House Projects

I was home all morning and afternoon today after a long week of BPO and other obligations. Here was the schedule from the week:

Monday-AM off (Veteran's Day), Houghton in the afternoon, Hochstein in the evening
Tuesday-Leave at 8 AM for BPO, stay in Buffalo all day for 7 PM concert
Wednesday-Leave at 8 AM for BPO double rehearsal, back at 5 PM, out the door at 6:30 for Choir
Thursday-Leave at 8 AM for BPO double rehearsal, back at 5 PM, out the door at 8 for Bills game
Friday-Leave at 8 AM for BPO concert, Houghton lessons in the afternoon, Houghton concert 7 PM

J said James was much better behaved all day, since I was around. Given that he stole food, threw Lincoln logs, and pitched a hurricane-force tantrum about having to wear grippy slippers, I shudder to think what he was like earlier in the week.

Today, with two parents, was a day for getting things done. First thing I loaded up a few basketfuls of laundry and took them down to the basement. Then came the long delayed project of putting away all the clothes that are upstairs in our room. They've been sitting in big rubbermaid bins, unsorted and unstowed. There comes a dangerous point in the life of any mess, when you start to fail to see it any longer. For example, J will put a few of my ties neatly folded on one of the stairs for me to put away. (My ties always end up downstairs because when I come home from a concert I kick my dress shoes off and step into my slippers, throw my coat over the desk chair, yank my half-tied tie all the way off and throw it over the armchair.) Anywhow, the ties will accumulate on the back of the chair until she notices that it's a problem, and she'll put them on the stairs. Then, I'll see them as I'm on my way to do something else. I'll notice that they need to be brought upstairs and put away, but I'll be in the middle of saying "I don't know if Woof-Woof is still outside, but we need to get you into the bathtub before the mustard dries in your hair." I have SEEN the ties, but done nothing about them. Then perhaps the next day I'll see them again, but someone we'll be saying to me "if we turn the box spring a little bit left I don't think we'll crack the drywall too badly." Again I'll SEE the ties, but do nothing. And then, before you know, I've stopped seeing them. The ties will be right there on the stairs, but they've blended into the landscape of the steps and almost become part of the wood. It will be a Friday evening and I'll be frantically dashing up and down the stairs, yelling at J "Come on, don't I have a single black tie anywhere in this house?" I could probably step right on the pile of ties, and I wouldn't even notice it.

So this was the danger of the rubbermaid bins in our bedroom. They had sat there for over a week, and they were nearly permanent furniture in our house. The fading-to-unnoticed trick has already happened with the damage to the bathroom threshold. It was the first thing that I noticed when we did our initial walk-through of the house. "Don't worry," I told J "that's a cinch to fix. I can take care of that in one trip to Home Depot and 15 minutes of work." Now I don't even remember that there's a problem, although probably every guest who's used our bathroom looks at entrance with mild revulsion and thinks "Why don't they ever take care of that?"

Not only did we empty most of the rubbermaids, we also unloaded two boxes of pictures and wall-hangings that were chameleoning into the downstairs library. I got out my stepstool, drill, and level, and we put up lots of pictures of our family. It turns out that we only have pictures of James and O&K, so all of the rest of you need to get us pictures if you want to be up on our walls.

The big project today, however, was hanging up an enormous mirror in our bedroom. J's grandparents gave us a gorgeous solid cherry dresser with a matching mirror. The dresser is possibly the nicest piece of furniture in the house, and we wanted to set up our television on top of it so that we can watch TV in bed, keep the TV out of the downstairs area, and possibly limit James' George intake. (So far, unsuccessful. George is need to watch his self on Mommy-Daddy's bed.)

The mirror we didn't know what to do with. It didn't have any hardware to be mounted vertically on the dresser, and we didn't have room to mount in horizontally. Plus, it weighs about 400 lbs, so I got tired of holding it up at different angles in a hurry.

Good thing we bought a studfinder for just such an occasion. J and I had massive problems with the very little shelf-hanging we'd tried at previous apartments. For people whose livelihoods depend on detecting minute differences in pitch and timbre, neither of us were particularly adept at using the "knocking" method of studfinding. So when we moved into the the new place, we decided to splurge on a new studfinder. And when I say "splurge," I mean we bought the cheapest one we could find and hoped it would work.

It actually does work pretty well, although we still quadruple check every mark we make on the wall. We had a long adventure finding a screw that we could actually fasten into the stud. The first long screw we found I stripped the head with my drill, and then accidentally bent it beyond salvaging when I tried to hammer it in. (True story: I actually uttered the phrase "I just got my flannel shirt caught in my drill case" a few days ago). The second screw I successfully drove into the wall and screwed in almost to the point where we wanted, and then the head broke off, leaving the body of the screw stuck in the stud for all eternity. Finally (in a new hole) we got a screw in securely, I bloodied up my finger, and we hung the mirror.

We both let go and took a ginger step back. I nudged the mirror and it stayed up. I put the level up, and said "close enough." I nudged the mirror again, and it stayed up. I think we're actually figuring out this home-ownership stuff a little bit at a time. So if you want to see any of our handiwork, come on over, and bring a picture of yourself. I'd be more than happy to hang it up. Also, keep your eyes open for my trumcor black soft mute while you're over, because that's definitely chameleoned into a couch somewhere. And step carefully, because I still feel like that mirror could come down at any moment.