I'll be Home for Christmas

There is no place like "home" for the holidays.  Holidays and "home" just go together.  There are songs about it, and we go over the river and through the woods to get there.

This is my sixth Christmas away from "home" and I have come around to a different perspective.

I love my extended family.  I love my hometown.  These are a given.

But consider this..... those that are "home" for the holidays have a whirlwind of hosting (crazy) relatives, hauling presents, dressing children in itchy clothes, family squables, cooking for crowds or creating "moveable feasts" to contribute to chaotic gatherings.  Yes - I have lived all that and it has it's wonderful irreplaceable rewards.

But....

For the last six years, my Christmas events have consisted of bonding with my husband and children.  The four of us get a reprieve from school work, spreadsheets, carpool, sports practices, travel, volunteer obligations, conference calls, and even to a fair degree, routine chores (the dog poop can wait!).

Wait for it...... the audible "Aaaahhhhh......."

We hunker down together, turn up the cheesy Christmas music (and sing along with lousy harmony), lay in several days of decadent supplies, and just enjoy being together.

Of course we miss our family and I think wistfully of them all together sharing a boisterous meal, having a mountain of crumpled wrapping paper and total chaos, which I gleefully had hosted in my own home for many years. 

But we are far from kith and kid and luckily the four of us (still) truly enjoy each other's company.  These few days clarify for me that I am so grateful for the strength and steadfastness of my husband.  The adventure and drive of my eldest.  The creativity and generousity of my youngest.  The unconditional love that they all bear to me.  And I know that without these few days of intense attentiveness towards one another, I'd miss the moments that would be lost in the whirlwind.

Peace.  Quiet.  Love.

That is what the holiday feels like to me.

That is what I think the holiday is supposed to feel like.

I wish you all the best for 2011.  And especially a little peace, quiet, and love.

Bridgie's Room

Once Bridget hit middle school, she decided that it wasn't exactly "cool" to have Barbie stuff strewn about one's room.

With needing to make space for her new desk, the time was right for a major overhaul for Bridget's room.

Fortunately, she has two closets.  The smaller one we put in lots of bins and shelves so she can now keep her toys out of sight, and the larger closet is dedicated to clothes.

We took all the artwork off the walls and then Bridget decided how she wanted her furniture arranged.  She wanted a lot of space in the middle of the room, her bed set up like a couch for lounging, and a reading area.  Since it's her room, I pretty much gave her free reign.  Once the furniture was all moved around, the posters and artwork went back up on the walls.

Bridget then photographed her room.  I just love her photographs, she's got an unusual way of looking at things.  I thought she'd eventually put these pictures up on her blog, but she hasn't been blogging much, so here they are.

Bridget's reading nook.  Looks comfy, I think I'll try it out!

Bridget made each of these items at different birthday parties.

She loves the lock and key on her new desk.

It seems like the quintessential "tween" room to me!

Well furnished

This year, Ray decided to make each of the kids their own desk.  They are old enough to do their homework in their rooms independently, and it was time to relcaim the dining room so that it no longer looks like a one-room school house.

Ray looked at a lot of plans, catalogs, etc. and eventually came up with his own design.  (Kind of sounds like how I cook!) Lots of storage room, lovely lines with tapered legs, beautiful dovetail joinery.  The desks are similar, yet different.  Aidan's top is chunkier, more masculine.  Bridget's is more elegant, with detail routed into the edges.  The legs on Bridget's are slightly slimmer than Aidan's desk as well.

One of my favorite features is the slanted top.  It isn't so steep that things slide off, unless you pile the clutter too high.  Sort of a self-regulating clean-up reminder!

The wood is maple, and beautifully figured.

I know Ray had a lot of fun building these, and I had fun during the times that I helped.  Woodworking is often like a big logic puzzle and I've learned a lot helping Ray.

How many psychologists does it take to change a light bulb?

Only one, but the light bulb must really want to be changed.

 

Our light bulbs are not so open to psychologic enlightenment.

 

Above our kitchen, we have five niches.  Four contain artwork, one contains a clock.  All have a spot light above them.

 

Twice a year, when it's time to change the clocks, we drag the 20' extension ladder in, and Ray goes up to set the proper time on the clock.

 

This year, we figured we'd replace all five light bulbs as long as he was up there - easy, right?  Um, no.

 

1. Get the wrong light bulbs from the store.
2. Go back and get the right light bulbs.
3. Haul the ladder in, trying hard not to bash it too many times on the walls, or the 120 year old suite of furniture in the breakfast nook.
4. Reconfigure the ladder to the proper positioning for the job.
5. Insert finger in the wrong place at the wrong time as telescoping ladder collapses.
6. Take a first aid break.
7. Painstakingly wrestle ladder into a position that allows access to the recessed lighting.  It is scarily veritcal.
8. Head up with light bulb in hand.
9. Drop the light bulb.
10. Take a cleaning break to deal with shards of glass projected in a 20' radius.
11. Head up with another light bulb.  One down, four to go.
12. Painstakingly wrestle the ladder into the next niche.
13. Discover minor electrical problem too high to reach from ladder.
14. Find a bench that will fit on the ledge and that is high enough, carry it up the ladder.
15. Three trips up and down and out the garage for the proper tools.
16. Insert light bulb.  It does not work.
17. Send light blub back down to be tested in another fixture.
18. Test light bulb in fixture and realize how very dirty the fixture is.
19. More work on the recessed fixture.
20. Send light bulb back up.
21. It works!  Two down, three to go.
22. Painstakingly wrestle the ladder into the next niche.
23. Remove clock to change time.  Decide that it needs cleaning.
24. Clean clock.
25. Decide the batteries should be replaced.
26. Back down to find proper batteries.
27. Adjust time, change bulb.  Three town, two to go.
28. Painstakingly wrestle the ladder into the next niche.
29. Have a lot of trouble getting the ladder in the right position.
30. Bash the wall in the niche a couple of times.
31. Head back out to the garage to find the special paint the niches were painted with.
32. Remove socks and put them on the ladder to avoid this problem in the future.
33. Head back up with light bulb and paint brush.
34. Change bulb, paint niche.  Four down, one to go.
35. Painstakingly wrestle the ladder into the next nook.
36. Realize that since one was broken, we are now out of light bulbs.
37. Take another trip to the store to buy light bulbs.
38. Head back up and change the light bulb.

 

Success!  Illumination!  Cocktails, please!

Gettin' There

Another milestone in Aidan's room project....

We installed the mural over the weekend.  I will show you a "before" and "after" photo.  For the "after," I had to knit together two photos to get the whole mural in, and I am not very proficient with this stuff, so don't go thinkin' the project also included adding some wonky new angles to the ceiling!

Before.......

And after......

Progress

There's still a lot to do.  Build a desk, hang a mural, find or create some artwork for the walls.  Find a comfy chair.

But it's getting there!  Finished the window treatments today.  Here are a few photos for the curious.

Yes, those are actual deer hides on the windows.  It was Ray's touch to have their little white tails flicked up like they are fleeing from danger.  The antlers on the ledge are all real and courtesy of a departed relative.

It's turning into a genuine little Man Cave and Aidan is so happy with it so far.  And I must say, spending the day making and installing window treatments is way more gratifying than the two weeks spent painting.

Silver linings

People keep pinging me....  "How's Aidan's room?  Are you done yet?"

Gawd no.

I don't know why I ever think I can get stuff like this done quickly.  It seems something goes wrong at every step, things take longer that I estimate, I don't have as many hours in a day as I think I do.

Paint.  Simple, right?  Sigh.  Two weeks later, I'm done.  It's a big room.  With a very high ceiling.  Trim, paint ceiling, hand paint 1 coat of primer over all the bold colors, roll on primer, roll on color.  With all the wonky angles, 5 windows, 3 doors, ledge, drop ceiling over door, bay window, angled ceiling, etc. It took a lot of cutting by hand.

Silver lining?  I had 2+ gallons left over from doing Ray's office and also used the same color for the common areas of the house.  Turns out it was perfect for Aidan's room too.

New blinds.  No more crappy white plastic, replace with dark wood.  Problems.  Lots of problems.  Fit problems, quality problems, hardware problems, missing parts, jury-rig stuff.  Take stuff back.  Get new parts.  Do the fussy, fiddly work of shortening them.  Curse the mounting system for the valence strips.  Curse it some more.  Loudly.  Daily.

Silver lining?  I want to say the satisfaction of a job well done, but I'm still not done.  Having trouble mounting the valence strips, and even though these will eventually be covered by the top treatments, I want to to be a job well done, dammit.  I hate short cuts.  I guess for now, the silver lining will be that Aidan's room gets much darker than it did before and he will like that a lot.

Oh, I know!  The old blinds will go on "freecycle" instead of into the landfill.  That could count as a silver lining, right?  Something "green" to make up for my questionable paint brush cleaning technique?

Bedding.  Easy, right?  Not so much.  None of the stores I have hit have the "European" size sham stuffer.  Bed skirt.......  Aidan's bed doesn't have a box spring, the mattress is on a board on wood rails.  How to utilize the bed skirt?  Clear out enough space in the room to flip the bed over (me strong like ox!).  Use velcro to painstakingly attach the bedskirt to the bottom of the bed.  Much more time-consuming than the usual bed-skirt installation.  And it is made especially hard as I seem to have broken both thumbnails down to the quick during this project and I have a lot of trouble peeling the backing off.

Silver lining?  Being a "crafty HoMo" (that's HomeMaker, get yer mind outta the gutter), I already had a spool of velcro and did NOT have to venture out on yet another trek for project supplies.

And that's it.  That is all I've gotten done.  Besides replacing all the switch plate covers.

I still have a lot to do.  Somehow turn 2 deerhides and 8 drawer knobs (as yet to be received, check on that), into top treatments for the windows.  Build a desk, but that is Ray's job.  In his "spare" time.  Find seating, find or create artwork, and other wall stuff such as a bulletin board system.

Oh.  And the mural.  Yeah, there's that.  Wall-sized, gorgeous, and supposedly pretty hard to hang.  I'm trying not to let it intimidate me.

Oh.  And the bathroom.  Um, yeah.  Strip wallpaper, texture the walls.  Ugh.

Think I'll be done by 2011?  Thanks for listening.

First Project of the New Year....

..... Aidan's room!

He's DONE with the fish theme.  It was here when we bought the house, and I'm glad he liked it.

So....  first on the agenda is PAINT.  It's gonna be a project.  The doors and trim are pretty banged up and full of stickers, etc.  You know I'll never be able to match the trim paint exactly, so I can't just spot paint, sigh....  The prior inhabitant of the room put a LOT of screw and nail holes into the walls, and of course the whole thing will have to be primed before I can put the new color (boring beige) on the wall.

Why, oh why, oh why does the prep work take DAYS and the actual painting only take a few hours?

Prepping a room for paint is always a humbling experience and an unpleasant reminder of my less-than-adequate housekeeping skills....

His new room will be a "rustic" theme....  think distressed leather, deer antlers, animal skins and lots of wood.  Ray is building him a new desk and I'm still noodling ideas for window treatments, shelves, etc.

Stay tuned!