Stuff and Nonsense

The King and I moved into our current house when we outgrew our starter castle. Two young(ish) people with the usual assortment of starter-outer stuff had become two not-as-young(ish) people with two toddlers and a rapidly expanding amount of stuff. Rather than continue to make the boy-child sleep in what was basically the hallway, we pulled up stakes and moved. We gained a bedroom for the boy-child, if not much more in the way of storage space.

Years passed and  what was once cozy for two adults, two small children, a kitten, and all their stuff, became claustrophobic for two adults, two teenagers, a full-grown cat, and all their stuff. So we added on, expanding by approximately 860 square feet. And one teenager left the roost.

In a time of down-sizing and “tiny houses,” we added the equivalent of two tiny houses to our already regular-size house and decreased our population density. And there still isn't enough room for all our stuff.

The worst part is that we haven't added any new stuff since the remodel. In fact, we've gotten rid of stuff. While I was packing up stuff for storage I sorted, donated and threw away stuff we didn't use or need. As well as stuff I was tired of packing. I repeated the process when I started unpacking stuff from storage – sorting, donating and throwing away stuff I realized I hadn't missed while it was in storage. As well as stuff I was tired of unpacking.

We have twice as many cupboards in the new kitchen, and yet I still have pots, pans, dishes and gadgets sitting on counters (and in totes) waiting to find a home. The closet in our master bedroom is almost half-again as big as our old closet, and yet we still have totes and bags of clothes waiting to be put away.

The Little Prince, who is so low-maintenance he could subsist on air alone, moved into a room twice the size of his old room . . . and immediately filled up the larger space. Granted, his drum set, which once took up a big part of the “toy room” now takes up a big part of his bedroom. Unfortunately this did not (surprise?) free up any space in the room formerly known as the “toy room,” presently known as the “I don't know where else to put this stuff room.”

The only room in the house that doesn't seem to be overloaded is The Princess' room. I suspect that is because she has moved out of our house and into an apartment at college . . . where her room is filled with stuff. And to be honest, here at home her closet, bookshelves and the space under her bed are filled with stuff . . . that wouldn't fit in the “I don't know where else to put this stuff room.”

Evidently I had developed some seriously next-level, Tetris-master type storage/stacking skills pre-remodel, when we first realized we were space challenged. In theory, what I need to do now is figure out in which of the remaining un-unpacked totes those skills are packed.

Because I shudder to think what might happen if I had to pack everything up again while we add on even more space.

There's No Nest, Like an Empty Nest

It is 9 a.m. and I am alone in the house.

I have forgotten what silence sounds like.

There is no chatter from the other room. No laughter, no muttering. No radios. No doors opening and closing.

My car is the only one in the driveway.

The nest is empty.

There is no pitter-patter of workboots on the stairs, no hiss-bang of an air compressor, no smack-smack-smack of nail guns, no whirrrrrrrring of a radial saw.

The contractors are gone.

After an intense three-month push – a daily parade of electricians, drywallers, woodworkers, painters, insulation-ers, flooring-ers, and multi-taskers – the kitchen is finished and the contractors are gone. Work continued right up to the last minute to finish and polish, clean and stage for a builders' “parade of homes” – a sort of graduation party without the cake.

And now it is done.

I sit alone in my office – my office, not a corner of the living room, not a corner of The Princess's room/overflow storage – my office, sipping coffee I made in the kitchen – the kitchen, not the craft room/temporary kitchen, not The Princess's room/overflow storage/temporary office – the kitchen, basking in the delicious silence, and trying to remember how to think in solitude.

The cat, who has spent the last three months hiding under the bed from noises and strangers and strange noises is . . . well, hiding under the bed, because he is a cat, after all, and who knows why cats do anything. But now his movements are languid as he oozes out from under the bed skirt, stretches lazily, and saunters to the hallway. Despite his sanguine manner, his half-lidded stare, his lackadaisical yawn, there is an attentiveness to his posture as his sits, ears erect, keeping watch down the hallway, ready to growl and retreat at a moments notice.

And he is right.

They will be back.

A year-and-a-half into this project – beset with setbacks as are all remodeling projects – we are about three-quarters of the way done. A large portion of the basement ceiling is MIA, a casualty of plumbing and heating repairs, replacement and upgrades. There will be more insulation, more flooring, more painting, more air compressors and saws and nail guns.

This empty nest, like most, is welcome but fleeting.

If You Can't Stand the Heat, Get Rid of the Kitchen

The remodel reached the critical mass stage – or perhaps that is critical mess stage – as destruction of the kitchen commenced.

Right now, the area once occupied by cabinets, appliances and food is utterly and completely empty. It is also much larger, as we succumbed to the HGTV mantra of “open concept.” It is now a straight, open shot from front to the back of the house, from the living room through the kitchen to the dining room. One caveat not disclosed on television programming: no walls to obstruct the view also means no walls on which to place light switches.

Open concept, front door to the back door.

But that is a different worry for a different day.

My immediate concern is organizing a makeshift kitchen in the recently completed craft room. Recently completed as in I had just enough time to organize and then completely dis-organize this cozy room, before pushing all that mess to one side to make room for totes and boxes filled with kitchen stuff.

Totes and boxes which are, of course, completely dis-organized.

Despite my haphazard planning and chaotic implementation, I have absolutely no idea where anything is. I tried to be methodical, packing like-items together, but that requires time, energy and attention – resources I exhausted in about 15 minutes.

My original plan was to pack the contents of each cabinet in its own tote, tote the totes downstairs, then recreate the same cabinet layout with the totes. This may have worked, if my cabinets hadn't been so poorly organized to begin with. Then there's the whole time/energy/attention thing.

Actually, when I had all the boxes and totes scattered about the kitchen, it made some sort of sense (to me). I packed all (most) of the pots and pans together. I packed all (most) of the dishes together. Same with the glasses, bowls, spices and all that stuff that had been pushed to the back of the cabinets and forgotten about. I packed it all (most) together.

It's that (most) part that gave me fits. Somewhere along the way I had to tweak the ratio of “all” to “(most)” in order to create the proper ratio of “weight” to “breakage potential.” Then I started filling in the cracks with “what the heck is this” and “why do we have this” in order to balance the ratio of “time is running out” to “just get this crap packed up.”

It was much easier to move the food items. Once I culled all the foods that were past their expiration dates I only had about half as much to transport. On the other hand, I found twice as many snacks that I had hidden from the rest of the family but then forgot about. I dutifully found new hiding spots for them, then promptly forgot where I stashed them, so that's a wash. Unfortunately my new food-organization system is so well organized (unlike my previous system) that I still can't find what I'm looking for, despite the wide-open shelving concept.

All it not lost, however. One of the first things I did was to set up the coffee maker and necessary accoutrements in my temporary office/ the Princess' bedroom/ the cat's refuge.

It's all about priorities.

Little House of (Renovation) Horrors

The Poseidon Adventure. Earthquake. The Towering Inferno. Airport. What do these disaster movies all have in common?

Each event was less of a catastrophe than our home remodeling project.

I'm fairly certain our contractor – who has done amazing work – is shaking his head and wondering how he ever got involved in this project of the damned.

I haven't blogged about our setbacks, because I didn't want to anger the Fates of Remodeling. But after yesterday's misadventure, I've decided the fates are obviously so pissed at me, it couldn't get much worse.

Really.

I mean sure, the whole thing could go up in flames, forcing us to rebuild from scratch, but at this point even that couldn't put us much further behind schedule.

So, what was our latest SNAFU? What disaster du jour has me questioning whether that light I thought I saw at the end of this very long, dusty, partially remodeled tunnel was a beacon of hope or an emergency flare?

Yesterday a delivery van got stuck in the mud behind our house.

For more than two hours.

Postponing the delivery and installation of the carpet that will signal the honest to God complete, totally for reals completed, finally finished completion of approximately one-third of our renovation.

And we're only eight months behind schedule.

We used to joke about the house being done in time for The Princess' high school graduation. Last May. Now we joke about it being done before The Prince's graduation. In 2019. These days I reply to that joke with nervous laughter, bordering on hysteria.

So what's the big deal? What's a couple more days? Progress – amazing, beautiful, fantastic work – continues on other parts of the project.

It's symbolic. You see, this is not the first time our yard has swallowed a subcontractor. A skid steer (that's right, a skid steer), got stuck while excavating for the footings last fall.

Footings which, once poured, filled with ground water. And did not drain. Pushing back work until spring. After the ground thawed and eventually firmed up again.

Spring. When The Princess graduated from high school. When the contractor took pity on us and delayed work until after we could have a small reception for her in the garage. The garage which, the day after the party, we filled with the displaced furniture and boxes that are still there.

No, the delivery van getting stuck is just one item on a long list of unexpected challenges and scheduling hiccups. In short, almost anything that could go wrong, has gone wrong. I've watched enough “This Old House” and HGTV to know all remodeling projects have their share of problems. But I have to think we are approaching the point at which even Tommy and Norm, Chip and Joanna, and Jonathan and Drew would throw up their hands and cut their losses.

Despite all the set backs, I try to stay positive. The parts that are finished are beautiful. Things are progressing. It will all be worth it once it's done.

Despite the problems, I try to find the humor in the situation. For most of the summer we had the distinction of being the only house in the neighborhood with a port-o-potty in the front yard.

Talk about yer' curb appeal.

Livin' in a Box

The bathroom remodel is going as well as can be expected, which is to say it's been at least 36 minutes since anyone found me on the floor, curled up in the fetal position, mumbling “itwillallbeworthitwhenit'sdone, itwillallbeworthitwhenit'sdone, itwillallbeworthitwhenit'sdone...”.

Progress has been slow but steady, given the usual assortment of pre-existing plumbing, electrical and ductwork snafus that had to be corrected before new work could be started. The main contractor has choreographed an intricate Cha Cha of schedules, stepping forward with the planned jobs, backwards with emergency situations, forward with subcontractors, and backward with their emergency situations.

In the meantime, my search for a bottle of aspirin in a house full of plastic storage boxes has been equally slow but steady.

We planned this remodel partly to update our very 1970s split-foyer home, but also because we just didn't have enough room for all our stuff. Paradoxically, the act of remodeling requires us to compress our overabundance of stuff into even less space for the duration of the project.

The answer to our problem is probably that we just need to get rid of some stuff. But that's a difficult concept for a near-hoarder to grasp. And now that the bathroom and the two largest closets in the house are one cavernous, fixtureless space, it's just a little too late to back out. Hindsight is 20/20, and very much NOT appreciated, thank you.

Instead my solution has been to put everything from the bathroom and closets and much of our adjacent bedroom into plastic storage totes. The cat was nearly a casualty of this process when he – traumatized by the constant stream of strangers in and out of the house – decided to take a nap in an tote I was still packing.

There are totes in the family room, totes in the living room, totes in the (remaining) bathroom, totes in our bedroom, and totes stored off-site (and out of mind). Totes filled with clothes, totes filled with shoes, totes filled with medicine, totes filled with towels, knick-knacks, makeup, hair ties and, finally, totes filled with other totes. All this in addition to the totes we've always used to store seasonal items, craft supplies, fabrics, toys, and anything else we don't know what to do with.

Totes to store, totes to organize, totes to keep dust out and totes to keep my sanity in.

All these totes make me look organized, but it's just an illusion. In truth, I have little to no idea what specifically is in any given tote at any given time, except that it probably isn't what I'm looking for. Case in point: The Princess was suffering from a severe onset of seasonal allergies and needed antihistamines. I stared blankly at the sea of totes presumably storing the contents of the bathroom and medicine cabinet, then sighed and drove 15-minutes to the nearest drugstore.

It's not just the dizzying array of sizes, shapes and colors of the totes that drives me crazy, it's the impossibility of keeping a tote together with its matching lid. In this regard, I'm sure that somehow plastic totes and socks are genetically related.

At one time I had, in my living room, two 20-quart boxes but five lids for 20-quart boxes, as well as one lid for a 58-quart box, but no 58-quart box. This was the day after I had purchased a matching amount of boxes and lids.

After wiping the dust from my curling iron for the 20^th day in a row (I'm a slow learner) I decided to give up and tote-up everything on my dresser. I managed to find three nearly identical, clear storage totes in our basement.

Each of them required a different lid. Even the two boxes which were the same brand did not use interchangeable lids.

Behind the bedroom door I discovered three lids without boxes. None of them fit the boxes in question.

While searching for lids that did match, I found 30 totes without lids – including both full (18) and empty (12) totes, clean and dirty, large, medium, small and smaller. I also found 40 lids – small, medium, large and larger.

I wish I was kidding.

Finally I admitted defeat and headed to the store to find totes that were just the right size and shape, and an equal amount of lids that fit that size and shape.

As I pondered organizational strategies for organizational strategies, I waxed philosophical: Would my life be more organized if I could put me in a tote?

At least until the remodeling is done.

A (Bath)Room of One's Own

Four people. Four weeks. One bathroom.

We've started a master bathroom remodeling project which has left us with just one bathroom to be shared by four people, for four weeks.

Let me run those numbers by you one more time.

Four weeks.

Four people.

One bathroom.

Put another way, that's four people sharing access to one shower and one toilet... located in the same one room... for four weeks.

Sure, we're forced to share one bathroom between the four of us when we go on vacation. That may be why we don't take more vacations. And why we've never gone on vacation for longer than one week. 

It's only been one day and already I'm considering voting someone off the island. This is truly the most horrifying season yet of Survivor: Suburbs. Outwit (how many evening meetings can I attend?), Outplay (time limits on showers!), Outlast (cross your legs and for God's sake don't sneeze!) – indeed!

The Princess will be leaving soon to spend a week and a half at the state fair for FFA, and she's getting a little nervous. While I know I'll miss her, all I can think of is: "that's one less person using the bathroom!"

Four people, one bathroom... for approximately four weeks.

Let's face it. Remodeling projects never go as quickly as planned, so "four weeks" is really a best case scenario. And deep down I know it will be worth it when it's done. And it wouldn't take nearly so long if we weren't doubling the size of the bathroom. Instead of barely being able to turn around in the shower, someday (in four weeks) we'll have a custom-built shower big enough to (in the Princess' words) “wash a horse” in. Not that we would, but we could.

Of course that extra space comes at the expense of our closets, which won't be replaced until after the bathroom remodeling is done and the new addition is built. Two people, no closets, how many months? But I can only obsess about one thing at a time, and for now it's the lack of a second bathroom.

One bathroom, four people, four weeks.

I know there are many families – with more members – who share just one bathroom all the time. I know there are probably still people who share just one outdoor privy.

I've heard the horror stories.

I get it.

This is a first-world problem I'm experiencing here. I've become accustomed to a certain level of civilization and bathroom access, and by golly, I'm not ready to give it up!

To all you single-bathroom sharing, multi-player households let me just say it's not a competition, people.

Misery may love company, but it loves having it's own bathroom even more.