When I painted the living room I took down the honeycomb blinds that covered the four French windows there and I never put them back. While I contemplated a better solution for these south-facing windows, I used reflective insulation to block the summer heat. It worked great, though it looked terrible. However, once the coverings were removed after the hottest part of the day had passed, the unadorned windows made for a beautiful view.
The windows need cleaning but you get the idea.
After a few seasons of this, I finally got around to covering the insulation with fabric to make them look nicer from the inside. After a few failed attempts, I figured out that my best option would be to staple the insulation to a frame before covering it.
Michael and Bert like to help.
I made similar though much smaller frames to replace the foam on some old speakers with fabric.
Old yucky speaker foam needs replacement but it’s impossible to purchase it.The guy at the speaker store suggested making a frame and stretching speaker fabric over it. He said to use hot glue to secure it but I didn’t like that idea and wanted to use staples instead. However, the wood I used for the frames wouldn’t take a staple. So, I resorted to using the glue and it worked great.Staple insulation to frame.
My next problem was designing a washable cover. After some trial and error that made me feel like a monkey involved in some kind of an intelligence experiment (it’s difficult for me to picture things backwards, which must be a requirement of sewing without a pattern), I decided to use four pockets (top, bottom, sides) on the back of the cover to finish the edges and hold it in place.
The top and bottom pockets are deeper than the side pockets. They are placed right sides together with the cover face. One of the narrower side pockets is sewn on top of the top and bottom pockets as shown.
While I hated to resort to using upholstery staples (as they will make it harder to wash the piece), it was the best option for getting a finished look. Staples were also practical since I needed to make one corner of the cover loose in order to fit it to the frame. As for solving that problem, I tried a few different options, including buttons that could be undone to give enough room to stretch all four corners of the cover over the frame.
The second narrow side pocket is sewn to the inside of the bottom pocket: Fold the bottom pocket down and sew the side pocket along the edges. Stretch the cover over the frame and staple in place.The “odd” corner that was sewn with the bottom flap open is tucked, folded up and stapled. I wish this were more elegant but it’s the cleanest look I could figure out. The buttonhole you see is left over from a previous idea about how to do this.When not in use, the covers can be stored behind the radiator. Given some wire, they could also be hung on the wall.Place the covers inside the windows.
Back when I was using the plain foil insulation to cover the windows, I used blue painter’s tape to secure them. It took me a while to realize that putting the insulation behind the glass eliminated the need for it.
Though the same size, each panel is somewhat different because it took me a few tries to figure out what worked the best. That was a happy day. When I stumbled upon a solution, I felt relieved. It made me realize that while exploring and learning can be fun, it can also be fatiguing to be in the dark for too long. After all of this work, will I have anything I can use?
I like the effect of a big painting at the end of the room. While I like the fabric I chose for this project just fine, I don’t recall choosing it. What was I thinking? In any case, it makes the room feel cool (literally – yes – but I mean psychologically) which will be nice when it gets hot. And now that I have a pattern, changing the fabric should be straight forward. It helps that I documented what I did (e.g,, what fabric, what thread, machine settings, seam allowances, etc.).
This started with a paint job years ago when I couldn’t bring myself to put back the honeycomb blinds that never seemed quite right for these windows. One thing led to another and now here we are. Of course, now I’m thinking, why not curtains?
Window coverings from the outside.
Now that this project is done, I’ve started to do a “reset” and have taken the worktable back out to the garage.
In yet another installment of “There, I fixed it!” we have a mop handle repair.
The handle came in two pieces that were screwed together with plastic threads on the inside of the rod. At least that’s how I remember it. Initially, I put a Band-Aid on the inside of the wider piece to add some grip and tension. It worked but required periodic attention. I can’t vouch for my current solution. However, five minutes after the repair it’s rock solid. As before, I padded the inside of the wider rod. This time I used a dab of tape that Brian bought for his tennis racket. I tapped the rods into place with a mallet. Then I covered the seam with more tape. Finally, I added a hose clamp. I wanted this mop to know that I meant business!
As with most projects like these, it required a stop at YouTube. While I had the inspiration to use a hose clamp, I didn’t actually know how these clamps worked. Now that I see how turning the screw feeds the band through a slot and tightens it, once again I’m in awe of tools. Sometimes I can be in the garage and screwing two boards together when – for a flash – I’m aware of how amazing it is that we live in a world were there are screws and screw drivers and electric drills… The history of joinery must be fasten-ating!
Fascinating. I never thought of that. To fasten. To fascinate. To hold. To hold one’s attention. To grip. The two words must be related, right?
In other YouTube news, I found instructions for making a jig so that I can make straight and uniform cross cuts with my circular saw. I’ve gotten by in the past but I want to build on my skills and make cleaner more precise cuts. The guy in the video puts the thing together in a few minutes. It took me two days (albeit not full days!) and three trips to the hardware store to get it right. I enjoyed figuring it out. At the same time, these days I feel nagged by other chores and projects that are always lurking in the background. I miss getting lost in a project where nothing else exists.
So, did the jig work. Yes!
As I was assembling, disassembling and reassembling my jig, a scene from Sex in the City kept looping through my head. In it, Miranda who is obviously pregnant is buying a wedding dress. When the store clerk suggests white she says, “The jig is up!” But it’s only now that I’m thinking about what it means. Would you hear “The jig is up!” in a factory. Like “order up”? Then maybe it came to mean that I recognize your pattern (a pattern of deceit?) and you can no longer fool me?
It was a nice theory, but it would appear that I’m wrong. After a quick search, most sources, including a second-hand account of what the OED has to say on the matter, attribute the phrase to an Elizabethan dance, the jig. “The dance is up!” In addition, jig also came to mean a trick or a practical joke. In other words, “The jig is up! Your trick has been exposed!”
Sometimes I think it would be fun to dedicate a YouTube channel to me following the directions for all manner of things I find on other channels. How to make fresh noodles. How to tie a quilt. How to remove a broken screw. But alas, it might lurk in the background along with the garage door that needs painting, the weeds that need pulling, rebooting a podcast that has been dormant, and outlining my next book.
I hope you are amazed by something today. Something simple. At least for a flash. And I hope that whatever you are doing, you can enjoy it fully. Those other things can wait their turn.
It has been a long time since my friend Paul introduced me to a website that featured DIY plugger repairs. “There, I fixed it,” perfectly summed up the eyeglasses that were held together with zip ties or the mirror that was taped to a car. My latest low-budget solution indeed made me yell those words out loud. I solved a problem that had arose from the solution for a different problem, which in turn gave me an idea for a future episode of my long-dormant podcast, QuOTeD – The Question of the Day.
It only took 14 years of living in this house to realize that the door on the dryer is reversible. Making the switch would mean that I could transfer clothes from the washer to the dryer without the door blocking me. However, one improvement exposed the need for another one. The dryer isn’t level. Now the door swings closed from a resting state. It might be worse than the original problem was. The solution is to level the dryer. But until I get around to it, I’m using a magnet to hold the door open. It’s taped to a random wire that will be removed – again – when I get to it.
Hold dryer door open with magnet.There’s a magnet buried in the blue tape.
In more fix-it news, I made some updates to the various websites that I manage. Had I been pinged by the social scientists who are collecting happiness data, it would have been a low point for me. But I don’t think it was the task itself that I hated. It was having to do it instead of something else. In fact, I might have preferred to troubleshoot websites over putting up the apples from my neighbor’s tree. In this case, any unhappiness I might have been feeling didn’t stem from a specific task, annoying that it might have been. But it was about the perceived or real pressure to do more than can be done in a day. I suppose one lesson here is to ignore the dire messages to make software upgrades until you can put it on the schedule. In the meantime, find your happiness in crossing your fingers and trusting that it’ll be fine.
Taking a walk this morning, Brian and I stumbled upon another swell fix-it job.
Cheap landlord or ingenious solution?
It’s nice when things fix themselves. I was late planting my garden this spring and on top of that, it appeared that I had planted some non-producing beans – if that’s such a thing. But then one day I was working in my yard and saw green beans hanging from the top of the arbor.
Nature doing its thing.
I wish the environment could fix itself on a timeline conducive to supporting life as we know it. Regardless, I’m still heartened by the bees that make the yard hum.
Bees go wild for the chives and sedum that line the back walk.Chives and sedum make a pretty mix.
If only I would fix the compost, maybe Brian wouldn’t cringe whenever I hand him a bucket to empty. It’s pretty wild back there.
Can you spot the compost bin in this jungle?You’ll have to fight the raspberries to get to it!
There’s a lot yet to fix around here. But it’s important to remember to stop and take pictures of the flowers.
As for my question, given that it took me over a decade to make a simple improvement – reversing the swing on the dryer door – I’m wondering if others have such projects. Are there easy home improvements or repairs that you put off doing until, for reasons you might not fully understand, you woke up and decided today is the day. You tackle a task only to wonder: What took me so long?
Brian groaned when he realized the purpose of our post-lunch errand. Nevertheless, he was relieved to find out that my haul would fit into a grocery bag. In other words, it wasn’t another chair.
I love my recent acquisitions, two paintings I found on FreeCycle. The first is a sunset – or a sunrise? – that I see as I turn around to face the hallway at the top of the stairs.
The second is a place that feels familiar, though I’ve never been there.
If you ask me what I’ve been up to, this is what I’ll tell you. I hung up two paintings the same day I got them. If there’s time and you seem interested, we could talk about how something as simple as a free painting can lift a person’s spirits or how these random paintings about which I felt lukewarm belong here. For the person who gave them away, these paintings were clutter or reminiscent of a time best forgotten or just ugly. Or maybe it was painful to give away her mother’s art that was collected over the span of a childhood? But she’s moving to Denver. Starting over after a messy divorce. No room. Downsize, like it or not. Or maybe she read Marie Kondo’s book and said, “These colors don’t spark joy! Get them out!”
Maybe.
Maybe.
Maybe.
Or I might tell you about how I’ve been replacing the boards on my deck and how being done with hauling 16-footers on top of my car (after hours of picking through them at the warehouse, ugh!) is a cause for celebration, even though there’s still more to do.
Or – being of limited skills in the way of needle arts – how I cannot believe that I managed to recover four patio chairs using my consumer-end sewing machine. It was tricky but not as hard as sewing a patch on some old jeans.
It’s an out-of-body experience to look at a finished product (mostly finished, I might add some buttons but I’m counting it as not to despair). It’s the same feeling I get whenever I see the door at the top of the stairs. It was caked with layers of brittle paint and it was a huge job to repaint it. The ceiling in the dining room. The office I’m sitting in right now used to be Pepto Bismol pink. These are good things to remember when you’re in the middle of a never-ending project like when there are still boards to cut, clamp and screw down to the framing of the deck. With every swing of the hammer, I wonder “Am I about to ruin my house?”
“I’m not bored but I might be boring.”
That’s what I told my mother when we were catching up this morning. She called just as she was sitting down with a fresh cup of coffee and just as I was about to do the same.
Boring is no badge of honor anymore than eschewing television makes you better than me. I would welcome adventure. But it’s still cool to take pleasure in second-hand art and to think, “Perfect! I love it.” And then to put away the drill that has a place because you’ve already done the boring task of organizing your tools, which didn’t bore you at all.
Bert claiming the materials to make the seat cushions. He loved the plastic mesh that I was able to reuse after reinforcing it with fabric.“You’re not going to throw out these filthy cushions are you?”
I did document the patio chair project and keep meaning to post some tips, if not for the random person who might find it useful (Spoiler alert: pockets, as in shams, instead of zippers), then for me. Because it’s already starting to feel like someone else must have done it and I’m not sure I could do it again.
In the summer of 2020, I spent some time organizing the garage. This included facing the yogurt containers full of miscellaneous screws, nails, paperclips and the random cafe curtain ring. It was a tiresome task that used up my allotment of decision-making power for the day. Nevertheless, it felt good to do it. Tidying up always gives me a sense of accomplishment. And it’s particularly satisfying when I can benefit from my effort down the road, as I recently did.
I was, once again, organizing the garage and needed some really short screws that could be used to attach container lids to the bottom of a shelf. At first, it was looking like a trip to the hardware store was in order. But then I remembered that not only did I save some random screws, I organized them in such a way that they could be useful.
In one case, I used scraps of foil insulation to further divide the drawers in the hardware organizer that I was using. Other materials like a piece of thin cardboard would also work. Take a strip that is the width of and a bit longer than the drawer. Make a crease for however many dividers you want, being careful that the resulting divider doesn’t exceed the height of the drawer. Pinch. Staple. Insert.
Here’s a picture where you can see how two different types of nails are separated within the same drawer:
In another case, where I had a handful of onesies and twosies, I punched the screws through a scrap of foil insulation. This keeps them together nicely.
Then you can just put these little sheet of screws in a drawer:
As for why I wanted to screw container lids to the bottom of a shelf: more storage.
Ironically, as I was tidying up this year, I found three – count ’em! three! – yogurt containers full of random hardware.
When you open every box, you might be shocked by what you find, how much you find. We have – as Brian likes to say – an embarrassment of riches.
In most any of the de-cluttering books I’ve come across, there is this idea of releasing the things that you do not use so that someone else can enjoy them and so that – if you are inclined to take this perspective – the object itself can enjoy a better life too. This is supposed to make it easier to let go of attachments and to a great extent it works for me.
It isn’t often that I regret letting something go. But the one thing that comes to mind whenever I consider this question is a desktop rotary telephone. I bought it over twenty years ago only to realize that it had a mid-1960’s round wall plug that would not work with a modern telephone jack, at least not in the United States. By “modern”, of course, I mean modern for the time, the so called modular jack or Western jack, a name that comes from the Western Electric Company that first used it for telephone wiring. It directly preceded the explosion of mobile devices that would have happily pummeled landlines into obsolescence were it not for nostalgia and the joy of tactile things: Against the weight of a spring, pointing and dragging the dial around to the finger stop. That clicking beneath a cover of hard plastic – the coil winding up might remind you of zipping a tent shut – and the sound made as the finger wheel returns home, the “uncoiling”, could be mistaken for gurgling – faint though it may be – emanating from a swampy ditch. Are those frogs? A bird I do not recognize? Of course, if you know this sound, it is simply dialing.
There I am in my grandmother’s telephone chair in the corner of the dining room wishing that I had someone to call.
There is also the shape and weight of the receiver, hopefully pleasing, otherwise what’s the point? Dial tones. The sound of brass gongs as they are struck in rapid succession by the clapper ball. No, the ubiquitous smart phone could not efficiently snuff out this delightful gadget completely, but it did in effect stunt the evolution of things hardwired. Just try to purchase a brand new telephone, one that plugs into the wall, that isn’t junk. It is for this reason, the lack of faith that anything better will ever be made, that Brian could not resist purchasing a phone at a garage sale two years ago. The keypad is in the handset, making me think that it must be something from the 90’s. We have yet to plug it in. But there it is, just in case.
Well, thank goodness for my dad who did the dad thing and fixed this otherwise useless vintage telephone from the ’60s. On the upside are all of the tangible things previously mentioned plus a really long cord. The downside, I suppose, was the color. Beige. No fun there. There was also a crack in the housing. It wasn’t big or especially offensive, but noticeable nonetheless. But damn it was sturdy. Sturdy with a good ring. With the exception of these minor aesthetical preferences (black or red would have been groovy!), I loved that phone. So why did I take it to the Goodwill some years ago?
When I met Brian, he too had a number of rotary telephones, including the black one that sits in our living room. We couldn’t possibly use all of them, so in a gesture of sympathy for his own attachments that I might have imagined and in trying to stick with the self-imposed rule that everything must have its place or it must go, I decided to give up my old phone. After all, there was the color and that crack. Of course that’s when I realized that the phones we did keep had their own problems. For example, a poorly fitting connection on the phone in the bedroom means that I need to be careful to ensure the cord doesn’t pop out of the receiver in the middle of a conversation. Then there is the short cord, relative to the one I gave up, that makes this more likely. Faded colors. Brittle cords. Permanently foggy plastic finger wheels that are supposed to be clear.
I miss my old telephone, the one my dad fixed. But missing it hasn’t deterred me from taking a cold look at the other stuff in my environment and – if it seems like the right thing to do – letting it go.
I recently hung some random Barbie doll clothes in the tree in our boulevard. I really made a nice display of it, pinning them on a hanger with paperclips. After a few days of no takers, I was about to declare this a failed gift. But one morning while I was reading the newspaper on the porch, two women walking their dogs stopped and took note. “Can we take these?” they seemed to ask. “Yes. Take them!” I pleaded without speaking a word. “Read the sign! Free! Free!” I look back down at the paper. I’m afraid that if they sense me watching they might fly away like nervous birds.
Finally.
Hurray!
One less thing stuffed in the corners of my garage, but instead out there enjoying a better life mingling with other beloved doll clothes in the bedroom of an eight year old.
Why not imagine something good?
Of course this only encouraged me. So, next I hung a Word Find puzzle book in the tree. Brian gave this to me, along with other magazines and amusements years ago when I was recovering from a health issue. Or it might have been a Christmas stocking stuffer. He really goes over the top every year. Indeed I am spoiled thanks to the stocking that I acquired the Christmas I visited my brother’s family in Virginia. To include me in the festivities, they made a stocking with my name glued in silver glitter on the fat white cuff. Well it’s huge. I mean really big. And Brian fills this up every year. There are usually a lot of practical things like a toothbrush and dental floss, my favorite moisturizer and razor blades. Then there is candy, possibly a stuffed animal and magazines about gardening, writing and mid-century furniture. And, as I said, there could have been this puzzle book. An embarrassment of riches indeed.
Well days pass with no takers. And when it rained, I forgot to bring the puzzle book inside as I promised myself I would do. It’s under a canopy of leaves. Maybe it’s okay? Then one day, a Somali girl who lives down the street appeared. She was riding her bike up and down the sidewalk that marked what we imagined to be an agreed upon boundary where no streets would be crossed. Every time she passed, she smiled and waved at Brian and me who were sitting on our enclosed porch. Not a little wave. She waved big. Smiled big too, as if she imagined herself to be Miss America at the center of the Macy’s Day Parade. After her tenth pass or so, I yelled out the window. “Do you see the book?” “A book?” “In the tree! You can have it, if you like!” She needed some help figuring out how to release it from the binder that was tied to the string that permanently hangs from the tree. So, Brian went out to give her a hand. The pages were dry but a little wavy from having been wet. “It’s fine.” Brian said. But I worried that the girl’s mother would wonder why we were giving our garbage to children. I can only hope that the brand new and newly sharpened pencil with its fancy foam grip that I included with the book might have made up for any of its defects.
Soon after that, the girl disappeared only to return with two of her siblings. The youngest, a boy who looked to be three or four, knocked on the door. He was not a shy kid, as his knock was big. While his two sisters looked on from the sidewalk, he handed Brian a note. “My sister wanted me to give this to you,” he said. It was a thank you note and an introduction.
Of course now I am keeping my eye open for more presents to hang in the tree.
Then there are the things that are inexplicably hard to give away. For example, take these plain white aluminum curtain rods. We can’t use them. And that is the new rule I’ve declared since taking on the task of tidying up the garage. Use everything. This year we are going to use everything: Random garden tools, some that I cannot even name (the monster claw thingy turns our to be a hoe and cultivator combo); recreational equipment, including the ice skates from my childhood, a huffy bike that weighs a hundred pounds more than the bike that replaced it, and foam noodles that haven’t seen a lake in half a decade; and enough car care products to open a shop. Use it this year or let it go. And I am keeping track! “I used some burlap!” I report this to Brian as if it were the most exciting news of our lives – and these days – it just might be.
As for the curtain rods, it is not so much that I imagined they would ever be used for curtains, save some that might be used to convert the garage into a stage at some point (Note: I once saw the best play I had ever seen in someone’s garage on the hottest day on record.). Nevertheless, there was a nagging potential that I could not quite name. So, there they sat destined to be listed on FreeCycle along with a metal bed frame that has lived in the rafters of the garage ever since we moved into the house twelve years ago. But not today. Not today.
Thank goodness, not today. Or the magazine rack that I made with some of these old curtain rods would never have been conceived.
Magazine rack made from a white aluminum curtain rod and curtain rod clip rings. I also tried using cafe curtain rings, which worked but not as well, and binders looped through a standard keychain ring.
It just so happens, that in addition to the rods I had these rings with clips on them that I had found while “sorting bolts.” No doubt these were purchased years ago for some project that was either abandoned or where a better solution for whatever it was that I was trying to do had presented itself. Frankly, I don’t remember. I just know that as a pile of magazines a mile high stared me in the face, organizing maven Marie Kondo came to mind, specifically her idea that you should be able to see what you have. Stacks of things are the enemy of a tidy place. But there is no magazine rack big enough for the pace at which this stuff comes into the house. Combine all of this with having seen someone on HGTV hang a rug from a curtain rod and the idea for this magazine rack flashed through my mind. I would not be able to rest until I could see whether it was a good idea or a bad one.
I love it!
More than having the materials to make it, what matters here is having touched those materials a number of times in the course of organizing my things. I spent a lot of time contemplating what to do with these damn curtain rods. Logic would have said out with them! My own preferences for a space that isn’t burdened by visual noise would have pushed me to get rid of them. But my mind couldn’t stop noodling with the possibility that these things presented.
So they sat.
Maybe I’ll give them away tomorrow.
But not today.
Not today.
To touch everything that you own in a household that has accumulated things over years is mentally exhausting. Embarrassing, even. But it is necessary. How will you ever really know what you have? I am paralyzed and depressed by clutter. Who would not tuck in the messiness of life as if everything can be fit into a uniform box that only needs to be wrapped with the perfectly sized sheet of Christmas paper and a dab of scotch tape? But what can be imagined in a perfectly sterile environment?
This is from a message I sent to my friend Santwana:
Being “disconnected” has been interesting. When Wilson – our cat – died, I completely lost interest in Facebook in particular. It was like I suddenly didn’t like pizza, though I never liked FB that much… Anyway, for whatever reason, grief just triggered this aversion to scrolling through random posts. When I transferred the account to the iPad when the “email/social media” computer went down, I was afraid that I wouldn’t be able to resist checking it whenever there was a pause in the action (sometimes wrongly interpreted as boredom). But this has not been the case so far.
Lately, the main thing that has occupied me has been cleaning the garage. It’s the thing I itch to do the second I get up in the morning. On top of the regular spring cleaning that would normally take part of a day, I’ve been reorganizing things so that the space works better. I am looking in every box, every corner and dealing with every misplaced bolt. I make progress every day and end up spending much more time on it than I ever plan because I just get lost in how to store something tricky like the bag to the lawnmower, which is rarely used but used. Answer? Strap it to the ceiling with bungee cords and some eye screws.
… When I am staring at a bunch of lampshade frames that I’m going to make something with (more lampshades?) “someday” and wonder how the heck to store them, the last thing on my mind is checking my email. It feels great. I think that there is also something psychologically beneficial to doing something that has visible results. It’s a place to retreat when you’re not sure you’re making a difference elsewhere or worse, when you feel powerless to make a difference.
Last night I gave Brian a haircut in the garage. Then he brought out some drinks and we had a cocktail there. It might have seemed like an odd thing to do given that we have a yard, a deck, a nice porch… But there is something about being in a garage – especially a spiffed up garage – that I just love. And I figured that with the pandemic, we might as well mix it up and expand our living space.
Do I sound like a nut going on about my garage? …
Indeed I have figured out some creative garage storage solutions. For the moment I’ll share this one. Where do you keep the whiskey?
As I mentioned to Santwana, I am looking in every box and in one of them I found a set of kitchen canisters. I bought them at an estate sale years ago but couldn’t make them work in my kitchen with its limited counter space. While pretty, in the wrong space they feel like clutter. When an attempt to sell them on Craig’s List failed, I stored them in the garage. Eventually I would find someone who needs them, right? Or maybe they would become the next hot thing and I would be rich? Doubtful. So I was either going to use them or give them away. But now with everything shut down because of Covid-19, taking the set to Goodwill is not an option. It’s common to see free stuff waiting to be claimed in the boulevards we pass on our daily walks. Maybe I could do something like that? So I unpacked them and when I did I found this note taped to the top of one of the bundles: “Open with care. There is a smaller canister packed inside the larger one.”
“Open with care. There is a smaller canister packed inside the larger one.”
Of course this note was intended for somebody else. But now here I am reading it as if a stranger had written it for my benefit. It got me thinking about the notes we leave for our future selves.
Well, I must talk about “the garage project” a lot. Let me explain.
Yesterday was a yard day where I was trying to clean things up and get some basil planted. Actually, I was trying to get several other things planted too, but I only got to the basil. In any case, on my way into the house to get a bite, I found a package on the step.
Hmm, What’s this? For me?A gift? Hmm, late birthday gift? Early Christmas? Random surprise from Brian? Ginger? Mom?Florence! What on earth could this be?A flask!
Notice in the background in the picture above there is a basket with a couple of books in it. My sister Amy was recently cleaning out some stuff and sent this along with a macrame plant holder that she thought I could use. And not that long ago there was a postcard from my sister Ginger. It’s a picture of Joyce Niebuhr striking a pose in front of an Iowa cornfield, leaning back with her face in the sun. She’s wearing a strapless, knee-length silky purple cocktail dress and long white gloves. There is a short necklace. A dot of an earring. What I imagine to be matching heels are obscured by turf. Did they sink into the ground? Her hair is up. Blonde. One hand loosely rests on the hip that faces the camera, while the other is elegantly outstretched holding three dog leashes that are attached to pigs. The caption reads: “Iowa Poodles”. “Enjoy your day!”, my sister writes.
With so much Zooming and various digital connecting going on, I wonder if “these times” call for more surprise gifts and handwritten notes. A simple phone call out of the blue and – yes – even the pop-over guest.
A little while back my friend Mary Jane stopped by unannounced. Anyone driving a Model T can do whatever they like. But it was actually a detectable slowness of things that emboldened my friend to break the convention of making plans, calling ahead. She says that she never wants to make plans again, an intriguing idea. I want to explore this but some neighbors have wandered out for a look at the car and Mary Jane must field questions. I am impressed. Passed down from her father, she has lived with this machine for her entire life and can talk shop with the best of them. We sat on the front lawn and visited until she had to leave in time to make it back to White Bear Lake before dark. A threat of rain made things even more exciting. It made me want to jump in the car with my friend, but of course I didn’t do that. Not even with a mask would I do that at this point. But for a moment, things were normal. Better than normal in that there was space for an impromptu visit and more room for perfect timing.
Back to the flask, an unusual gift, right? For some context here, I was telling Florence about wanting to put a flask of booze in one of those canisters. While it seemed hard to explain why this had its appeal without sounding like I had a drinking problem, she got it.
Du Nord DistilleryLet’s not waste any time!For emergencies and pop-over guests.
In other canister news, a few days ago I noticed a trail of ants marching toward the sugar canister. Being that there hasn’t been any sugar in there for years, I concluded that the ants must have read the label and naturally had to check it out. But Brian and my friend Craig (Yes, he too had to hear about the garage!) insist that ants can’t read and that instead they’re smelling residue sugar. When you see how badly the coffee canister is stained, I can see their point. We had a discussion about deterring the ants, including making the container unsafe for food by placing a mothball in it. A salted moat was also discussed. Lucky for me, the next day there were no ants. So my theory has not changed. The ants saw a sign for sugar, went to check it out and left after a thorough investigation turned up nothing. It would be crazy for the ants to press on with their invasion, right? Fingers crossed that they stay away!
There are more boxes to open. More bolts to sort. But it’s coming along between QuOTeD Podcast episodes, a short story and the garden. Most days I make progress. It requires a certain amount of unstructured time and staring into space for answers. It requires a slowness that I quite enjoy.
Once I vacuum the plaster dust off of the top of the window frame, I can put away the ladder. It has been in the office-guestroom for a number of days and sits behind me right now in front of the new curtains. I was determined to get the rod level – something I failed to do when I put curtains in our bedroom – and with Brian’s help and remembering some tips from my dad, I managed to do it this time. Brian doesn’t like curtains of any kind, referring to them as “cloth.” Yet he’s the one who picked out the rod. I love this. I love those finials that look like Christmas ornaments woven with muted gold strands. I like knowing that this is what he chose. We were going for brass but were told that Millennials aren’t buying it, so it can be hard to find unless you go online. It’s something I’d rather not do. For some reason I was stuck on the idea that the curtain rods throughout the house – actually not too many at this point – should have the same finish. So much for that.
Last night during a break in the World Series, Brian came up to help me add a third bracket to address a barely perceptible sway in the rod. It’s at these points in a project just as I’m about to do one more little thing that may or may not be necessary when I worry that I’ll screw it up. Every time I drill a hole I think, yep. This is where it all goes to hell.
I love the curtains and wish that Brian did too. But as much as he is trying not to ruin it for me, I know that he’s just being a good guy, a good guy who will to take me to the store. Fifty stores! It’s unfair to ask him to use his good eye for “cloth” but he knows me. I’m a shopper with little stamina and nothing to warn you when I’m about to run out of gas at which point I might cry, collapse or threaten to pass out. And without help, the chances are good that I’ll leave empty handed because an annoying song has driven me out of the store. So while Brian would rather replace Mick Mulvaney than cover the house with cloth, he does not leave me stranded and will share an opinion that can get me off the dime. There is also the judicious use of the veto power. A room darkening panel is going to make him groan, but it was the only thing in that soft gray tweed that I liked. Besides, we could use the added insulation. I mention this, thinking that he will be impressed. But I have failed. He will never be a curtain guy.
As we stood there in the store looking at the displays, I regretted that we did not get a double curtain rod so that I could put a sheer behind the curtain. I know. More cloth. We both know that we can go through the rigmarole to exchange the thing, but I’m anxious to be done. (Imagine me singing “I just want to be done” to the melody of “It had to be you”.) Still, it seems unfortunate. I should have made a better plan. Then I got an idea.
When I told the salesperson that I was going to put the sheers on the same rod as the curtain, she gave me a look. On the verge of wilting, I remember something my mother says. “It’s your house. Do what you want.” I tell the woman that I don’t care if the sheers will create a gap when you close the curtains. If total darkness is the goal, you could pinch them shut. But honestly, a column of light between the dreaded “room darkening” panels might be kind of cool. She is not convinced but doesn’t try to talk me out of it. Why would she care? She’s just happy to be looking at curtains with us, well past the point of helpfulness. She’s sixty-nine years old and would rather shop than work. Her words. But until she pays off her credit cards, her husband says that she has to have a job. What does sixty-nine look like? Not that. She probably gets this all of the time. “You look great! I never would have guessed your age!” I want to say something equally unoriginal. “What’s your secret?” But here’s my real question. “How much credit card debt do you have?” The words will not come out of my mouth and for this I count myself lucky.
The sheer curtains overlap by two grommets behind the drapes. This keeps the pieces connected for opening and closing.
Well my idea wasn’t that crazy. It works fine and I would argue that putting the sheers on the same rod with the main curtain makes for a clean and simple look. Plus, when you use a double rod, you have to use pocket sheers as opposed to the ones with the grommets, which are easier to open and close. The other thing I ended up doing that played against convention was to offset the center supporting bracket. This accommodated the width of the off-the-rack panels so that fewer would be needed. Imagine two panels on one side and one on the other instead of two on each. I was stuck on symmetrical, but once I realized that this was just another application of the “rule of thirds” whereas in framing a picture – let’s say in a video – offsetting the subject will be more pleasing to the eye than perfectly centering it. I know that this is not radical. But in breaking these inconsequential rules for which I deserve no prize (or in this case, adopting a different set of rules to follow), I am aware of how little deviation is needed to make you feel like a rebel. What about the rules of substance? If a stranger with a part time job at Bed Bath & Beyond is going to tell me “that’s not done” when it comes to window treatments, who’s going to wield the stick when I really try to live my life?
Take the walker. He wasn’t “the walker” but just one of a number of people who have dropped out of the day-to-day grind to… well… walk. This particular walker was making loads of money at some kind of financial job until he quit to walk across the country to raise awareness about a cause – economic justice? the climate? the war? – something like that. I wouldn’t have known about the walker had it not been for co-workers who found him to be a self-riotous imbecile who had evidently never roofed houses in California in July. Otherwise, he would have known to cling to a job he loathed because an air conditioned office is nothing to take for granted. I’m pretty sure that had my co-workers had the chance, they would have been happy to pummel the walker silly with a stick. The ungrateful bastard would have deserved it.
Right now the panels hang to the side, leaving the full width of the window lights visible underneath the sheers. If Brian were here, he would certainly push all of “the cloth” to the sides so that the window was completely exposed. And he could. That’s the beauty of it.
This was a tricky picture to take. These curtains will easily open up to expose the entire window.
The cat is passed out on the floor next to me. For the moment she has given up on herding me into the next room where a choice of brushes sits on top of her purrniture.
Brush the cat.
Move laundry.
Get the vacuum cleaner.
Put away the ladder.
Lunch.
Glorious lunch.
Put the schefflera that is taking up the counter space in the bathroom back into the office.
The original mission was to replace the dishwasher. This presented the question of whether it was time to address the tile countertops. Albeit out-of-date, they looked decent enough. But there was nothing practical about having grout on working surfaces.
What did that tile ever do to me? Why should it be cast out where it would spend the rest of eternity in a landfill next to a diaper full of shit? If I ever wondered whether a partial kitchen remodel could be justified, the black spots found underneath the wood trim by the sink eased some of the guilt I feel whenever there is waste. It was time.
Months after the demolition began, it was about a year ago on New Year’s Eve when Margo packed up her tools for the last time and drove off in her red pickup truck. But things were not done-done. The new Formica countertops and the white subway tile backsplash made the brass cabinet pulls look out of place. And next to a freshly painted wall that went from a sickly bisque to a dramatic blue (honestly, it mostly looks green to me, but either way it is dramatic), the dinginess of the back door bugged me. For the longest time I had a large swatch of white taped to it. It seemed better, but I wasn’t convinced that it was right.
Then I remembered hearing about how my niece had used wrapping paper on the walls of her apartment. So I taped a sample of Christmas paper to the door. Stunning! Then I taped an old cover of an art magazine to the door. I liked that too. It turns out that while our color choice might have been “dramatic” it was also neutral. A lot of things worked. Newspaper? That did not work. I settled on some remnant wallpaper that I rescued from a garage sale maybe 10 years ago. After making a template with some recycled office paper, I cut out half of the pattern. But when I tried to hang it up, I discovered that there was no tape in the world that was going to stick to the back of this wallpaper. I tried rubber cement. So much for that. There was always the wrapping paper, right? Tape will stick to that.
When I first got the idea to use magnets to hold the wallpaper to the metal door, I wasn’t convinced that it would be practical. The one magnet that I had that was strong enough for the job came from a gift shop at the Honolulu airport. It was a flower with a touch of bling in the center. It was perfect, but certainly too expensive; I thought I might need 50 of them.
Enter Axeman Surplus. They had some black disc magnets for 25 cents that were rated to hold a pound. In addition, they had loads of stuff I could use to dress up these generic magnets.
Unfortunately for Brian, the magnets worked great! He’s not a fan of this project. But so what? It’s not permanent. In fact, I have another wallpaper remnant that I can use whenever I want to change things up. And maybe after awhile, the door as it is won’t seem so horrible to me. Or I’ll find the right color and paint it. In the meantime, this is just fun.
[After painting the kitchen, this door needed something.]
[Here the door is half covered with some old wallpaper.]
[Magnets hold up the wallpaper on the metal door. I decorated a couple of cheap generic magnets with bike reflectors @ 30-something cents each. You can actually turn the lights on.]
[The white on the other side of the wallpaper is a template in the making. I used recycled office paper, a paper cutter and scotch tape.]
[Progress on the template.]
[Done! I didn’t have enough wallpaper to match up the pattern. Or maybe I should have worked from left to right? In any case, there wasn’t enough paper to avoid an extra seam in there. However, it doesn’t bother me.]
How can wallpaper break your heart? Find the one that you love. Then find out that it isn’t made for kitchens unless you’re a character on Sex In the City who never cooks or you’re the super duper careful type (not me) or you won’t mind adding routine repair jobs to your chores or – and this isn’t really fair – you’re staging a home for sale.
Updating Oak Kitchen Cabinets
The goal is to update the kitchen working with the existing reddish oak cabinets and replacing the tiled countertops. As long as we are doing that, we’ll raise the countertops by 3/4″ to accommodate a standard sized dishwasher. We’ll also add better lighting under the cabinets.
[I love this wallpaper that goes with the gray laminate we chose for the countertop. However it turns out it isn’t suitable for use in the kitchen.]
[Here you see the Charcoal Boomerang laminate with the red and the yellow that will be in the dining room. At the top you also see a sample of Sea Salt, a Sherwin Williams color that is supposed to go well with oak cabinets according to this blogger. It also happens to coordinate with Balmy, the color in our living room.]
[Here it is up close. When choosing a wallpaper to go with a pattern that has a small print and some “movement”, a designer I briefly talked to at Abbot Paint suggested going with a medium pattern and straighter lines. I’m not sure this paper falls within those rules, but I still think it works.]
[The paper would have been used on the back wall that surrounds the door. But since I can’t use it, Sea Salt it will be. You see a swatch of it above the door.]
[The Sea Salt will sit behind the red and yellow in the dining room.]
[Then there is this nook to do. A shelf will be made to match the countertops. A sconce will be added if I can find the right one. But the wall is tricky because it leads to the basement, which is turquoise. The Sea Salt will work okay, but it could be better.]
[For this coffee nook in the back of the kitchen, I thought about using the yellow from the dining room. When I was trying different shades of it, I got the idea to try stripes. Here you see it with the Charcoal Boomerang laminate and the Sea Salt.]
[Here’s the Charcoal Boomerang laminate with reddish oak cabinets. We tried the darker colors that I’ve seen with similar cabinets, but they just didn’t seem right. I keep coming back to this one.]
[Here’s the laminate with tile we are considering. Taking a tip from the person who was giving me advice about the wallpaper, I’m favoring straight lines. I love this size and to my eye it looks good. But I wonder if it is too small for the pattern on the laminate.]
[Here’s everything together. I see I included Sedate Gray from Sherwin Williams. That will go in the bathroom off of the kitchen.]
This is still a work in progress, but we are getting closer to finalizing some decisions.
