Nesting

Over the past five weeks, instead of updating this blog, Trevor and I have been nesting. Like, ne-heh-hesting. Nesting the hell out of new our house, in fact.

The first steps in our nesting process were some of the "big" projects. The house is in good shape, but the previous owner (an unmarried middle aged contractor) was a hunter and fisher, and he let his hobbies direct his design aesthetic. This is what the house looked like before we moved in:

The living room...

...which is full of both furniture and full of stuff--so much stuff

The upstairs bedroom...

...also full of stuff, and a fishing-themed wallpaper border, and, just out of the frame, a rifle (not a show piece, but his actual hunting rifle that was just propped up in the corner of his bedroom)

Once we moved in and most of his stuff was out out the house (notice that I didn't say "all" since he left us treasures--bags of old clothes, kids' toys, twenty-year-old computers, holiday decorations--throughout the house [in the sheds, the basement, and the attic crawlspace]), we started to erase the rustic...let's say "charm," and make it more us.

With the help of Fran and John Power, who lived with us for a couple of months this summer while their new house was being built, we got the wallpaper borders scraped and the walls painted. Trevor and his dad laid a new upstairs bedroom floor, and T. and I were finally able to move our stuff up and out of our makeshift bedroom downstairs.

Here's our new room:

New floors, courtesy of John and Trevor Power, handymen extraordinaire

Roo loved getting upstairs after having been denied access for three months.

So with that big project out of the way, we were able to start getting some new stuff and moving some things around. We put our old couch and ottoman, along with our old t.v., in the bedroom:

The new set-up is perfect for reading in the afternoon, the sun shining through the skylight.

And we got a new couch for the living room:

The delivery guys arrive...

...get ready...

...and get it in the house in a matter of minutes!

It's very square.

Roo had to check it out.

We want to get a few more chairs, and maybe a stool for the kitchen bar, and we absolutely positively need bookshelves. We've got our big pine shelf (custom made by one Mr. John Power) from the loft, but that only holds about six boxes of books (art, mass market paperbacks, and graphic novels/comics). There are another twenty boxes in the front room that are all cooped up and need a permanent home. This makes me sad.

But, what makes me happy is this rug:

Helloooo! I'm the cutest rug in the world!

And this rose bush in the backyard also makes me very happy:

Hi! We're super pretty!

To continue our nesting, I got these mums (which I think are required for all Crystal Lake residents to invest in--like, you're un-American if you don't have some mums)...

 

...and we have put exactly two pieces of art on the walls. Correction: on one wall. 

A Mexican ceremonial mask similar to the ones we saw while vacationing in Austin, and a childhood portrait of T.'s mom, Maureen, painted by T.'s great-grandfather

Hanging more art is something that will come very slowly and probably not for a long time, but it's so nice to have at least a little something up.

Our other nesting activities include crafting (I've befriended some gals from our block, and they're super crafty [like, put my sad scarves to shame, crafty], and they've inspired me to up my crafting game), 

A wreath I'm working on (it'll be argyle-ish)

and using our mantle to display some important doo-dads, including one little wooden fellow that T. got for me to satisfy my desire to decorate our entire house with amazing whales.

The body tilts up so you can keep a secret treat inside. Like a tiny Pinocchio.

Why do I want to decorate our house with whales? (well, why not? okay?) Because the previous owner had this piece of art hung up in the living room:

Harlooooooooooooooooooo. Smiling whale.

I wanted to write it into the contract when we bought the house, but Trevor would not let me. Rude. But we do still have this weather vane on the top of the garage:

Yes, that's a whale

And Caren got us these terrific tea towels for the kitchen:

So I guess that'll satisfy my whale wants for a while. Until, at least, I can talk Trevor into letting me get this,

and this,

and this,

Are you kidding me with how cute this is?

Today I'm switching my style brainstorming from whales to Halloween, though, so stay tuned for a post about how I plan to make our home a house of terror for the neighborhood children. Yahoo!

You've Got to Be Old to Have Friends Like These

For years now I've been having a monthly dinner with three of my high school girlfriends. Our schedules don't always coordinate and we sometimes have to skip a month--or two--if someone is out of town or if one of the kids (Mary's got two; Julie has one; Lisa and I have dogs...) is sick. But we've been going pretty strong as of late, and that's especially important to me as I get geographically farther from them.

We've all been friends since our freshman year of high school, and although it's hard to admit this (to myself, more than to anyone else), that means we've been friends for twenty-three years. Although Julie and Lisa have been friends for even longer:

See the two peanuts in the center, right below the only kid wearing a jacket? (why is that kid wearing a jacket?) That's Lisa (L) and Julie (R). Like, they couldn't be any cuter. Photo courtesy of Lisa Neenan (and probably her mom, too, so thanks, Mrs. C.)

Here they are currently, from our dinner last week:

They're still pretty damn cute, but have upgraded from t-ball to wine. Smart girls.

And here's me and Mary:

We'd have liked a nice picture of all four of us, but the guy at the table next to us had a few too many and this was the result:

blurrrrrrrrrrrrry

It's remarkable to me that we've been friends for this long, and that we found each other at all. We're so different, which is probably why we gravitate to each other. These girls are certainly some of the best things about my high school experience, and some of the best things about the past fifteen years. But after thinking about it, I've decided that our one true bond is our shared ability to make Mary snort with laughter by the end of dinner. That's a bond that doesn't back down in the face of different college, career, and neighborhood trajectories, and it certainly laughs in the face of marriage, pregnancy, and Crystal Lake. HA! it says.

All of this walking down memory lane started last month when we were having dinner--my last as a resident of Chicago. About 36 hours before the movers came, I left the house looking something like this...

...and met the girls down at the Handlebar in Wicker Park. We were lucky enough to be joined that night by our friend Megan, who lives with her husband and three gorgeous kids in Philadelphia. She was visiting family in town and made time for us, so with the added bonus of Megan, and with me fresh off of going through bits and bobs of nostalgia as I packed, the five of us had a hilarious and sentimental night.

Walk with us, won't you, down memory lane.

There's Lisa, curly haired and athletic:

Looking smashing

And Mary, not letting her braces dampen that smile:

Radiant on a dry summer lawn

And here's our flying friend Vermille, who also just had a little baby boy--Mary and I are two of the three girls tossing her up there and catching her. Mary and I went though four years of high school cheerleading together, which is a lot of sprained wrists and bruises, hairspray and spankies.

We are still very strong.

And I can't leave myself out of this circus of memories, so here's me at the eighth grade, on the cusp of running into my three favorite maniacs:

I wonder if I can still get my hair to do that...

When I lamented to the gang that I hadn't found any pictures of Julie as a teenager, Mary immediately came to the rescue:

A great snapshot, but we were a little disappointed not to have a picture of Julie with her troll doll collection. Yes, her troll doll collection.

And Megan gave me a pretty spectacular picture of herself for good measure:

Um, Megs. There's a bird on your shoulder.

We talked and laughed about the old times as we had a few of these,

We drank the bar out of Radlers. Literally.

and we all felt pretty damn young. Eventually we'll be at a table at one of the kids' wedding, still drinking too much beer; and we might each be decked out in some sort of pants-suit ensemble; and we'll very likely be dancing like crazy to the embarrassment of the young people there (and our husbands). But we won't care, because by that time we'll have been friends for fifty years. And we'll be legends.

Closing (Part 2)

Last Tuesday, we closed on the sale of our West Town loft. The closing was exactly 103 days after we listed it with our amazing realtor Caren (who is beyond great, so you should enlist her help if you're buying or selling anything larger than a puppy or a station wagon [which I don't think exist any more, sorry]). And even though the buyer was kind of an asshat, it's over and we'll never have to deal with him again!

Closing on the loft was bittersweet. We're really happy to be in our new little house--in fact I spent this afternoon planting flowers and playing catch with Roo--but it's hard to close the door on seven years of life in a 700 (ish) square foot shoebox that you and your husband had made your own. In fact, we made it so much our own that it was kind of remarkable. T. put together these photos to show the difference (befores are on the left and afters are on the right):

The previous owner (or her cousin [or sister? I can't remember] who was renting the place) was a bit of a clutter-bug

The bedroom

The entryway (with a custom built bookshelf by John Power--we hope he'll do a few for the new house...)

The kitchen: the biggest and best transformation. (I love the new house but still really miss my kitchen)

Our living room and that stupid mirror that was almost impossible to give away (for freeeeee)

We moved out a month before the closing, and Trevor and I both went by a couple of times to clean up and make sure that everything was fine. It still smelled like our place, and it still felt like our place. But it really wasn't.

Trevor and I were dating when we bought the loft, and while we lived there, we got married, we watched Henry grow from a 6 month old puppy into a 6 year old goofball, and then we lost Henry; but a year later we got Roo--all while living there, at the corner of Grand Avenue and Noble Street in West Town, up the street from Burger Baron, two blocks away from the #9 Ashland Avenue bus stop.

After we'd moved out, my mom verbalized the feeling I'd been having such a hard time identifying. She said that when you make a move like this, there's a transition period during which you feel a bit homeless: the home you had isn't yours anymore, and the home you've moved into isn't quite yours yet, either, even though you have the papers to prove that the title is in your name.

Change this big is hard, and I don't think I've quite accepted the reality that I'll never see my loft again, at least not the way I remember it. And I love the way I remember it: books to the ceiling, art on the walls, a view of the other side of our building that felt both Rear Window-ish as well as tucked away and quiet. Plus, we were totally and completely safe in the case of a zombie apocalypse (bars on the alley windows, twelve inch thick brick walls, double fire doors in the hallway, and a twelve foot high gate around the parking lot. I mean, bring it on, zombie jerks!)

But we're starting on new memories out here, and have two nice consolations: one mortgage instead of two, and a closing sale check in the bank. I can live with that.

So although I will really, really, really miss things like this:

 
I can also live with this:

We Now Live In a House

It's official: we moved to Crystal Lake, IL and are living in a little house with pot-bellied stoves, green shutters, and lots and lots of country bugs. We are not used to so many bugs. There are, like, eighteen million bugs in our backyard. I really don't think I'm exaggerating.

But other than that, we're settling in very well and happy to be here. I'll post something lengthier very soon, but for now, please check out some pictures!

The first picture of us on the front porch of our new house!

The reason I haven't updated the blog in two weeks: unpacking

Roo, relaxing near the back door

Roo, relaxing at the top of the stairs (she was zero help unpacking)

Our first meal in the new house

My amazing new kitchen towels, courtesy of amazing realtor Caren

Roo in the backyard, refusing to come back inside (she is no longer even a city dog at heart)

T. relaxing before assembling the rest of the furniture that goes with that couch (Roo = also zero help assembling furniture)

The mailing label on our very first package!

The delicious bread that was in that package, courtesy of our mortgage broker, Jen

There are only five remaining boxes, and those are filled with boots and shoes that I won't need until fall (and I know what you're thinking, so my answer is that boots and shoes take up a lot of room in boxes and stop judging me, and I know I have a shoe problem, and now leave me alone).

Well, I mean, truth-by-told, there is a room full of book boxes, but I'm not counting those. Without bookshelves, they're still box-bound; but cross your fingers that we'll have that remedied within a couple of months.

So, we're officially country folk! We're mosquito swatting, lawn mowing (although my generous father-in-law took care of that this week so I didn't have to...) home owners. I'll be posting a lot more as the house starts to come more together, and I'll be sure to have a post or two about our trip later this week to Door County for our annual Power Family vacation. Until then...

...see ya.