Originally we referred to our home-interior-finish-vision as the 10-year master plan; gradually, it evolved into the 20-year design, before we finally got out of denial, and settled on the 30-ahem!-40-year-arrangement. When does a plan go from pipe dream to reality, or more significantly, the reverse, from reality to pipe dream?
We built the first installment of our home in the summer of 1981, (2018-1981=37 years) a 16-by-20 cabin, and added on a bathroom and laundry room in 1983, after taking up full-time residence right in the middle, in May of 1982. So, sure, we made do with a home-grown outhouse for quite a stretch there, until May of 1985, to be precise, when we built the main section of our home, a twenty-eight-by-twenty foot, two story “addition.”
Using that context as a frame of reference, we never got too excited about the concept of living the rough life; in fact, we thrived on it. Oh, I don’t mean those times when the pipes froze-and burst-leaving us with no water until repairs had been made. You can tell that was in the early days because I had not yet run skirting around the base of our home, nor had I insulated the pipes.
There are currently at least a half-dozen windows that have never been either sheet-rocked, or encased in redwood, including the one at the head of our bed. There is the area beneath the stairs that is still sheet-rocked only, not even taped. The floor downstairs in the living room remains stained CDX plywood, as well as the entire upstairs, with the exception of the sewing studio I added on for Gluten-Free Mama in 2010.
The kitchen, lower bathroom and laundry/smoking room have sustained severe water damage over the past two winters, due to a roof which was unclear on the concept. Having installed a metal one this past summer, I am now in the process of repairing/remodeling/restoring those three rooms, beginning with the bath and laundry room.
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| Saying on wall at home on Fellowship Street: Apology: Although you'll find our home a mess, come in, sit down, converse! It doesn't always look like this; some days it's even worse. |
The latter is better known as a port in the storm of life, a den of iniquity and tranquility, simultaneously, the designated smoking room. Out of respect for GF Mama’s health issues, we have all agreed not to indulge in our medicine inside the living space of the house: hence the need for a smoking room.
Where to begin? I spent an entire day just finding a new [temporary] home for the bone yard of lost, misplaced, looking-for-a-home, or actual legitimate denizens of the laundry room, even though it was well-stocked with shelving.
Huh. Maybe too much, you think? Illicit gatherings of this nature tend to get unruly and out of control rapidly. One empty cardboard box, innocently enough, explodes along with the already present waste basket/recycling bins, into an ensemble of-but not limited to:
dirty laundry
cases of preserved catsup, marinara sauce and salsa
grocery bags of empty, cleaned canning jars
displaced/misplaced stockpots
more laundry
the random bag of charcoal briquets
bags of bulk cat food
tuppies of cannabis shake
bulk laundry detergent
step-stool
bulk packages of toilet paper/paper towels
and of course, not to forget, still more dirty laundry…
I prefer the term “logistics” when I am waxing on eloquently about matters such as straightening out any given room; it sounds so much more civilized than “shoveling out the laundry room…” Nonetheless, a little chaos becomes a mine field if not taken seriously. I was not about to pile the contents of the rooms to be invaded, in the middle of the rooms that were mercifully not being attacked.
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| Better Homes and Gardens |
Thus some time was required to find new quarters. I followed this up by stripping the bath and smoking room down to the bare studs, so that I could reshape the interior of the 18-by-8 foot segment of the house. My ultimate goal is the installation of a senior-friendly shower unit, so that GF Mama and I do not have to climb over the side of a claw bathtub, in order to shower.
I am upgrading the vanity, desiring to replace it with a simple unit that includes three or four small drawers. Finally, I am eliminating the door that leads from the kitchen directly into the bath, in lieu of one that requires me to step first into the laundry room, in order to hang a quick right into the bath. Again, just one baby step closer to civilization.
Nothing could take place, however, before all of the deteriorating sheet rock/insulation and detritus from 35 years of country existence, was removed. That’s where I come in: I carry a badge-uh, sorry, a mop and a bucket. I carry a mop and a bucket. I also carry a broom, dustpan, cat’s paw, hammer, bigger hammer, and the most beautiful…crowbar I have ever seen.
It’s beautiful because of how much better I will feel each night, if I have used said crowbar judiciously, my back allowing the steel the bar to do the heavy lifting.
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| Verified photo of my injured big toe, as seen on f/b |
Unfortunately, even the crowbar could not prevent me from stepping on a nail yesterday, one of those fiendish finish nails used for trim board. I had carelessly left it in such a place that my right big toe could come down on it as I stepped backward. One ill decision to leave the nail-infested piece of trim board lying around, led to a second poor decision-my stepping backward-NEVER a good thing.
As the nail penetrated my toe, I became aware that all was not well in my world of sandals-versus-steel toed boots. ** Shocked with the sharp pain, I staggered, and regrouped, unfortunately zigging when I should have zagged.
The result was that I drove the little nail though the toe, and out the side. I’m still trying to figure out if this somehow occurred as a result of that pesky hammer slamming into my right thumb earlier, something I have not done since the eighties. In all fairness to my sense of dignity, it was a deflected shot, the hammer having made incidental contact with a dangling piece of insulation, before journeying on to Meatball Thumb.
The hammer did not obliterate the thumb nail, as it has been known to do in the past. The reason for that is because it hit farther up the thumb, just catching the edge of the nail for the obligatory discolored part of the show, while passing on greetings from the hammer head to the thumb itself.
Ach tung, Chucko.
I tried to assess the immediate damage to the toe, but my heavens, you would have thought I was donating blood, so much seemed bent on relocating. Since I was in the bathroom, the hydrogen peroxide was handy, so after getting the cat’s paw and extricating the nail from my toe (JK), I proceeded to escort all of the bad, tetanus-producing vermin, out of the building.
I had a nice puddle of peroxide on the floor, there, allowing it to do its magic. Then, after failing once again to actually inspect the two newly acquired orifices, due to-never mind-I lathered the entire toe with the real magic: cannabis salve.
But I digress.
I am framing walls today, loading up the utility trailer for a dump run, and trying not to hurt myself. At least my ring finger, the one with the blood blister that formed the other day when-Fergeddit!-well, fine, then. I was just going to add that it’s not throbbing anymore.
And if I wait another two-maybe three-days, my big toe and my right thumb will display a little less attitude, too.
** I maintain that the little nail would have also penetrated the steel-toed boots, because steel-toed does not mean steel-soled. Besides, I couldn't get my right foot into the boot already, due to a discombobulated second toe, so the point is moot. A moot boot, so to speak.
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