A Shoebox & A Shop-Vac

Those of you who know me know that we moved to This Old Purple House from a brand new home that we custom designed and built from scratch. On the darker days, it's easy to wallow in memories of climate control, modern appliances (plugged into three-prong outlets) and everyday cleaning that didn't involve a Shop-Vac. Sigh.

When we built our last house, it was B. K. (before kids). I spent oodles of time reading and cutting up magazines, surfing and pilfering photos from the internet, visiting home expo centers and kitchen design emporiums. Not to mention the weekends spent going to yard sales and estate sales, plus impromptu curb picking on big trash days and field trips to architectural salvage warehouses. And, of course, there was property porn -- haunting open houses and skimming virtual tours of on-the-market houses I found on purpose or by happenstance.

Our second meeting with the architect we chose involved the purging of a large shoebox of clips, print-outs, brochures, samples, swatches, catalogs, feng shui analyses and, of course, cocktail napkin sketches. On alternate days I think we made his job incredibly easy (Why did we pay him when I did all the work?) or incredibly hard (That man worked a miracle. He captured the essence of all things shoebox!)

Rooms and walls were designed around heirlooms and trash-treasures. Lighting was placed just-so to highlight personal collections. The space fit us to a tee. Heck, we lived on the lot for 3 full cycles of seasons before we tore the old (vintage 1960s blek) place down and started over. So we knew exactly where the views were, where the sun and moon rose and set, where the storm water went (and didn't)... The place was frickin' perfect. Sigh.

So, now, here we are in a house with approximately the same square footage, but nothing fits. Between windows (small, but plentiful), doors and hallways (a veritable warren), radiators and fixtures and built-ins (more about these later), there isn't anyplace to put furniture in this place!!! Except the bunk room, of course, but that's furnished with an homage to master carpentry, which is entirely bolted to the floor. Everywhere else, the floors slope and roll. The ceilings and walls meet at corners that are square-ish. The walls are "textured". The "white" ceilings chronicle the history of weather and plumbing the way the rings in a massive tree trunk tick off the years. God, I love this place. Gah!

For now, I must remind myself that it took four years to compile my "shoebox" the last time around. And I didn't have the "help" of two 4-going-on-14 year-olds. And I was starting tabula rasa and building an "eclectic" collection. Whereas here, I am literally tying to fit massive (and beloved) Jacobean oak into 1700s colonial (aka Munchkin Land).

For now, I must find my happy place and soak up the orientation of all things. I must find ways to make this house a home, both now and in the future. I must get better at shimming. And sanding. And, perhaps most importantly, I must learn to love the Shop-Vac in the middle of all things, because it's on casters and it helps me to figure out which way the world is tilting. Today. And today is like no time in shoebox years.