My family moved into this house (above) when I was one year old. I lived here until I was 18 and now, exactly 40 years later, we have moved back. The old house is filled with over a half-century's accumulation of sentimental, utilitarian and decorative items: photographs, dishes, books, linens, furniture, memories. Presented with the challenge of settling in here with our things, I spend many hours sorting, making and deferring decisions, hauling countless bags of trash, packing things into the attic to deal with later, unpacking other things and putting them away. The idea of creating this journal came partly from the need to escape for a few hours from the work of moving myself, my husband and our belongings into an already full house, partly to visually document the experience and mostly to see that I really am making progress.
[click a small picture to see larger versions]
September 2, 2005 |
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The shadowy pile on the front porch is a growing collection of items awaiting a porch sale. I hope that a lot of people will want to buy a lot of stuff, because I expect this pile to get really big before I'm done! From inside the front door it looks like there is a lot to put away, but this is only the beginning. |
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The dining room is just east of the front entryway. More things to put away . . . and the living room is on the other side, with still more things to put away.
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In all the bedrooms there are many more boxes to be unpacked and put away. Yes, there is a bed behind all those boxes! |
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| The den is where we spend most of our time. The most nearly finished room in the house, it serves as dining, living, TV, and computer room/studio. The back door is the one that most people use most of the time. | |||||||||||||||||||||
| I've decided that cracked plaster, peeling paint and wallpaper are part of the charm of an old house; fixing these can wait for another year. For now, Kinch the cat reminds us that it is a good thing sometimes to just relax and enjoy the view of the world outside the window. | |||||||||||||||||||||
September 10, 2005 |
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The sale pile is growing, and many of the boxes are more full than they were a week ago. The dining room is still plenty messy, but at least most of the things are out of the boxes now. There really are fewer boxes and the big difference is that I have sorted and labeled all of them. |
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| It has been too hot lately to work upstairs during the day, but by spending an hour or two in the early mornings I hope I will get more done next week. A week ago I had to take the picture of this bedroom through the door because I couldn't get inside! Good progress, but there is still a lot of work, a lot of boxes. I'm starting to get really tired of boxes! | |||||||||||||||
September 20, 2005 |
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The pile is getting bigger and bigger, and there are more boxes for the sale inside. There is still a lot to put away in the dining room. Not so many boxes in the living room now, but the furniture will need to be arranged as soon as I figure out what is going to fit where. For now, I'm just pushing things that don't fit somewhere else into the living room. |
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| I'm not sure you can see from this picture how many boxes are not in this bedroom. Actually it's much better than it looks: The big box in the foreground is filled with trash, the red basket behind it is headed for the laundry, and the 2 boxes behind that are EMPTY!!! In the background you can see my art supplies, all unpacked and put away in the taboret. Now if I only knew where I'm going to put that.... The boxes stacked up at the foot of the bed in the west bedroom are out-of-season clothes, awaiting closet space or cold weather, whichever comes first. | |||||||||||||||
September 30, 2005 |
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| Look, it's a dining room! Okay, it still is messy and cluttered, but there is a table and chairs and space to sit around the table to eat and talk. Note the ancestor portraits on the wall, these guys are really, really old. Little kids say they are scary because no matter where you go in the room, they seem to look right at you. | |||||||||||||||
| In the bedrooms, boxes are minimal but not gone, the rooms are clean, the beds are freshly made up and ready for guests, and I'm more than ready to crawl in for a long winters' nap. | |||||||||||||||
Look at the growing collection for the porch sale, which will be coming up in just three more weeks. Let's see how much bigger I can grow this pile in the next few weeks! |
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October 30, 2005 |
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| Wow, it's hard for me to believe a whole month has gone by. My goal for the end of September was to have functioning kitchen, dining room, bathrooms and bedrooms ready for guests in October. This worked out beautifully, but after a lovely visit from our son and his wonderful family it's time to get back to work, set some more goals and make some more progress. The first new goal set itself when we found out, as the temperatures began to drop, that the old furnace was no longer usable. After a flurry of research, estimates, and decisions (see "Digression," below) we have controlled, filtered heat (and central cooling too, a first for me!) which I vow never again to take for granted. My next goal will be to make the living room and the dining room ready to be decorated for the holidays. | ||||||||
| This is how the front porch looks now, after a moderately successful porch sale; about one-half the items were sold, the rest have gone or soon will be on their way to the landfill or to be donated. | ||||||||
Here are two views of the front of the house. It looks so much nicer without that big pile of stuff by the front door. I am really looking forward to planting those flower boxes on the railings next spring. |
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A Digression |
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The old furnace when it was still in place in the cellar, and another shot of it partly dismantled and laying on the floor. | |||||||||||
Ttwo closeups of the rusty and damaged parts. | |||||||||||
Because the cellar steps are narrow and winding, it was easier for the workmen to push the dismantled furnace parts out through a basement window. Long ago this window was the access to the coal bin. | |||||||||||
I have no affiliation with this furnace manufacturer and am making no recommendations, I'm only documenting the installation of equipment that best suited our particular requirements. Now that it's installed I think it looks much more modern and business-like than the old one did in the first picture. And it's much warmer inside! | |||||||||||
January 8, 2006 |
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The holidays were very busy and happy; now we are excited about beginning our first full year here. At least unpacking is no longer my main daily occupation. Here is a view from inside the front door, and of the front door. | ||||||||
The dining room and the living room, with and without the Christmas tree. | ||||||||
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The closets and the downstairs bedroom are all still full of boxes, ugh. I know what boxes are where now, and what is in most of them. I just need to keep going . . . one box at a time. | ||||||||
