Tawdry quirk curators
// March 7th, 2013 // 2 Comments » // home, kid quotes
Me: “I think we should take the temporary room down tonight and have a clean living room for the weekend. I really miss my window.”
SuperTween: “Nooo! That’s our indoor playhouse. It has to stay up until summer.”
Sawyer: “Tear it down! Tear it down so Daddy can use the wood on my treehouse this weekend.”
Me: “Nooooo!”
Grandaddy: “You have a nice greenhouse here. You could grow tomato plants in the big window.”
// January 30th, 2013 // No Comments » // he/she, home
She: “Why did you paint the wall with the door and trim paint?”
He: “I thought it would look lighter after it was dry.”
She: “Didn’t the high-gloss make you suspect that you were using the wrong can of paint?”
He: “Shut up.”
// January 25th, 2012 // No Comments » // home
Despite my obviously high expectations about what clean-up should include, I do not have any complaints about the workers that the contractor tasked with repairing our house. They sang and danced to cheesy 80′s tunes. They joked with me. They played ball with the dogs. They were extremely interested in my 18-y-o daughter.
Okay, EXCEPT for the interest in my teenager, the workers were great. They didn’t even get upset with me when the contractor scolded them for leaving the house without a single exterior light. That wasn’t their fault. The house has no porch lights, flood lights, doorbell, or house numbers because I took forever to choose the new lighting and hardware. There are sooo many different options to choose from and I struggled with finding a balance between my desire for whimsy and not wanting an accidental homage to Prince Mongo.
All of this is a roundabout way of saying that I am very thankful and slightly apologetic to the workers who are responsible for making our home sturdier, safer, and infinitely more attractive.
// January 24th, 2012 // 1 Comment » // home
Lacking experience with professionals working on the house, I don’t know what I should reasonably expect from various home repair specialists when it comes to cleaning up the mess after repairs are completed. I understand the billions of bits of broken glass in the yard. I am less understanding of the broken glass on the street in front of the house. I expected the neatly gathered pile of old light fixtures, doorbell, and other discards. I did not expect light bulbs shoved under bushes. Occasional stray nails in the yard are accidents. An entire box of spilled nails that has been lightly hidden under a pile of mulch is deliberate.
If we are ever again fortunate enough to hire help with the house, I am going to add a detailed clean-up page to the contract before we sign it.
// January 16th, 2012 // 1 Comment » // flickr, home
Side of house before:
Side of house after:
Other side before:
Other side after:
// January 13th, 2012 // 1 Comment » // home, kid quotes
“We are never moving to Texas or anywhere. I never want to leave our house.”
Prior to this week’s construction, Evan would periodically claim that our house is “too broken.” It was. In the winter, you could stand outside and watch the heat escaping the house. Inside the house, there was a noticeable breeze from the cracked and broken windows. One window flapped open and shut every time the front door opened or closed. Duct tape covered the cracks and gaping holes. It was atrocious.
In the grand scheme of everything that is broken in our 1940s house that is bursting at the seams with twice the number of people and far more “stuff” than it was designed to hold, new roof, siding, and windows might seem like they are only the exterior repairs. They are proving to be so much more than superficial. It is repairing something deep inside of us that we didn’t know was broken.
I can’t fathom what Evan would say if we painted and repaired the Lego storage and assembly area aka Evan’s room.
// January 12th, 2012 // No Comments » // flickr, home
Back of house before:
And after:
Side of house before:
And now:
// January 11th, 2012 // No Comments » // home
The crew didn’t show up today. They missed four hours of bright sunshine, but they also missed a mean hail storm with excessive thunder and lightning. Tomorrow’s forecast looks equally ominous, so I don’t expect the crew to return until Friday. Unfortunately, the house is currently less prepared for bad weather than when the construction began.
// January 10th, 2012 // 2 Comments » // flickr, home
First, there were a series of storms.
So, we removed the old shutters.
New windows replaced the broken, leaky windows.
New siding replaced the hail dented siding.
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