Spring Shakedown

Every spring I get itchy. I don’t think this is uncommon – I believe everyone starts to get a bit restless when the snow finally starts melting and exposing mess, and we have to start switching our wardrobes over to warmer garb. But this year is the first in awhile that I have gotten really hungry for change.

I guess last year we were busy building the cottage, and that took up a lot of my energies. In the end I’d planned that thing within an inch of my life and the whole process of building and moving into it seemed to take very little time or grief – two months at the most. All of my decorating and project making mojo went into the cottage last year so naturally our house was completely neglected. Worth it.

But this year I am seeing things with brand new eyes. I am looking at some of the spaces in my house as though for the very first time and letting myself get carried away by the decorating domino effect. I finally re-did an old chair I’d had in the basement forever and oh man is it nice. It’s gonna go in the corner of our room at the cottage because I’m not sure how sturdy it is to actually sit on. It was this ratty old silver-painted thing that I found in someone’s office at my old job, with a painted canvas seat that was falling off. I tore off and re-stuffed the seat in cool fabric and painted the chair in a deep turquoise colour, which meant I had to buy a 1-quart can of paint, since they no longer mix paint in smaller quantities. I have 7/8 of a can of paint left over in a gorgeous deep glossy turquoise so I started thinking to myself “what else can I paint?” My eye fell on these two shelves I’ve got in my dining area, painted gold from when I was in my red-and-gold Asian baroque phase, living at my folks’ house. My Opa made me these shelves, and they were originally pale blue, then gold, and now I am going to paint them turquoise. But this led me to recognize that the wall where the shelves are hung is covered in really aged (re: oranged) wood with mysterious stains on it that we never questioned, and wouldn’t turquoise shelves look much better on a crisp white wall? Which will require me to crack out the pry bar, drywall mud and primer. When I mentioned this to dear hubby he thought maybe a window should go in there as well but that’s too much even for me. Then I think I need a new clock on that wall, just to freshen it up and make it easier for Nora to learn to tell time, and while we’re at it, the curtains on the adjacent window are looking a bit tired – add some new curtains to the to-do list. My dining table hangs out in front of this soon-to-be white wall and it, too, is really old and tired and impossible to clean (got it at a yard sale about 12 years ago for $25), so as soon as the weather warms up, I am taking it outside on the deck, sanding it, and giving it a coat of shiny shiny white paint – only on the very top. I am leaving the rest of it wood. This way I will be able to see any mess on it and wipe it up appropriately and it will be more inviting in general. The room is going to look nice and fresh, but maybe that vintage metal flower chandelier over the table - the one I wanted so badly and paid way too much for on ebay 10 years ago and sometimes bang my forehead on rather dramatically – is a bit dustymusty for my crisp new dining area? Also dangerous, one of the lightbulbs is busted and hanging on by some kind of internal wire. I think the room would look smashing with a d.i.y light fixture made with coloured fabric cord and exposed leaded lightbulbs….. and the list goes on. If I follow this domino all the way to the end, the room will look absolutely fresh and fantastic and unrecognizable, but I fear poor hubby will have a heart attack from all the change.

Gonna stick to the shelves, the wall, and the table. And the curtains. Give the chandelier a good cleaning, fix the bulb, get new shades for it, and put it on notice. And while I’m at it, I might replace one or two of our dining chairs and lose the booster seat – Nora is big enough now that we don’t need that ugly thing hanging around for much longer.

Then when I was left to my own devices on Easter Monday (hubby had to work, I did not, very dangerous stuff), I turned my critical eye to the area around our woodstove. When you look at your house through the eyes of an imaginary stranger, the results can be shocking I tell you. What I saw embarrassed the hell out of me – the mantle is a wreck and appears to be falling off in one spot, the brickwork is atrocious and breaking up, and the wall where we dump our firewood is so damaged that you can almost see the back of the exterior siding through it. Drywall is useless stuff. No match for a log of well-aged maple thrown from 5 paces.

The biggest culprit in all of this mess is the jerk who built the mantle area in the first place. The whole wall around my woodstove – formerly a fireplace, as evidenced by the arch that still shows above my stove, grr – is done in brick but in a uniquely horrible style where the mortar was never smoothed off or chipped away, it just hangs out in blobs from between the bricks. This is incredibly stupid, as this zone is constantly bombarded with ash and wood dust, and this textured mortar is impossible to clean (unless I figure out a way to get a pressure washer going in my living room) so the whole thing is permanently dingy and gross.

So on Easter Monday, I casually went to the basement, got myself a sturdy chisel and a hammer, and started to investigate. One innocent “ting ting” turned, half an hour later, into a pile of rubble on my living room floor, dust everywhere. But dammit the mortar looks better. It’s not 100% - the bricks themselves are very rough and pockmarked and the mortar is obviously chipped, not smooth, and that damned arch will always be poking its head over my stove surround, and of course I naturally started right in the middle, at eye level, and did not finish – but it’s a visual improvement. Now I am toying with the idea of buying a bag of mortar and smoothing the bricks out a bit, and painting the whole thing glossy white. OR buying a bunch of really thin flagstone and just re-doing the entire thing, either by removing the bricks first or just going right over them. I am definitely going to find a beam and make a new mantle, and fix up that side wall that’s all mangled up – possibly foregoing drywall and putting in a solid piece of painted wood instead.

Add to all of this the desk that’s been on my back burner for awhile. I want to build myself a narrower desk for my back office, now that I am no longer accommodating an 8-cubic-foot computer monitor. All I have to fit on it is a laptop and a printer, so it will be about 18 inches wide and we will have more room in the office space for art projects and other fun stuff. I am building it out of the barn board that came off the office wall, so we will see.

I also have a few projects lined up for hubby that he doesn’t know about yet. He loves spring because trout fishing season starts, so I am hoping to get a bit of his time before then.

As much as I enjoy doing all of these things, when the rush of ideas hits me I get kind of stressed out. I go into panicky list-making mode and start worrying that I won’t have enough time. The glorious thing about it is, I am starting to be able to do more and more of this stuff with Nora around. She no longer naps during the day, which is hard in some ways but ok in others, because we don’t have to tiptoe around in the afternoons. I can crack out the power tools at will. And she’s kind of keen to help me, though I have to watch her around sharp stuff and things that permanently stain, like paint. She’s learning to use basic tools (she likes to pry nails out with the hammer, or try to) and is gaining an appreciation for fixing things up, and for her it’s totally normal for her to have a mama who fixes stuff. I think that sets a pretty neat example.

Now all I have to do is to remember to take before and after pictures!