October 2, 2008
Dreaming
My house is not a haven of peace and order. “Whose is?” you ask, and I nod my head in agreement. But I’d still like one. At every turn, there’s some reason why I can’t move forward with my plans.
The piano stands in for a number of obstacles. When we bought this house, the previous owners left their piano behind (the house was previously owned by the mother of my stepchildren). At the time, the boys were still taking piano lessons, and she got another piano for their new house. So wherever they were, they could always practice.
Well, no one’s taken piano lessons for the last three years, and it’s only been played a handful of times in that time period. The more time passes, the more I want to get it out of the house. It dawned on me this year that I own bookcases that could occupy the piano space, and since I still have books in boxes, I really wanted to set up those bookcases.
Have you ever moved a piano? It’s not such an easy thing if the piano is up half a flight of stairs in a split-level house. We’ve had numerous conversations about moving it. We even have someone who wants the piano. Unfortunately, no one is as motivated to move this piano as I am. I told my husband that I wanted it out of the house by the end of September. I don’t think he believed me, until yesterday.
Yesterday I rolled the piano out of the way, vacuumed the floor, set up the bookcases, and unpacked fifteen more feet of books. Then Stepson #2 rolled it back to sit right in front of the bookcases. My husband came home, took a look, and then tested the weight of the piano. “That’s about half as heavy as I expected it to be,” he said. “I think I could move this down the stairs with one other person.” I rolled my eyes.
Now that the bookcases are out of our bedroom, I can put a dresser in there that we’ve had sitting in the garage for the last couple of years. It’s mostly refinished, but I can assure you that the longer it sits out there, the less likely it will be to ever get finished. It’s going in this weekend.
This leads to further reassessment of our bedroom. I don’t know whose idea it was to put in the pink carpet, but it was not a good one. We’re not going to be able to replace it anytime soon, so I will continue to pretend that it’s not there when I make decorating decisions. We’ve got a nice Heywood Wakefield headboard, along with the aforementioned coordinating dresser. That, and the custom Elfa closet configuration are the best things about our bedroom. The carpet has to be replaced, I want to put in new window dressings, and we’ve got to replace the ugly ceiling fan. And then I might paint and try some wall decals.
Comments
That’s a lot of progress for one day. Hope everyone in your house realizes that maybe it’s not as hard as it looks.
Keep going!
I want to do so many things to my house that I get tired just thinking about it. And in what 5-minute “free time” span would I do it in? So it always remains the same. But I’m prett impressed with 15 feet of books! And getting the piano out of the way.
Oh, not everyone realizes it, not even me. I’ve been working on the garage for weeks, and I’ve barely made a dent.
I get tired, too. I keep telling him that if he had any idea what went on in my head about the house, he’d quit now. It’s a giant list, and I do what I can, but there are plenty of things I need help with, and I hate nagging. So I might mention something that I’d like done, and I might get a promise that it will get done, and then I’ll wait a few months (or more) before bringing it up again, and in the meantime he hasn’t even thought about it once while I’ve thought about it a thousand times.
So the other day when he said “I only have two or three hours of work to do on the dresser” (and this after about three years), I said “Which two or three hours? This year? Next?” And within a few minutes there it was, in the bedroom, and twenty-four hours later we have a bedroom that, while not perfect, is no longer embarrassing for guests to see. Not that we need a bedroom that’s a showpiece. But now I don’t care if someone wanders in.
Not only do I hate nagging, he’s had an undetermined health issue for the last year and a half that often leaves him dizzy/nauseous and tired. Plus he works two jobs (sometimes three), and who am I to add one more household thing on top of all that? And he does the yard work. And he often cooks. And there are the kids.