Limiting Space

If you build it they will fill it...

One of the reasons that we bought our current home was storage space.  LOTS of storage space.  Not only did it have an attic and a basement, it had TWO linen closets and (wonder of wonders) a real pantry.  A "step in" pantry - that means that it is definately a separate space rather than just an extra bunch of shelves hidden among the cabinet doors. It is really more of a large closet rather than another (small) bedroom.

And we have filled it.   When you have the extra space it is easy to purchase that box of 1000 plastic spoons - and there they sit even when nobody has used one in years.  The pantry contains two shelves of food (cans of vegetables, bags of pasta, packets of sauce mix) and one of baking supplies.  That is the sum total of edibles in the pantry.  The original idea was that there would always be stock in the house if I decided to cook something specific.  It would cut down on trips to the grocery store.  In fact, it hasn't.  I am ALWAYS one can of tomatoes short, or have cream of chicken soup but NOT cream of mushroom.  And who on earth thought that we needed 6 cans of clam chowder - all of them from diffferent manufacturers?  me.  I have elbow macaroni, but not penne pasta; rice but not spaghetti  - thus necessitating a change in the menu or run to the market before dinner can be constructed.

In our new home there is no pantry.  At first I looked on this with trepidation, but as I think about it I see that this is a chance to consolidate and stop the madness of the twice a year "clean out" of the pantry with the resultant donation to the local food bank.

And the attic?  And the basement?  And the (two) linen closets?  Just an exentsion of  the pantry.  Just a bunch of overstuffed storage spaces...we are in deep trouble with this upcoming move.

Warm and Cozy

Let me start by saying that when our house was built, the contractor said, "Insulation? Pffffft!  This is Southern California - we don't need no stinkin' insulation!"

As a result, while my husband (who used to go camping in 4 feet of snow) runs around the house in shorts and a t-shirt telling me that it is "just fine in here", I have a rather large collection of throws that I keep over my legs every time that I alight in a chair...

I get a lot of grief over the number of throws that I have (eight by last count - and two of those belong to Stubble so they aren't really mine) so when I bought some quilts at church, I was informed that some of the throws would have to go....

Well, last weekend The Bearded One was sick.  My rust colored fleece throw was too hot, the tan synthetic one was too cold - but what proved to be "just right" was the wild animal quilt in colors of pale yellow, tan, and brown, with squares that contain a collage of realistic looking wild animals in a mixture of browns, greens and black that looks just gorgeous in our bedroom...one of the ones that I got at church.  It is cotton and so it "breathes" while being "just warm enough".

As a matter of fact, that quilt was so "just right" that it is now a part of the every night blanket ensemble that we use on our bed...

Dust

This weekend was fun, Fun, FUN! We started putting the office and family room back together...which requires a little history. While the couch and TV have been up and running and the exercise equipment functional (but generally unused) and the computer that is our house server has of necessity been running 24/7, the books have been in boxes in a storage unit for much of the last 5 years. It all started with the painters telling us to "pack as if we were moving" and then get out..so we did.

As Stubble says, "Mom and Dad, you keep WAY TOO MANY books!" And we do. Once we own a book it is ours forever. It is a beloved friend and we will make a place for it in our lives forever....and that is pretty much not an exageration. We occasionally take books to Friends of the Library if we hated reading them or if we have no more space, but today we boxed up many of our "friends". We unpacked 10 cartons of books that were dusty and dirty and are actually preaparing to send 2 cartons of them away....and it was tough. Both the letting go and the dust.
I have had 2 showers during the course of the day because of my dust allergies. But the bookcases are now full and the room looks ready to live in.

A Tale of Home Improvement

One. Little. Nail. Just one. “Honey, why don’t you pull that nail out of the drywall before we install the sink?”
We are installing a utility sink in the garage. For the years long renovation of the house, we have been using the large, black, (expensive), Kohler kitchen sink to clean paint brushes, and mix thinset and grout. Anything nasty that we need to do involving water has happened in that sink. So now, with only the kitchen floor left to tile, why on earth is a utility sink suddenly a necessity? I suppose, because it is a way to delay the installation of the HardieBacker for another week. No, not really. It is so when the tile goes into the kitchen, we have access to water in a sink big enough to fill a pot and wash a dish.
There was a plan. It was to get the corner of the garage where the sink would reside cleaned out, get all materials, and prep in advance so the installation would take about 3 hours and then the rest of the weekend could be devoted to backer board. Well, as with most plumbing projects, 3 hours proved to be a wildly optimistic estimate.
I kept to the plan. I took a couple of hours of vacation time to clear out the garage. It was quality time well spent with a trash can. Why on earth did we keep boxes of old cassette tapes that we haven’t listened to in nearly 20 years? Couldn’t tell you, but they are gone now. As are the 7 empty wine boxes we were saving for some unknown reason. I forced a midweek trip to Home Depot to purchase the sink, faucet, ABS pipe, new glue, 90 ° elbows, 45 ° elbows, copper pipe, shut off valves, solder, and couplings. We were all set to go first thing Saturday morning.
Our house is built into a hillside so that the main floor is at ground level in the front; there is an upper floor above the garage that houses the master bedroom suite, and a family room and half bath that open into the backyard on a lower floor. Under most of the house is standing headroom so that running new pipes is relatively easy; it isn’t like you have to tear up concrete or anything…
So, I suggested that the protruding nail be removed. It has been there since we purchased the house 18 years ago and when valuable household items were piled in front of it, I never noticed. But now that there would be a sink right there, it made sense to pull out the useless nail. So The Bearded One pulled the nail out and A STREAM OF WATER BEGAN TO SHOOT OUT OF THE WALL! ARRRGHHH!
Drywall removal was quickly accomplished with a Dremel Multi-Max (if you don’t own one, you should), soggy insulation was pulled out and it turned out that the nail had penetrated the trap in the washing machine drain.
We now have a 2’ x 2’ hole in that garage wall that is being “left open to dry”. There has been a new trap installed for the washer drain. The sink is in place and functional. Our son, Stubble, learned a lot about plumbing including how much fun a Bernzomatic torch can be. And it only took 6 additional trips to Home Depot to accomplish the job. Total time on the job: about 10 hours.
Next job: Patching the drywall. But that will be another Tale.