The calm descended after our double birthday celebration which actually followed close on the heels of two others and I'm finding myself today wandering around putting away and picking up and pondering.
Yesterday I read the rest of a Max Lucado book I'd had by my bedside for a couple of years. I started reading it right before I went to help after my oldest gave birth to her secondborn. It was a good bit of literature and I found myself chewing on it a lot yesterday and today. It's really a collection of short pieces Lucado wrote on a variety of topics. The afterward tells that he wrote each piece after his wife and kids went to bed at night in a closet he converted into his writing studio. I particularly was suprised by a bit he wrote about candles argueing with him about being lit and taken out of the storage closet.
Last night Hubby and I dashed off to work on the two houses we have been busy with lately. He was working on the little one and I was working on the red one. Funny to be toiling away nearby each other but separately.
We started off having a sort of two person picnic on the swing seat in the backyard. I packed water and apples and roast beef sandwiches. He stopped in a gas station on the way and bought some corn chips. We sat on the swing and chomped down our sandwiches, swillied our water and crunched our chips and decided to save our apples till later.
I worked on ripping up more flooring, pulling up nails, sweeping up mess and dumping it in the dummpster. Took a little break and cleaned out some trash from the garage and just outside it where the previous owners had a pile of trash. Then I tore out the two carpeted stairs in the living room and the carpet,flooring under them and put most of that in the dumpster. Hubby was working on jacking up the little house and shoveling out under the wall and adding sound supports to the east wall.
For the most part we worked in silence. It was in some ways comforting once again. It comforts us because we are making measurable progress at something that will not have to be done again. It's not like laundry which never stays done for long, food that you cook and it's eaten in an instant and has to be replaced with more food or like cleaning this house where we live and get the house dirty again immediately. After we work at the houses we pack up and go home to this house and the progress we make stays made. So we go home tired but smiling.
It's also interesting to go over there to a city and see neighbors who we are developing some realationship with again. It sort of feels like we are leaing a double life. By day we are country dwellers and by night we are transformed into city folks. We giggle about that sometimes!
Yesterday it was warmer there than here and I enjoyed that and marveled at it. The little porch off the back collects and holds the sun's warmth this time of year while our barn shaped house in the woods is cold this time of year.
I found more information about the family that lived in the two houses last night and brought home a handful of some relative's writings to read through after I got home. I think it's the reporter in me that surfaces every once in a while making me want to investigate more than just what the subfloor is made of and instead look into what kind of folks lived,played, cried and prayed behind these walls during more than 50 years!
Comments (7)
very interesting stuff, makes it more understandable why people love archeology.
It's nice to have tangible evidence of your hard work - very satisfying!
Remodeling is not always fun. Scraping off old paint can contain lead which has to be disposed of properly.
I have spent a lot of time under homes. The early homes in LA used to sit upon bricks. Brick walls eventually crumble because the mortar starts to crumble after 40 to 60 years. Now earthquake reinforced foundations have cross beams and steel braces.
Antique Roadshow tends to make me want to accumulate more junk. It is an addiction to love to packrat stuff.
I'm with you on being more interested in the history of the people that lived different places rather than simply how the building was built. The history of people is so interesting
No doubt about it...work that stays done has a sort of allure all its own. The nice thing about working on an investment house as opposed to your own is that stays finished too. At least from your perspective as sellers. Home ownership is one of those not staying done jobs sometimes too. Part of why A doesn't find it alluring I think.
@cutepickles1 - Yes and sociology and anthropology and just history in general!@suzyQ_darnit - I agree@PPhilip - The old house was built on big logs like a raft. @TheCheshireGrins - hear hear!@botanyhead - Well even in our own house some kinds of things stay done as opposed to others.@crackerchuck - We have made alot of progress. Not much junk left to deal with now! I just ordered the third dumpster to be hauled away. These houses are in what once was the town of Duncan to the east of us not far from the shore of Lake Huron on one side and close to the river on the other.