Our Dream House

Though we love our home, JB and I have been talking about our dream home for years. I don't really want to move, and if I could have my way, I'd have this house airlifted to some acreage in the country and call it good. But technology has not advanced that much. And since our yard is very, very small, our driveway even smaller (I have ripped off the side mirrors of JB's car 3 or 4 times now), and the area of yard that gets enough sun to grow vegetables even smaller, we are aspiring to a better place. Or, well, for a better yard.

I often daydream about our driveway neighbors moving away, and their house burning down or something, and us getting to just add on an extra city plot of yard. Yes, I know. Dreaming of someone's house burning down is evil. But it's not like they would be living there! And no one would be harmed in the making of our new yard. The neighbors would get insurance money exceeding what they would sell the house for, we'd get a yard, the city would get an inimpressive house turned into a beautiful garden, we'd save money on sideview mirrors.

But since God is more clever than I, I don't think the house will burn down. A housefire is probably not in everyone's best interests, contrary to what I imagine. 

One thing I appreciate about JB is that he has similar interests to me. We both would love to live on acreage in the country in a cool old home. My dream home is a bungalow, which has garnered JB's interest too. Unfortunately, bungalows were a revolution of city neighborhoods in the 20's, so if we want one in the country, we have to build.

Here is our current pick.

 

 It's called "The Winslow." 

I'm not a fan of the size: 2,500 square feet. Our current house is 1,850 and that's plenty of space for me to have to dust and vacuum. BUT, the extra square footage results in a living room AND a den, meaning that I can have my own quiet place in the living room full of books, and JB and the kids can watch the TV drone on for hours in the den. Or they can play nerf tag. Or whatever. I don't care. Just don't come in the living room unless you are going to do a quiet activity. 

Here are some example interior shots from the Winslow's company:

Looks pretty fancy-pants to me. A little too new looking for my interests, but I'm sure we could break it in in no time. 

So on cold dreary days when the sun has gone off to play somewhere else, and the sounds of Modern Warfare 2 are wafting through the house, this is what I think about. 

We'll see what God's got up his sleeve for us. Even if it's not The Winslow, hopefully it'll be a place with more yard, lots of sun, and some dreamy shade trees.

The Laundry Handicap

To preface, I love my wife and I am by no means perfect, but...

April is handicapped when it comes to the household chore of laundry. Seriously.

I work an unusual shift, 10am to 8pm, which limits the time I have to do chores in the evening. Tonight after stopping by Home Depot (aka the Homo) to pick up some house stuff I rushed home to grab a bite to eat and watch a little TV with April. We've been coveting lowkey one-on-one hang out time because soon this will be a thing of the past. After the show April gets up and tells me she's going to surf the net a bit and then go to bed. No biggie. So I let the dog out and noticed that the basement light was on. When I trudged down stairs I saw laundry.

Three bins stood full to the brim. Clothes crushed down into them.

April always complains about laundry. "Didn't we just finish this?" she always asks. And I always reply, "If you did the laundry in one evening, you wouldn't feel like you were perpetually doing laundry." When I do the laundry, I COMPLETE the laundry. I run everything through both the washer and the dryer and fold and put away everything. Conversely, when April does the laundry it takes about a week. She gets the first load all the way through the machines and it ends up on a chair in the living room. The second load stalls somewhere in the dryer and never makes it way out. The other two (or three if it's been awhile) lie in piles on our bedroom floor for me to trip over the next several days.

"April if you feel like you're always doing laundry; sweetie, it's because you are."

In the course of our wonderful 5+ years together April's laundry deficiency has continued if not worsened. I guess I should be thankful she has stopped ruining my clothes in the wash.

I've explained to her numerous times that I am more than happy and capable to do the laundry. Still April keeps on making her attempts. *sigh* Methinks, it's time for me to become the full time launderer once again.

Calvin Hallway beautification

When I was scanning my old blog for my Funky Loser story, I noticed another old post with a photo of our hallway before we fixed it totally. I never posted an updated photo and cousin Sarah's house progress photos inspired me to finally show the finished product of some of our toils (Sarah, I'm looking forward to more of your photos!). Also, JB has been working his butt off on windows, and he sometimes forgets how far we've already come. It's hard to appreciate your work unless you see a good Before and After.

Here is the hallway before we bought the house and the correlating improvement. Not only did we paint, etc., but we cleaned the window. Apparently the previous homeowners did not own Windex, as NONE of the windows were cleaned. They were FILTHY. I found proof that the storms had not been washed since before 1972!! This window was one of the cleanest ones, though if you look closely, you will see paint all around the edge of it, because scraping paint was too much work for them.:






















Here is the other end of the hall. We had refinished the floors, painted the walls and ceiling, and rewired the light by then, but the trim still needed help:























Now, sure, it looks good. But the casual eye will not understand the insane work that went into this, unless you've owned your own vintage fixer upper. Such as listening to previous owner's whispers in the air as you work:

"Hmm...this door really needs to be painted. But sanding, washing, priming, and REMOVING THE HARDWARE is too much work. Let's just slop paint everywhere and call it good. Let's not even bother to TRY to remove some of the mis-slopped paint. Oh, and washing the door when it gets dirty? Who do you think I am? A CLEAN person?"
























JB spent hours cleaning all the hinges on all the doors. We trashed the cheap knobs (I believe that the originals were pawned) and scored vintage replacement knobs off of eBay. I heart eBay.























This is an example of how we spend our free time. Yes, we are crazy. JB has a load of more projects like this lined up, so if we don't post for a while, you'll understand. We're busy out buying more Windex.