I haven't checked in with my 2011 goals in quite a while, but lately I've been all about goal 9: Getting Our House In Order. Matt and I spent the weekend before last cleaning and rearranging our living room, FINALLY finding permanent homes for the furniture we inherited from his mom and making it look a lot more orderly in here. And I can't even tell you what a huge relief it is not to have to navigate around that huge sofa (and all of the clutter that formed up on and around it) every time we walk through the room.
I didn't bother taking before & after pictures, partly because the before embarrassed me so much (it was pretty bad), but also because we still have all of the old hand-me-down and pre-fab furniture left over from our twenties. So nothing exciting happened decor wise (other than putting out some fall and Halloween decorations); we just made better use of our space. But even though Better Homes & Gardens won't be knocking on our door to do a photo shoot any time soon, the living room looks so much better than it did, and it's so much more comfortable and homey. We're actually hanging out in here instead of spending all of our time in the back of the house. And I'm thrilled that there's actually enough floor space for me to do workout DVDs when the weather turns too cold to keep up my walking routine.
Apart from that, I've been spending most of my time over the last week and a half cleaning and rearranging my office. I'll go into more detail about that over at my other blog, but I'll say here that I can't believe what a huge undertaking that turned out to be. I'm trying to get rid of about half of what's crammed in there, but right now "getting rid of stuff" means moving it to the garage until I have time to haul it off to the recycling place/the Salvation Army/the used book store/eBay/whatever, and I'm running into the problem that our garage is already filled nearly to the brim with my late in-laws' things, and I'm quickly running out of temporary storage. So one of my big goals for next year will definitely be to clean out our garage and deal with all of the stuff we had to bring over from their apartment. Also, to finally buy a ladder so we can access our attic, which I totally forgot we even had until the other day when my mom asked why we don't put some of their stuff up there. But the cord on the pull-down door/ladder thing is missing, and without a ladder, we might as well not have an attic.
Yes, we've been here three years now, and we're still getting used to actually living in our very own house. By the way, we also have a shed, but the doors don't close, so we don't keep stuff in there, either. Fixing that might also be on next year's goal list.
Meanwhile, I'll keep working on my office and being mystified at how two people can barely cram all of their crap into a three-bedroom house. As it stands I have no idea where we'll put a baby if we actually manage to have one.
Showing posts with label housekeeping. Show all posts
Showing posts with label housekeeping. Show all posts
October 18, 2011
April 24, 2009
Our House
Someone on Twitter asked me, "Do you feel like your house is really yours and represents your life? Or is it mostly other people's?" This is an excellent question. The short answer is, it's getting there. Gradually.
The long answer is this. I still can't believe this is my house. We've been here over six months now, and I still have moments, at least once a day, where I look around and think, "Whoa, I'm in a freaking house! And it belongs to me!" But besides the shock of realizing daily that I'm grown up enough to own something as grown-up as a house, there's this weird disconnect. Parts of it feel more like home than others. My office/craft room should feel like home, because it's the one room in the house that is totally mine, that I did not have to make any compromises on decorating, where I don't have to be afraid to hang something pink, and it's filled with all of the adorable things I love and that make me happy. But it doesn't, really, because I'm rarely ever in there, because that's not where the computer is. The computer is in my Husband's spartan and totally utilitarian office, and despite the fact that I'm usually in here at least six hours every day, it doesn't feel like mine at all.
The kitchen is also mainly Husband's domain. We haven't done much--anything, really, other than draping some tea towels over the oven handle and hanging a couple of pictures--by way of decorating in there. He won't let me organize it the way I want to, and it tends toward a constant state of controlled (or so he claims) chaos, and I'm just not very comfortable in there. This is why I don't do any of the baking that I always said I'd do when we got a real kitchen. I'm usually only in there long enough to get what I need. It doesn't feel like home.
The living room and dining area is a weird place, to me. It's filled with the cheap furniture we both had when we were 25, and that doesn't really feel right to either of us, because we're no longer 25, but it's also filled with family photos and memorabilia from our wedding and honeymoon, and that helps it feel homey. We hang out there a lot, but I'm not as at home in there as I am in my bedroom.
The bedroom is the most comfortable room, and not just because that's where we keep the bed. It (along with the adjoining bathroom) is the one room we've bought some new stuff for and put some forethought into decorating. The furniture is still a mishmash of old, cheap stuff from our carefree single days, but everything else--the bedding, curtains, wall decor, books and knick knacks on the book shelves--it all feels like us, now, like quirky marrieds in their thirties live there, and it's cozy and soothing, and it's where I spend most of my time when I'm not working. I like hanging out in there better than in the living room, to knit or read or watch TV or nap or whatever. All the pets pile on the bed with me, and usually Husband ends up in there, too--our bedroom is our family room, apparently. I'm pretty happy with that.
I long for the day when we have the money to decorate. Really decorate, with new furniture and rugs and wall hangings and new paint and all that stuff, to make the rest of the house feel like ours, like the place we put some thought into, where it looks a certain way because that's how we chose it to look, and not like old, disposable furniture scattered around against neutral paint that the previous owner put up to make the house more sellable. Like we're just passing through, and don't want to disturb the walls more than necessary. Like an apartment. A plain, boxy apartment-complex apartment. I can't wait to drag Husband along to shop for furniture, to pick out a couch that we both love and is comfortable and big enough to seat company, and not just us. To pick out things that we love at 35 and will probably still be just fine with at 45. That day will come. I don't know if it will come while we're in this house, but that's okay. Bit by bit, room by room, this house is slowly becoming us.
The long answer is this. I still can't believe this is my house. We've been here over six months now, and I still have moments, at least once a day, where I look around and think, "Whoa, I'm in a freaking house! And it belongs to me!" But besides the shock of realizing daily that I'm grown up enough to own something as grown-up as a house, there's this weird disconnect. Parts of it feel more like home than others. My office/craft room should feel like home, because it's the one room in the house that is totally mine, that I did not have to make any compromises on decorating, where I don't have to be afraid to hang something pink, and it's filled with all of the adorable things I love and that make me happy. But it doesn't, really, because I'm rarely ever in there, because that's not where the computer is. The computer is in my Husband's spartan and totally utilitarian office, and despite the fact that I'm usually in here at least six hours every day, it doesn't feel like mine at all.
The kitchen is also mainly Husband's domain. We haven't done much--anything, really, other than draping some tea towels over the oven handle and hanging a couple of pictures--by way of decorating in there. He won't let me organize it the way I want to, and it tends toward a constant state of controlled (or so he claims) chaos, and I'm just not very comfortable in there. This is why I don't do any of the baking that I always said I'd do when we got a real kitchen. I'm usually only in there long enough to get what I need. It doesn't feel like home.
The living room and dining area is a weird place, to me. It's filled with the cheap furniture we both had when we were 25, and that doesn't really feel right to either of us, because we're no longer 25, but it's also filled with family photos and memorabilia from our wedding and honeymoon, and that helps it feel homey. We hang out there a lot, but I'm not as at home in there as I am in my bedroom.
The bedroom is the most comfortable room, and not just because that's where we keep the bed. It (along with the adjoining bathroom) is the one room we've bought some new stuff for and put some forethought into decorating. The furniture is still a mishmash of old, cheap stuff from our carefree single days, but everything else--the bedding, curtains, wall decor, books and knick knacks on the book shelves--it all feels like us, now, like quirky marrieds in their thirties live there, and it's cozy and soothing, and it's where I spend most of my time when I'm not working. I like hanging out in there better than in the living room, to knit or read or watch TV or nap or whatever. All the pets pile on the bed with me, and usually Husband ends up in there, too--our bedroom is our family room, apparently. I'm pretty happy with that.
I long for the day when we have the money to decorate. Really decorate, with new furniture and rugs and wall hangings and new paint and all that stuff, to make the rest of the house feel like ours, like the place we put some thought into, where it looks a certain way because that's how we chose it to look, and not like old, disposable furniture scattered around against neutral paint that the previous owner put up to make the house more sellable. Like we're just passing through, and don't want to disturb the walls more than necessary. Like an apartment. A plain, boxy apartment-complex apartment. I can't wait to drag Husband along to shop for furniture, to pick out a couch that we both love and is comfortable and big enough to seat company, and not just us. To pick out things that we love at 35 and will probably still be just fine with at 45. That day will come. I don't know if it will come while we're in this house, but that's okay. Bit by bit, room by room, this house is slowly becoming us.
March 15, 2007
You'd think microwave drama would be fast drama. You'd be wrong.
Ad alert!
It's a shame my brother didn't know about Partstap during the many recent weekends he spent trying to fix our mother's microwave. What a long, drawn out saga that was. He makes deliveries for a local appliance shop, so when mom's microwave pooped out, he got a good deal on a replacement for her; but not long after he installed it, it started losing power after two minutes every time we used it. Every weekend after that, my bro' was at the house, pulling out the microwave, tinkering around with it, reinstalling it, finding it still didn't work right, and declaring it needed another new part before wrapping it all up till the next weekend. At least if we'd been able to order his appliance parts online, it would have saved him from so many trips to the parts store. Would have saved both him and my mom a lot of money, too.
It's a shame my brother didn't know about Partstap during the many recent weekends he spent trying to fix our mother's microwave. What a long, drawn out saga that was. He makes deliveries for a local appliance shop, so when mom's microwave pooped out, he got a good deal on a replacement for her; but not long after he installed it, it started losing power after two minutes every time we used it. Every weekend after that, my bro' was at the house, pulling out the microwave, tinkering around with it, reinstalling it, finding it still didn't work right, and declaring it needed another new part before wrapping it all up till the next weekend. At least if we'd been able to order his appliance parts online, it would have saved him from so many trips to the parts store. Would have saved both him and my mom a lot of money, too.
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