), which are sewn, but I don't have the hardware up yet
• C heard the lens cover come off and knew it was time to pose. LT, not so much.
• "White muslin curtains give a house such an air." Yes, an air of "at $3 a yard with a coupon for 90-inch widths, I just could not say no."

The living room from a different angle, featuring the brand-new woodstove sitting on the floor protector whose tile was laid BY ME. (This, by the way, was the only DIY project I took on in this whole process that was interesting and fun enough for me that I might willingly do it again.) Also, more Love Bug. And you can see the blue (and I do mean BLUE, wow. It's a little more subtle than that in real life) that is the master bedroom, but that's all you'll see of that room (or any of the bedrooms) until I get it (them) de-boxed.

From behind the TV. Notice the boxes in the utility room. There are A LOT MORE where those came from.

Hello, kitchen! I love you. We had the black refrigerator already, so the decision was made to go with all black appliances. (The stove and dishwasher are new). I was dubious at first, because I thought they would stand out like large sore thumbs against all the yellow and white, but I think the darker floors help make it OK. Right? right? And since EVERYONE asks, the brass hardware on the cabinets came with the house. We removed it all to paint (and paint and paint and paint) the cabinets, and then put it back. Everyone asks this as if it's far too nice to have been chosen by me, since I have no taste whatsoever. (I do not debate them on this.)

Behold the dining area. For ordinary use we keep the table against the wall, to save space and clutter. When we have company, we can pull it out from the wall and use the bench that's stashed under it.

Mary: mistress of all she surveys. This is her new favorite place. (Smoky is more partial to the empty boxes. He certainly has a variety from which to choose.)

Next time: bedrooms. Maybe. :)

Tuesday, January 15, 2008

la la la, no pictures, la la

I KNOW. I am SO SO BAD.

The thing is, is there are BOXES. And there is no WOODSTOVE (although that should be remedied tomorrow morning, for-reals this time, or else, and hi! we don't have any wood! It is all at Mom and Dad's. We are planners, that's us), so you would not get a sense for what the room will really look like. Plus it's not like I took a whole lot of Before pictures [Rachel smacks head repeatedly], so you would have only the scantiest point of reference for how very different everything is, and what if you looked at the pictures and thought they WERE Before pictures, and I just couldn't handle that, so. No pictures. Yet. Maybe tomorrow.

But this is a post! And we are actually living in the house, and have been since Friday! And our DSL is completely wonky and I am hoping it is our DSL modem because that can be replaced, and not just the badness of the DSL connection in this area, which would make me very, very sad, because selling the house is, as I have mentioned previously, only happening when I am no longer around to have to be involved in the process because HATE HATE HATE. Even though right now it takes approximately four hours to do an upload that used to take thirty minutes, which is extremely unsatisfactory what with the whole Librivox addiction and the fact that I can finally indulge it again, only to be thwarted when I attempt to upload the files. Last night when this was discovered there was much growling. (Downloading and ordinary Internet surfing are only a tiny bit slower than normal. Whatever...)

Um, what else. School! School has started. I am not yet fully enthusiastic about it, but the whole moving/taking-on-mortgage/unpacking freakouts haven't quite run their course yet, so that's understandable; my mind is otherwise engaged. I have an online nutrition class, as well as a once-a-week history class at the local high school, with the same somewhat flaky generous grader I had for my very first college class a year ago. He was not glad to see me, seeing as how I was rah-ther annoying the last time he had me in class and he has no way of knowing that I've learned in the intervening semester to keep my mouth shut when someone else is talking. (I know! What a strange concept!). I thought about walking in with a piece of duct tape across my mouth, but I was afraid the joke would be lost on him, and plus, have you ever had to remove good-quality duct tape from your face? It hurts. I know this. (The things country kids do to amuse themselves.)

I know that I have been a terribly dilatory correspondent, and I will try to do better now that things are -- dare I say it? -- actually starting to settle down. Note that I said try...

Tuesday, January 01, 2008

a good way to start

Today, for the first time, my house looks like a place where a family could actually live. From the front door, anyway. (There's no bedroom furniture in it yet, as we are still using that here.) The painting is DONE (pardon me while I run outside for a quick barbaric YAWP). The floors are also DONE (thank you friends!), and they are lovely gorgeous floors of cherrywoodlike laminate wonderfulness. The appliances are in, including the washer and dryer which I truly thought would not fit but did, and the dishwasher that was supposed to fit fine but almost didn't, and the range which is lovely and black and new and not hooked up yet because we forgot that it has to get converted to use propane instead of natural gas.The storage unit was emptied much more easily than I envisioned -- I was picturing a three-trucks-three-trips-each kind of thing, but it only ended up being two trips with Dad's truck and small trailer (the second trip just for two couches), and one trip with our truck, all accomplished on Sunday while the people who knew about installing the floors were assiduously installing floors. (Conversely, the floor job was something we thought would take part of one day but it took a total of about twenty-four hours of work, divided into three days. THANK YOU AGAIN FRIENDS!) I bought curtains yesterday, but when I put them up today I hated them, so I'm taking them back tomorrow to try again, along with three or four unused boxes of flooring and some tubes of caulking that were labeled very clearly as CLEAR but which contained caulking that was in fact very very white. (We used quite a lot of it, hoping it would dry clear like Elmer's glue. It, um, didn't. Good thing it is now covered by trim. But the unused tubes are going back to Lowe's in disgrace.) Tomorrow, after I've installed curtains which I hope I will not hate, I will take some photos and post them because I know you all are just longing for photos, right? Right?

All in all, this makes for a very very happy (and grateful) start to 2008. Everyone come look at the place before it gets messy!

Monday, December 24, 2007

very quick little tidbits

Guess what I did today? I used the table saw to cut trim! For three whole rooms! (Good thing most of the mistakes I made were of the trim-too-long variety. Ahem. At least there were no mistakes that involved, say, copious quantities of blood.)

And (drumroll please) all of the floor, window, and door trim in the bedrooms is DONE. Donedonedone!! That leaves ceiling moulding, which is not a high priority and which we will probably do one room at a time as we can afford to buy good stuff, rather than trying to put back the cheap stuff that was there before.

Aaand this Friday we are emptying a storage unit (one of two), and then Saturday we are LAYING THE FLOORS YES YES YAY.

Also, I still have not found out my grades because the college's grade-checking site won't let me in to see them. What kind of Communist conspiracy is this??

We are all ready for Christmas and even excited. Dinner is on the table so I must not elaborate.

Thursday, December 13, 2007

the neverending PAINTING. and other stuff.

oh my gosh I hate painting. Have I mentioned that? Hate. hate hate hate.

The good news is that, relatively speaking, it's almost done. I have painted LT's room, C's room (with a little help from T), our room, and the living room, which took THREE **** COATS because KILZ PAINT LIES. Also, I have painted most of the trim in the living room/dining area/kitchen. Still to do: the window, door, floor, and ceiling trim (which has been removed) for the bedrooms, the drawer fronts and cabinet doors, and the (millions of miles of) ceiling and floor moulding for the front room.

So yeah. Sometime around the time the kids graduate and move out, we should be done. Or maybe this weekend, if the weather holds and nothing stupid happens.

I am liking the colors. Off-white begone! LT's room is kind of khaki, and should look great with the camouflage bedding I think he's getting for Christmas from my mother-in-law. C's is PURPLE. I mean, techically it's lavender, but it's PURPLE. When the light comes in her window in the afternoon, the whole hallway outside her room has this purple glow thing going on. Ours is very blue. Those of you who may have been around since we painted our room at the other house, before we gave it to C -- it's a little more blue and a little less gray than that. And the living room is a nice sunny, creamy yellow. FIVE GALLONS of paint later. One coat coverage my eye. At least the mint-chocolate-chip-green color is banished forever.

All trim is white.

Not that you care. In fact, let's face it, you all took off two paragraphs ago and here I am talking to myself. I know this because even I am bored. Rachel, nobody cares about the painting except you. Accept it and move on.

Um. What else to talk about... Christmas is coming? I am still not really feeling that. No idea why -- it's not like I have anything else on my mind. And Christmas coming means that I have a birthday coming too, doesn't it. Also not feeling that, although I've been thinking of myself as 33 (when I haven't been thinking of myself as 68) for at least the last few months, so maybe that's why. The shopping is done, and thanks to LT most of the wrapping is done, and now Christmas is kind of on a shelf until the morning of the 25th, when we will bustle around and make a big dinner and then, in a manifestation of one of the most disappointing aspects of adulthood for me personally, I will heave a sigh of relief that it's over until next year. I swear I am not Scrooge. It's just that the work factor outpaced the fun factor of Christmas about the time the kids got old enough to lose the starry-eyed-wonder thing, which was also around the time that I got fed up with all the STUFF they had... and yet here we all are trapped in a tradition where, no matter how much we deny it, Christmas is very much about getting STUFF.

I am not knitting much. I started a really pretty scarf with a celtic knotty braidish kind of pattern that I lifted from somewhere, thinking to maybe give it to my grandmother for Christmas, but at the rate I'm going it'll be Christmas 2011.

I am done with school for the semester, as of last night. I am 100% sure I have an A in the music class, and relatively sure I have one in the dreaded English class as well, which is something I was not at ALL sure was possible at the beginning of the semester. This will teach me to freak out about stuff. That class was a lot of work, and the subject matter was annoying, but the grading was very fair -- even generous, in some instances -- so I have no complaints.

Also, I have a transcribing job, which I work on very late at night until I collapse into bed to get up and start it all over again the next day. One by one these various occupations will drop off as they get finished (hallelujah!), at which point I will probably find out that I don't at all remember how to relax. I am really looking forward to relearning that very admirable skill, oh yes I am.

Thursday, November 29, 2007

hallelujah praise the Lord

It's ours.

It was down to the wire, touch-and-go, white-knuckle, and assorted other frantic and stressful metaphors, due to a few complications, but it's ours now. Our mortgage, our lovely four acres, our fixer-upper, our lifelong home because I am never doing this again as long as I live.

Tuesday, November 27, 2007

yet ANOTHER bewildering change in plans

'cause I know you are all on the edges of your seats.

We signed the papers TODAY, but we don't get the keys until FRIDAY. And if something takes longer than it should and we don't get the keys by Friday, we get to (drumroll please)

start over again at the very beginning.

Which is something I don't even want to THINK about, especially since we just paid five figures' worth of closing costs today, including back taxes which should in no way be our responsibility, much of which I'm very afraid is nonrefundable.

Someone please remind me that someday we'll be glad we did this because I am just not feelin' it right now.

I would say "in other news" at this point, and bring in either (a) a bit of self-deprecating levity or (b) a pertinent and eminently spiritual bit of wisdom (HA! haw HAW!), but I am not feelin' that either. So this is it until tomorrow. Or maybe the weekend. We'll see.

Sunday, November 25, 2007

make that THURSDAY.

When we sign the papers. As opposed to Monday, as we had previously been told. Ah, heck, at this point, what's three more days?

OK, so it's $180, taken literally.

This means that this whole process, which we were initially told would probably take two weeks, has taken [counts on fingers] six. And that's just the time it took for the bank paperwork. By the time we sit down and sign our names over and over and over until our fingers rebel and we say to heck with it and start just scribbling randomly on the lines, it will have been five months and eight days since we made our initial offer on the property. Can I get a little sympathy? Beck, you have no idea how your brief comments have made me feel better. Solidarity! I NEVER want to do this again. There are people (to some of whom I may be related by marriage) who like to do this sort of thing almost recreationally. Those people are either much more patient than I am, or they are a wee bit unhinged, if you ask me.

So how was everyone's Thanksgiving? Mine was eh OK. It didn't feel terribly holidayish, to tell the truth. I am such a consumerist American that nothing felt even remotely holidayish until the next day when I was shopping for gifts. (I blame it on the earliness of the holiday.) I skipped the whole 6-am-outside-of-Joann thing this year, because I'm not planning on sewing any presents this year, what with the whole moving-again thing, but I did go down to the valley and buy a few things around lunchtime, after the mob-shoppers had gone home to sleep it off. Now begins the rushed and crazy time of year when we not only have to get ready for the holiday that we always SWEAR will be low-key but it never is, but we also have three family birthdays to fit into our schedules (one of which is mine), as well as this year's remodeling and re-moving effort which kind of overshadows everything. Can I just go to sleep now and wake up on New Year's Eve with everything done, do you think?

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