As luck would have it, the office doubles nicely as a personal yoga studio. The space is quickly becoming an alternate hang out, and as it adjoins the living room with the wood stove it is cozy and quiet, serene and inspirational.
Each time I sit down to write, in particular about our addition on to the house and I want to talk about how we're nearing the end, I stop myself realizing that though we may be near the end of this current undertaking, there will surely be another. And another. And another. Maybe that's the case for every homeowner, that there is always something else to be done, or maybe it's because that's our way. We never seem to be without a project, be it big or small, many occurring simultaneously.
A little closet, covered simply with linen (that I still need to wash an iron, oh well). Please take special note of the fishing poles that are slowly creeping their way in.
The window seat, soon to have a lovely cushion and pillows if I'd ever get around to giving my friend the measurements. Sorry, Suz! They're on their way. And check the storage below. I love it.
This becomes the perfect space for Kevin's great grandmother's sewing machine which still works (!) and has all the original manuals and interchangeable parts, along with patterns from long ago. I so admire how people used to hang onto things and take such good care of them. Yesterday's purchase sits atop the machine, soon to find it's way to a wall in here.
It's a vintage hat stand that I enjoy mainly for it's sculpural qualities, but I find it so appropriate for the office of one who makes so many hats.
Moving on, we have the new foyer. We (I) still need to paint the door and we now think the piano is moving to the dining room. It has lived in many rooms since moving here, maybe this will be the last time. About 5 moves ago Kevin said he was going to burn it if he had to move it anymore. He still threatens. I still put my foot down and tell him where it's supposed to go.
Ahhhh, the new master bedroom.
Again.
Our new closet. Thanks to the closet master (Kevin). Don't mind the toilet, it'll be moving soon.
The bathroom sinks.
Shower. Door to be installed next week.
Linen closet.
Gotta love the view out the bathroom window.
And the view from the bedroom.
Sunlight up the old stairs.
And last but not least I'd like to mention the visitors. I have a steady stream of them in and out of the office. Allie has taken up residence behind the linen curtain on the floor of the closet and has secret parties and writes stories and little notes. I find cuttings, glue, fabric, dishes and all sorts of little things she leaves behind. So much for mine, it's all very much ours.
I'd love to show everyone finished pictures of the addition but you'll have to wait just a bit longer. We're so close now that I'm holding out till the end when I can show things more like how they'll really be. We can hardly wait ourselves.
You might remember we've been adding on the house. That's right, through work, school, play, wellness, sickness, birthdays, Thanksgiving, Christmas and New Year's, the house has been in a state of construction. Above, you see where we (not really me, more like Kevin) tore off the front porch to make way for more space. A gentle reminder of where we started.
That's alot of trim to be painted folks and I'm the resident trim painter. I may be working on it till Spring!
Our master bedroom currently looks like this:
The onlookers survey,
watch how it's done,
and give their input.
From the outside, a big change, not yet finished but almost there. If you didn't know better, you'd probably even think it'd been there all along.
I've dragged this rocking chair into my new office every day for the past four days to sit, to wait. Waiting for my daughter to get over her flu, waiting for my husband to come home from four days away fishing, waiting and dreaming and picturing this new office for all it will one day be.
Along with these:
I'm thinking of hanging it on one of the walls and surrounding it with prints/pictures like this one, which I'm pretty sure I'll want to purchase. So with all of this coming together as it is I'm surprising myself. It's really not like me to have this much of a plan at this stage of the game, my decorating in the past being so thrown together as it were.
There's something very basic and real about walking down the hill to the chicken coop and gathering the eggs, especially if they happen to still be warm. It is simple, nature at its best and surprisingly a treat every time.
I've been remiss in posting lately, I know, but our time has been swallowed up with the kids starting school, me working at the hospital a bit more and this little thing called an addition. If it was just one room in and of itself it might not have such a big impact on our living space, but as it is (and I'm so happy with the way it is) it affects every space on the front of the house as you can see.
we have some new windows,
and some major feats of framing and engineering have been accomplished, a.k.a. sawing the wall in half that holds up the second floor and putting a beam in so we can be wall-less in this section of the house that will become our new bedroom. I don't know how he does it without the house falling down, but by now I just know he can and that's probably all I need to know.
I can now stand in what will soon become my office and dream about how it will be laid out and what kind of storage I'll need. Kevin says he'll make me some built-in cabinets/shelves/whatever, I just need to tell him what I want. He's also informed me that he's going to be tired after this addition's all done, tired, "for like TWO YEARS" he says.
The view out our front door will reveal that it'd be an uncomfortable first step if you happened not to notice that there's something missing, the front porch, that is. You may remember it was torn off the house some time ago to make way for an addition. Not a big, sprawling addition, but rather one that adds just enough space to make things a bit more comfortable and livable inside.
It's here that I must again hand it to the resident jack-of-all-trades, handyman, builder extraordinaire, hardworking machine that is my husband who just today, with his rain soaked hair standing on end (and he has a head full of it) like Billy Idol, had a coming to terms with himself about the benefits or lack thereof of doing all the work himself. It is a dilemma of epic proportions that I'm afraid he must struggle with internally. Will he continue to be a do-it-yourself-er or will one day he become a pay-someone-to-do-it-for-you-er? I think we already have our answer.
Can you see what I see?
It must be the mud in part that's getting to him, or maybe it's the grunt work. Neither of which are much fun.
And in response to the comments and emails from friends wondering how or why I seemed to have had a job and lost it, let me just say that I didn't explain myself very well. The job is still there, it's just that I'm one of the expendible folks who isn't full time and can either be scheduled last minute or cancelled last minute based on the sometimes vast fluctuation in patient census.
