Posts Tagged ‘home’
As promised – Home Addition Madness
I am so excited about this addition that I am going to show you pics even though the living room is a complete and utter filthy mess. Mom, please forgive me for putting pictures of my messy home on my blog.
As promised, pictures of my house before construction, during and well…let’s face it, I guess we are still in the “during” stage since we still haven’t put carpet down in the new bedrooms. Although we have moved our bed into the Master Bedroom for now because I just couldn’t sleep in the living room one more night.
The big handsome muscular man is my darling husband. He truly does “husband” really really well. I mean seriously, he has actually built me an addition. We certainly couldn’t afford it and yet, he found a way. Pulling in favors (it helps to have family members who are professional contractors) and picking up side work, he figured out a way to make it happen. He’s my favorite husband. OK…he’s my only husband but I think you get my meaning. Disclaimer: Other working men seen seen in photos are not my husband, although I certainly did enjoy having them in my home building my addition. Thank you working men.
Our house was built in the 1950′s in a small summer lake community about an hour drive north of Manhattan, which is where I am from. When Jim bought the house (5 years before I met him) it had no insulation. It also didn’t have a vaulted ceiling with exposed beams (he put those in), skylights or beautiful hardwood floors. He did a lot before I got there and he firmly believed that he was done with the back breaking labor of home renovation. Silly man.
You can see in the exterior pics the original logs that are the walls of our house, now covered with pretty pretty cedar siding. Inside pics show where we broke through the living room wall to create two doorways to our new bedrooms. The house was 800 sq. ft. and is now nearly 1200 sq. ft. The house is still not a palace, but it’s no longer claustrophobic. Also, the tiny bathroom (you can just make out the sink) will be moved to the larger room that had been our bedroom (and yes there will be a whirlpool tub) now with living room closets on either side of the door. The former bathroom will be demo’d and a hallway leading to the backdoor will happily take its place. No longer will everyone tromp through the dining room to get to the backyard. Yay!
What I haven’t shown you is what the interior looked like before we took down the bedroom walls. Seriously, it was just hideous. Dark, claustrophobic, dismal and icky. You walked in the front door to look directly at the toilet. On the left was two tiny bedrooms and on the right the kitchen and dining room. The whole house felt like I lived in a closet. It isn’t so much the square footage that was the problem, it was the poor layout of the rooms. This is no longer an issue!
You can see in the interior pics the two closets that we have gained in the living room (on either side of the soon to be installed new bathroom), in addition to a large closet in each bedroom. Houses that were built in the 1950′s as summer bungalows not only had no need of insulation, but they also had no need of closets. People either used trunks, or a wardrobe, or did something else entirely, and they had way fewer clothes than we do these days. My house had no closets. Zero, zip, nada. The means that I have been making use of laundry baskets as makeshift drawers for the past five years. I-am-so-excited-about-closets. Seriously.
Hang in for the last pic in the series because we really do clean up pretty good. You may commence drooling. Everyone is invited over for a sleepover. I’m probably gonna need extra blankets…
Learning to love my life in the burbs.
I could buy this at Get Organized
Honestly, do I really need a special gizmo to store my spices? Well I know I don’t need it, but I really really want it.
I live in an 800 sq. ft. house with a galley kitchen. Living in my house is like living on a boat — you have to make the most of every square inch. Most New York City people learn how to organize small spaces because that’s the way we live. I once met someone who actually rented a closet with a single mattress on the floor as his bedroom. But I was always very fortunate in my urban rental experiences.
During all those years of city dwelling I bounced from one enormous Upper West Side/East Village/Greenwich Village illegal sublet to another. I had friends who inherited leases (sadly a disappearing entitlement) to spacious lofts, or lived in their parents townhouse while mom and dad lived in the Caribbean, or who lived in massive apartments in pre-war buildings with 24-hour doormen on duty, and they all needed a roommate who could cook. Having a dinner party for fifteen artsy fartsy types? Your sorority/fraternity/book club coming over and you really want to impress? What do you do when you live in luxury but you don’t have the trust fund to go with it? I’m your girl. You buy the groceries, get out of the kitchen and I’ll whip up something marvelous. Just be clear that you are washing the dishes.
Then I met this wonderful man and truly he is Prince Charming on a garbage truck (yes I married the garbage man) and he owned a house in Westchester. And I thought gee whiz! A house with a yard and a nice lake around the corner! How wonderful! And then I went slowly out of my mind the first year I lived there because of the endless monotonous chirping of the crickets, the lack of excellent take-out, and the complete absence of closets in our home.
I never realized that I had a fear of all things domestic, but it turned out to be true. Here in the burbs, an affordable housekeeper is hard to find and guess what? I hate to clean. Cooking doesn’t count as a chore because for me it is both meditation and art. Finally, I got a grip and decided to conquer my fear of all things domestic. I bought those heavy duty yellow rubber gloves for scrubbing the toilet. And I have become obsessed with organic gardening. Next year, I’m going to enter my enormous zucchini in the local Grange Fair because I have to do something with the energy that I used to release pushing and shoving riding the subways and besides what else was I going to do with all that grass I mean for goddess sake there was A LOT of grass.
This is available from TaylorGifts.com
It is true that:
I could buy this from TaylorGifts.com
Sprawl: n. The unplanned, uncontrolled spreading of urban development into areas adjoining the edge of a city.
Pot Sprawl: n. The unplanned, uncontrolled spreading of pot lids into areas adjoining the stove, fridge and dish washer.
