Be it ever so humble...
January 24, 2006

We live in a nice, typical suburban home. It was built before the McMansion era. We have 4 bedrooms, 8-foot ceilings, and a downstairs den behind the garage that I have re-purposed as a sunny room. It is not a mansion, not even close. It is home, however, and we own it outright. Woo-hoo! We could have moved, but Steve was fired so often in his youth that the security of paying off the mortgage trumped the thrill of a two-story foyer and all the other really cool new stuff. Steve travels to Hinsdale every week for a massage, and he confesses a bit of faux-chateau lust. However, he contents himself with the purchase of a bagel, and makes his way home to our humble abode. Because I am stoutly entrenched in these 3000 square feet, we are using the kids’ migrations to improve the function of the space, piece by piece.

So far, the kitchen has been spruced, the family room has a morphed into a TV-centric hangout, and I have the aforementioned sunroom where the laundry-den once was. We are spiffing the basement bit by bit: we have a home gym /refurbished bathroom project nearing completion, and the furnace room floor has been epoxy-painted with that cool flecked look. Steve’s studio will get a face-lift next, and his old cabinets will be plopped next to the water heater/furnace/freezer to make the storage look a little cleaner. That area is where my scrapbook/A word of gratitude: all these projects have been shepherded by my ever-patient contractor, Bill Appelhans of Interior Productions in Roselle. Another word: we pay- I am not thanking him to get any favors. But he is steadfast in making my dreams happen.

The last two weeks, Bill has worked in concert with the tech team from The Little Guys to re-wire our home. We are early adopters, and every technology has its special wiring. Sad for us- when we ditched an old protocol, the wires were never pulled out. So my attic and basement looked like a giant web of chaos. No more! Though we are still missing two phone lines, the generator is not responding to power outages, and the direct TV signal has gone missing a few times, we are almost HOME. The dumpster has been filled with wire twice. On Friday, I received permission to move my extensive collection of holiday junk from the various unoccupied bedrooms and the living room to the peaks of the house.

I am the luckiest woman, because Bill installed a gazillion shelves in the attic to guarantee that I will never have messy air space again. (A joke, but his fervent wish) I have segregated the boys’ annual ornaments and Bears village pieces into nice bins that they can cart off when (if) they ever marry. I pitched stuff that was missing vital parts. I decided to use smaller bins because I can carry them without injury. I painstakingly labeled every single thing I stored. I emptied the attic of junk: only the crib/changing table awaiting grandkids, and my old headboard (from the bed where I got pregnant with the boys) and a very few other things passed the “pitch or keep” test. Truth told, the headboard is a funky oft-painted mess, but I am too sentimental to pitch it. Under the influence of hormones I even wrote, “Mike and Matt Dahl conceived in this bed” on the back of the knotty pine-painted blue-then antiqued relic. I think that limits its appeal to the boys. I will need to re-install it somewhere.

This weekend Steve, Mike and I made an assembly line and installed 40 bins of Christmas stuff into its off-season home. This is a tremendous relief to me, because last Sunday Steve posited that I should move my stuff to a storage locker some 2.5 miles away. He figured that I could rent a truck twice to bring it and return it. He was hurt when I scorned him, and I think the new attic’s regimented appearance reassures him that we made the right choice. Though I am paralyzed with pain from this organizational feat, I am euphoric with the appearance of my new neatness. Steve was a good sport, and he has located some magical lift (Space Lift 6000) which he will attempt to con Bill into installing before he ever has to assist with such a transfer of frivolous holiday crap again. That’s okay with me.

All this futzing with the homestead means we are here for the duration: I love that fact. Steve has 5.5 years on contract, and then …who knows? But the next half-decade will find me tethered to a home that attempts to help me be me…but a neater me. That is a very good thing.