by Cassondra Murray
But if you could.....what would it be?
Let me back up just a bit....
Eight years ago we bought a house that was built in 1849. (I hear some of you groaning as you read this.)
Since we bought the house we've gutted most of it, (yes, old house lovers, we've preserved all we could of the original everything) moved some walls around (only in the new part though--the part that was built in 1900.) replumbed, rewired, re-kitchened, and almost everything else you can do to a house. We even jacked up the house, dug and poured footers, built a real foundation under it, and set the house back down on the real foundation. Before we bought it, the house had set, for 151 years, on pillars of stacked-up rocks.
And yes, WE, as in just my husband and me and whoever we could bribe with pizza, did all of this work.
Then we got tired. We hit a wall--a metaphoric wall--in this old house. We hit the end of our energy. And we stopped. We've had a bit of trouble getting going again.
Though we're not nearly done, we accomplished a lot before we hit the wall. We took the house from having big holes where the windows and doors should be (we moved those, or enlarged them) with all of the ceilings torn out, interior walls down to the studs, and no water or power, to a liveable structure. We live in it now. We've lived in it since early 2002.
What we have NOT accomplished yet is the creation of functional closets.
Two people, both creative, both with hobbies (and LOTS of paper) living in a house with no closets.
Oh, and there's a cat or two in here with us.
Can I just say that old-fashioned, furniture-style wardrobes go only so far?
Recently I've been trying, and failing, to clear stuff out. PILES of it. I need a certain level of Zen to be mentally healthy, and let me tell you, that level of Zen was breached a long time ago.
First my grandmother's house got sold. Guess what I got?
That's right. Stuff.
Then my Mother In Law passed away after a long illness.
Yup. More stuff.
The garage (not attached) is full. The henhouse (chickens have all gone to the Great Henhouse In The Sky) is full.
And the house is full.
The other night, as I lay on the couch with my husband, and stared at the glossy white beadboard ceiling (it's the only space in the house not piled up with STUFF) with the insulation poking through the hole where the ceiling fan should be, a couple of songs were running through my head--ones I'd heard on the car radio that day. One was a Brad Paisley song called "A Letter To Me."
You can hear "A Letter To Me" here if you want to see and hear. It's a cool video.
The other was a Tim McGraw song called Live Like You Were Dying
.
But if you could.....what would it be?
Let me back up just a bit....
Eight years ago we bought a house that was built in 1849. (I hear some of you groaning as you read this.)
Since we bought the house we've gutted most of it, (yes, old house lovers, we've preserved all we could of the original everything) moved some walls around (only in the new part though--the part that was built in 1900.) replumbed, rewired, re-kitchened, and almost everything else you can do to a house. We even jacked up the house, dug and poured footers, built a real foundation under it, and set the house back down on the real foundation. Before we bought it, the house had set, for 151 years, on pillars of stacked-up rocks.
And yes, WE, as in just my husband and me and whoever we could bribe with pizza, did all of this work.
Then we got tired. We hit a wall--a metaphoric wall--in this old house. We hit the end of our energy. And we stopped. We've had a bit of trouble getting going again.
Though we're not nearly done, we accomplished a lot before we hit the wall. We took the house from having big holes where the windows and doors should be (we moved those, or enlarged them) with all of the ceilings torn out, interior walls down to the studs, and no water or power, to a liveable structure. We live in it now. We've lived in it since early 2002.
What we have NOT accomplished yet is the creation of functional closets.
Two people, both creative, both with hobbies (and LOTS of paper) living in a house with no closets.
Oh, and there's a cat or two in here with us.
Can I just say that old-fashioned, furniture-style wardrobes go only so far?
Recently I've been trying, and failing, to clear stuff out. PILES of it. I need a certain level of Zen to be mentally healthy, and let me tell you, that level of Zen was breached a long time ago.
First my grandmother's house got sold. Guess what I got?
That's right. Stuff.
Then my Mother In Law passed away after a long illness.
Yup. More stuff.
The garage (not attached) is full. The henhouse (chickens have all gone to the Great Henhouse In The Sky) is full.
And the house is full.
The other night, as I lay on the couch with my husband, and stared at the glossy white beadboard ceiling (it's the only space in the house not piled up with STUFF) with the insulation poking through the hole where the ceiling fan should be, a couple of songs were running through my head--ones I'd heard on the car radio that day. One was a Brad Paisley song called "A Letter To Me."
You can hear "A Letter To Me" here if you want to see and hear. It's a cool video.
The other was a Tim McGraw song called Live Like You Were Dying
.
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