Things Past

As this process winds down I am struck by the changes that have taken place over the past three decades. Laura and I have been together now for more than thirty years and in that amount of time you accumulate not just things but tonnes of memories, some bound to events, some bound to the people in our lives and of course some bound to the places that you have shared.

Twenty three years ago Laura and I moved all of our things in one day from the apartment we had shared for nearly eight years and moved into our very first home! We were beside our selves with joy but $80k could we manage that? Dad was there that day to welcome to our new home, as we were off getting a load of our things from the apartment Dad was at our new home hanging a treasured sign on our gate that read "The Tracey's". I remember this sign being in our yard in New York with a rooster above it, and it moved with us in all of the the other houses that Dad called home. His adding it to our new home caused an outpouring that would embarrass the mushiest amongst you. It was there so long that the gate now holds a permanent reminder of our time there.

As we emptied our home of more than twenty years we paused in virtually every room and recalled the people and the memories that had made our lives there so wonderful. The Christmases and Thanksgivings spent with Dad in our tiny dining room, the friends we had shared time with and the many many time spent with just our dumb cats in a house that really was filled with love.

While I worked from home long before Covid ever came along we remade our small office into a place that I could work on many computers at once. Upgrading the electrical outlets and jamming more furniture and equipment into one room than should have been reasonable. All while restricting my poor wife to about 3 square feet of work space. I think she complained about that once, but that was it.

The real kicker was our bedroom though. Once we decided that we deserved a king size bed our "master bedroom" got very small very quickly indeed. But my good wife spent years turning sideways to get to her side of the bed, shuffling past the open door and the dresser and our wonderful bed.

 

The house felt strangely quiet and still once this shelf was emptied. For our entire tenure in our house this shelf was the home of "Florence" our antique clock. Florence's steady beat was the heart beat of our home and her chimes filled the entire house because of the stairs behind this shelf. She was the last item we removed. When we successfully restored Florence to life in the "new" house it really did feel like home.

 

I'm sure that Tybalt is missing his access to the great outdoors but we simply cannot afford him this sort of freedom without there being some way to keep him in the yard. He's just too stupid.

He will surely miss his balcony, but he has lots of windows to look out of.

We sat outside for a bit and talked about the time we spent in our own little back yard, it wasn't much but it was ours and it was a bit of an oasis. It was at our patio table that we had our first several meals when we moved into the house because we didn't have a dining room table yet. When we moved in the tree in the yard you could see over the top of now, not so much. Our yard was a haven for humming birds too and we will miss them. We're hoping that we can attract a few to the back yard of the new house.

Finally I just had to say good bye to our friend, we had shared space for so long that is what it felt like. So, goodbye friend, we loved you. Thanks for sheltering us and keeping us warm (and cool) and giving our cats a place to play. We hope your next family enjoys you at least half as much as we did.

And now, on to Things New...

What Is Home?

 Home is where the Cat is!

 

 

There is still loads to do but we are living here now. The presence of Tybalt proves it.

Moving Day!

Today is the day of days! We are having muscle men move the heavy things from the House of Tybalt to the House of Dad! It is the beginning of the end indeed.

All we have to do now is UN-pack!

Squeaky Wheel Syndrome?

You may remember about two weeks ago when I published the photographs of our new kitchen proclaiming our pride. But there was still an issue and I don't think anyone saw it but it was there. The picture below shows the problem. But if I describe it I'm sure you'll see it as plainly as I did.

You see the cabinets around the refrigerator, they are set back into the wall and not evenly either. If you look at the bottom of the refrigerator you can see the cabinet surround protrudes past the cabinet doors to the right. So what you ask? Well if you look carefully and imagine the freezer door open you will notice that it will knock into the corner of the wall. Additionally the cabinet doors on the right side all hit the wall when opened. This is functional, but unacceptable.

I pointed this out to our contractor and he said that that was the way things were done. I choked. We entered into an argument over what is and what is not acceptable. I have a hard time with this because I am the guy holding the checkbook, so what I say is acceptable is what is not acceptable. Right? Well after a lot back and forth went on as I continued to point out that our drawings did not show these cabinets installed in this manner a decision was made to correct the problem. Today, they came out (finally) and did just that.

I think the correction looks much better don't you agree? Now there are no problems with doors knocking into walls and the refrigerator is no longer in any danger of denting it's door. And well it just looks better this way. And I only had to scream for two weeks. Squeaky wheel right?

Say That Again?

 I'm sorry, did you say December? You did didn't you? Oh my friggin' god!

Yes, here it is December and we are still not finished. Granted we are getting very close but there are still issues. And here I thought this was going to be a piece of baklava once we had a contractor. Well as Grandma Hazel was so fond of saying, "Ya learn something new every fool ya meet"! Boy howdy have I learned a thing or two. For instance; if you accept the lowest bid you may just end up with some one who is not quite the professional they pretend to be. Not to mention the fact that you may just end up shelling out the amount of money for that highest bid without obtaining that level of workmanship.

Don't get me wrong, when they do the work correctly it really is beautiful, and when we are finished this is going to be a showplace I think. I guess I am just really tired of a contractor that is so injudicious about how they work they manage to throw out necessary parts with the trash. That manages to take our tools with them believing they are their own. That thinks that the way to cover a mistake is to simply not say anything about it and hope that we don't discover it. But I digress...

We approach the end of this ridiculous game, we are scheduled to move heavy things very soon indeed and then to move the final item, the one item that makes house a home. The Cat. We are just hoping that he remains calm about the transfer. To that end we have begun to make ready to receive him by purchasing him a brand new cat tree.

Next to windows so he can see outside easily. Since we are depriving him of his balcony we thought it only fair that he have a way to at least see the outside if he can no longer go out into it.

Oh wait, are those new curtains in that window instead of those old heavy shutters? Why you bet your biscuits they are!

They came out cool didn't they? Laura is so good at these things. You should see them as the sun is going down, it really looks cool.

More and more personal items are moving here and it is feeling less and less like a construction site. The kitchen is nearly complete, just a few more basic food items to move over from The House of Tybalt to this, The House of Dad.

Once we are free of the restrictions of servicing two houses we can maybe, finally, relax a bit. I am very much looking forward to that.