We Got Light!

It's like the shine on your shoes,
or hearing a blues that's great.
Makes you relax,
like a big tax rebate!
We got light!

Okay, so maybe those aren't the actual lyrics, but I'll take any excuse to squeeze in a song from Annie. In fact, I think we might name a child Annie one day. Sure, Darwin's mom's name is Annie, but we all know who the real namesake would be!

Sorry, I'm feeling a little delirious today just thinking about that beautiful moment when Darwin flipped the new switch, and the light came on in the bathroom. Light, blessed light!



The new outlets also work!



Now that the wiring is done, we can close up the gaps in the beadboard, finish the drywall, and have light to scrape and sand and paint to our hearts' content. Hurray!

And Benny Goodman's got swing.
Bing is a king, by far.
Mutt has got Jeff,
and Eleanor, F.D.R.!
We got light!

More wiring photos

Blame it on Anne

Last Friday night, when I was home alone with nothing but the TV to entertain me, I decided to meet up with an old friend.

She’s fictional, but she sure knows how to keep a girl company.

That Anne Shirley, Anne-with-an-e, talks nonstop, is a bit melodramatic, and has an imagination bigger than Green Gables itself. And, I realized, she’s part of the reason I’ve wanted an old house for as long as I can remember.

Anne of Green Gables was one of my favorite books as a child. I probably read every book L.M. Montgomery ever published – all the Anne books, of course, and the Emily books, the Pat books, the various collections of short stories about the semi-fictional town of Avonlea (supposedly based on the town of Cavendish on Prince Edward Island).

When I was reading up about L.M. Montgomery just now, I found out that a prequel called Before Green Gables will be published in 2008, the 100th anniversary of our Anne Shirley’s first emergence onto the literary scene. I’m not sure how I feel about a new chapter being added to the Anne story, even by a famed Canadian author (Budge Wilson) hand-picked by Montgomery’s family.

I am excited about another project planned for 2008, Imagining Anne: The Scrapbooks of L.M. Montgomery. I see it becoming a self-gift as soon as possible.

However, Friday night I decided to enter Anne’s world through the DVD of the Canadian miniseries from the ‘80s. I remember it from the times it played on the Disney channel during my childhood, the way it fascinated me and captured the book’s – and Anne’s – spirit just so.

I bought the DVDs – Anne of Green Gables and Anne of Green Gables – The Sequel -- from Amazon a while back, but I guess I’ve been waiting for a special occasion to watch them. Even as impatient as I am, sometimes waiting is part of the pleasure. It’s like the way I eat a Milky Way candy bar, munching off all the chocolate, then the nougat, saving the caramel (in my mind, the best part) for last. That little delay makes it all the more delicious when I get to it.

Maybe that’s why Anne delighted me so. Many movies I loved as a child – The Labyrinth, The Great Muppet Caper -- I watch now with a feeling like I’m trying to hold onto running water. The affection is still there, the childhood feeling – faint, a whisper – but it’s fading so fast.

With Anne, it was still so bright, so tangible. If possible, I loved her even more. And as I watched dreamy, determined, hot-tempered, book-worshipping little Anne, I found myself wondering – did I love Anne because she was like me, or did I become me because I loved Anne?

I started this post intending to write about the Victorian house outside Toronto that was used as the set for Green Gables in the films. Its stark-yet-homey kitchen with the enormous black wood-burning stove, the spindly chairs, the spoon collection. The butler’s pantry with the to-die-for built-in cabinets (from which Anne fetches the pudding and finds a mouse drowned in it). The fretwork, the staircase, Anne’s little room under the eaves.

But what strikes me now is that Anne – and Emily, and other authors’ characters too, like Frances Hodgson Burnett’s Sara Crewe – may have been the reason I first daydreamed about an old house. I loved reading their turn-of-the-century tales, about the coal-burning fireplaces, the red currant wine, the wedding dowries of rag rugs and embroidered linens, the high buttoned boots, the petticoats, the poetry recitation, the letter writing, the general stores with sacks of sugar and flour, the attics with trunks of old clothes.

They made me want to live in a piece of that time. In my daydreams, a big old house was a place full of mystery, quiet hiding places, window seats, books.

The reality is different and not different. Certainly, I never imagined an old house cloudy with demolition dust, strewn with tools and containers of wood putty and denatured alcohol. I never imagined how hard it would be to decide what sort of sink to have in the bathroom.

But I was right about the mysteries – who lived in the house, what were they like, why was it built, what did it look like when it was first built, when was this or that change made?

And I was right about the quiet hiding places. I can curl up with a book in the green velvet rocking chair in the guest room, with a cat sitting in the rectangle of sunshine at my feet. Or go out to the hammock on the porch, hidden from view by the magnolias.

I love my old house as much as I dreamed I would, and I’ll take the trouble with the good.

But next time something goes wrong, I’ll blame Anne. It was she who got me into this.

The Cure: Week One

I posted last week about how I'm a slob and our house has devolved into a quivering mass of hideousness.

Then I found a cure! I read about the book Apartment Therapy: The Eight-Step Home Cure on a houseblog, but I can't remember which one. Whoever you are, I'm indebted to you!

I ordered the book on the last day of my free trial Amazon Prime subscription, and it arrived - to my delight - just one day later.

While the author's apartment is roughly 11 times smaller than my house (250 meager square feet), the heart of this book is the same for all homes. It focuses on the "health" of your home - bones, heart, head and ... um, something else I can't remember right now. It helps you "diagnose your home’s physical, emotional, and energy flow issues" and treat them, too. (Check out the book's blog here for more info.)

I took a quiz to determine my home's health, and it scored low, mostly due to the clutter and the unfinished repairs. That means I need the Deep Treatment.

Week One of the deep treatment requires us to do the following:

1. Vacuum/mop/sweep all floors in the house. Yeah, that's easier to do in a one-bedroom apartment than a ginormous old house with constructional materials lying about, but I'm giving it a go.

On Sunday I tackled the bedroom with the broom and the Clorox ReadyMop. The bedroom was probably the most disgusting room in the house. Since we can shut the door and hide it away from guests - or potential guests, haven't had many lately since I'm too embarassed to let people in this pigsty - we tend to let the clutter get completely out of hand. Both Darwin and I pile our clothes everywhere instead of putting them away, and you saw my shoes strewn all over the floor.

The cute fireplace mantel and tile surround were completely obscured with junk - receipts and clothes tags and extra buttons all over the mantel, bags and boxes and an unopened set of flannel sheets on the hearth. A spider had built a web between a shoebox and the portable heater that was STILL sitting there from this winter.

The dust bunnies under the bed and nightstand were large enough to wreak havoc on a major metropolis. It was all so gross.

Also, I noticed my high-heeled shoes have been making shallow impressions in the soft heart pine floor in front of the door and its full-length mirror. I feel really awful about that. But after the sweeping and mopping, I got the idea to bring in a runner from the hall to replace the shorter rug beside my bed. In the hall, the runner has been sitting on top of a carpet runner because we never got around to removing the carpet. So that solves two problems in one. Actually, three, because I moved the small bedside rug into the guest bathroom to cover the plywood floor. It's amazing what a different these little shifts made!

The bedroom - it feels wonderful now. It's still cluttered with too many clothes and shoes, but that's a project for another week.

As for the rest of the house, Darwin vacuumed the living room and hall from front to back and swept MASSIVE orange cat hair dust bunnies from under the armoire beside the cats' food and water dishes. These dust bunnies made the ones in the bedroom look like tiny bits of fluff.

It's sort of shocking to realize what filth we've been living with!

Still to go: Kitchen, office, laundry room, guest room, guest bath, cats' room. The vacuum bag got full, and we didn't have another one, so those had to wait.

2. Go around the house and list all repairs that need to be done. Brainstorm solutions. Ha ha ha ha haaaaaa! The book provided a page with spaces for several repairs. Yeah, those are all full. And that was just what I listed while sitting outside waiting for paint stripper to cure; I didn't even do the full house walk-around.

Brainstorm solutions? Oh my. All the repairs are doable by us, but when do we have time? Anyone know how to weave hours from gossamer threads? Perhaps a solution we should consider is to hire some of it done.

3. Get rid of one item from your house, the bigger the better. I've been debating this one. I am a "warm" personality, according to the book, which means I tend to let clutter get out of control and tend to feel emotional attachments to objects.

Still, I've improved at getting rid of stuff. It feels so liberating! I just need to start doing it again. I'm even considering having a dreaded yard sale. This weekend Eutaw is having its first annual Hwy. 14 Antique Trail. Guess where I live? Directly on Hwy. 14! So how perfect would that be? And yet ... having a yard sale sucks. I wouldn't be able to manage one up to my typical standards; I don't have time for pricing - just big signs stuck on tables that say, "Everything this table, $1."

Candidates for my "big item" this week? One is a framed floral print that hung in our living room at the ranch house. It's been propped in our living room here, too, but hidden behind another painting. I've hung onto it because I still like the colors, but really it doesn't fit with our aesthetic anymore. A little too Hobby Lobby, y'know?

Also, there's an armchair we never sit in or a cheap, particleboard dresser we don't use anymore.

4. Sit for 10 minutes in one room of your house where you never sit. I'm supposed to consider what doesn't work about this room and do some Jedi mind tricks to visualize what could make it work. I haven't decided which room to sit in yet. Nearly every room in our house gets used frequently, and the only rooms that don't are basically big empty rooms we don't need yet.

If you don't have an unused room, you can sit in an unused corner or space. The dining room settee might work for that, or the guest room rocking chair.

5. Buy fresh flowers. Guess I'm just a low-class individual because I've never bought fresh flowers in my life. I've received some, and I guess I've probably sent some, but I've never just gone and bought some for myself. The author thinks this is important because he wants it to become something I do every week. I don't have a problem with that - in fact, it sounds fun - but I haven't remembered to do it yet. Do Publix flowers count as fresh?

It's a Hard-Knock Life

Did you know the musical Annie is not about orphans or rich bald billionaires as is commonly believed? It's actually about old house owners! Just look, there's a song for every occasion:

When you're shivering under three blankets in front of the TV, dreading the moment when you have to pull your hand out from under the covers to fast-forward the commercials:

Don't it feel like the wind is always howl'n?
Don't it seem like there's never any light?
Once a day, don't you wanna throw the towel in?
It's easier than puttin' up a fight.

When you're feeling wistful about the life you once led before the house took it over:

Betcha they're young
Betcha they're smart
Bet they collect things
Like ashtrays catalogs, and art paint samples!
Betcha they're good --
(Why shouldn't they be?)
Their one mistake
Was giving up me! Was foregoing a home inspection!

Or when you're away on vacation:

I know I'm gonna like it here
Used to room in a tomb
Where i'd sit and freeze
Get me now, holy cow
Could someone pinch me please.

And when you're feeling that surge of affection for your house that reminds you why you're doing this:

You've wrapped me around
That cute little finger.
You've made life a song ...
You've made me the singer!

When you're at the hardware store mid-project, covered with paint, dust and debris and may or may not have forgotten your deodorant:

Who cares what they're wearing
On Main Street,
Or Saville Row,
It's what you wear from ear to ear
And not from head to toe
(That matters)

If only there were a tool that could clean this easily:

Just thinkin' about
Tomorrow
Clears away the cobwebs,
And the sorrow
Till there's none!

When you're hoping it will stop raining, so you can finish a project:

When I'm stuck with a day
That's gray,
And lonely,
I just stick out my chin
And grin,
And say,

Oh, the sun'll come out
Tomorrow
So ya gotta hang on
'Til tomorrow
Come what may
Tomorrow!
Tomorrow!
I love ya Tomorrow!

And last but not least:

Easy street
Easy street
Where you sleep till noon

Oh wait ... that one doesn't apply at all.

P.S. Guess what musical I'm seeing this weekend at the Fabulous Fox Theatre in Atlanta?

I Don't Want to Grow Up

Last night, Darwin got out his trusty smoking chainsaw and cut some limbs off the way overgrown redtips to make room for a little tomato garden with the tomato plants our neighbor gave us. One of the plants already has a tiny green tomato on it.

While he did that, I curled up on the floor in the dining room with the cats to read my new copy of Madeleine L'Engle's A Swiftly Tilting Planet, which I hadn't read since 5th grade when my friend Robika Modak borrowed it and forgot to return it. (Robika, I hope you Google yourself and find this because I would love to know what you're up to these days. Don't worry, I'm not mad about the book.)

Why is it that books you loved as a kid are always a little disappointing when you read them as an adult? I hope I haven't lost all my imagination and finally become a true grownup.

The book was interesting and all - it's about a teenage boy with special psychic abilities going back in time on the back of a unicorn to change the course of history - but it didn't thrill me to the core the way it once did. I'm still trying to remember what I loved so much about it, but the memory is like a dream that's just out of reach.

In honor of this book and the way I once loved it, here's a list of some of my favorite children's books, the ones I read over and over and still have, their paper covers creased and ragged:

Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry, by Mildred D. Taylor (about a poor black family battling racism in 1930s Mississippi)

A Little Princess, by Francis Hodgson Burnett (I also adored the Shirley Temple movie)

Anne of Green Gables and The Story Girl, by L.M. Montgomery

Many Waters, another Madeleine L'Engle, this one about teenage twins accidentally going back to the time of Noah's flood (it didn't hurt that the cover illustration was two hot shirtless guys in the desert ... OK, I was 12, what can you expect?)

The True Confessions of Charlotte Doyle, by Avi (about a 12-year-old girl on a ship passage to America in 1832 who gets caught up in a mutiny)

The Last Silk Dress, by Ann Rinaldi (set in Richmond during the Civil War)

Won't you share some of yours? OK, I feel like Mr. Rogers now.

Kitchen Inspiration (and/or Utter Despair)

I feel so unworthy. Like Wayne and Garth when they meet Heather Locklear - we're not worthy, we're not worthy.

Today at Old House Web, someone posted a link to a woman's photos of her kitchen. *SIGH* This kitchen is fabulous. Not a built-in cabinet to be seen anywhere. It had a hoosier cabinet and a huge double drainboard antique sink with legs. *SIGH AGAIN*

It makes my '70s cabinetry - and even my extreme desire for a dishwasher - seem so tasteless, so unsalvageable, so ridiculously practical. Who needs counter space? Who needs a garbage disposal, or *gulp* beloved dishwasher?

OK, I do. I need those things. But I don't want to need them. I want a lovely kitchen that looks like it belongs in my house. Not some hideous combination of 1969 and 2004.

It's easy to get disheartened when your kitchen looks like this:



OK, the work has barely started. I know this. I must take a deep breath and go back to trying to envision all the changes I'll be making. The floor will be pine again. The cabinets will be painted. The hardware will be antique burnished brass knobs and bin pulls from Rejuvenation. The light fixtures will be non-70s. The wall and ceiling paint won't be peeling. The sink will be cast iron. The faucet - ah, the faucet. Now there's something to get inspired about.



I feel better.