Nothing like a party with actual guests* to make me realize that it was fucking time to take care of some bizness. Namely, the house.
Now I am not an interior decorator. I don’t even play one on television (I do, however, play a doctor and/or the village idiot, so that’s something). I’ve never sat through a home improvement show – not even the show Home Improvement, but that’s because Tim Allen makes me want to stab out my eyes – nor would I care to. In fact, I’d rather gnaw off several toes than have to sit through one.
I’ve tried, mostly because I figured I could learn about this mysterious “eye for style” which, it turns out, is not something that can be acquired during ten or so minutes of one of those shows. My idea of a pretty room is one that has unicorns, glitter, and/or an Uncrustables machine, which means that my new house, the one I’ve lived in nearly five years, has been decorated in what can only be considered “found by the side of the road” style.
But if I have people over, it’s time to pretend that I may actually be a grown-up…or at least play one for a party. Which meant it was time for some motherfucking home improvements.
Because I am a bad blogger who takes lousy photos (when did being an incredible photog become part of being a blogger?), I did not take any “before” pictures. The room I am currently working in, my dining room, was painted what I liked to call, “Cat Barf Green,” although some of you may find it to be more “Cat Pee on Plasterboard.” Frankly, I’ll be interested to see what you decide upon.
This is the room BEFORE we moved in. Which means this was NOT my furniture.
Fake flowers make me dry heave.
Not sure what you’d call it, besides butt-fugly, but that’s what it was.
For years, I’ve worked in here, gritting my teeth as I looked at the hideous paint (recall also, those of you who love the shade, that I am color-blind)(and those of you who LOVE the fake flowers, it’s like I don’t know you.) and that awful chandelier, but there has always been something – anything – else that prevented us from fixing the room.
It’s the “If You Give A Mouse A Cookie” problem. If I painted, I’d want to replace the fug light fixture. If I replaced THAT light fixture, I would also need some new art for the walls.
And so on.
So the room has remained, silently taunting me until last week, when I realized people would be coming by. AND JUDGING MY HORRIFYING TASTE. It’s not like I could put a disclaimer on the walls, like, “Objects In Here Are Not Aunt Becky’s Choice.” Well, I guess I COULD, but that’s weird.
Instead, I decided to strap on a set of balls and get ‘er done. Daver took the kids to his parents this weekend and Ben and I spent about 40 straight hours working on the two rooms (I’ll show you the other room tomorrow. Couldn’t get any decent snaps. Suffice to say, it was painted 2 different shades of white.).
And…
Where the magic happens.
Here’s where I ask for your help, Pranksters: I need some nice, beautiful, colorful pictures to hang on my wall around my desk. I’d go to Etsy, but I get overwhelmed every time I try.
Also: I need an old light box – you know, the thing where they used to hang X-Rays? That.
Any suggestions? Also: how was your weekend? Also also: can you give me a massage? I’m fucking sore. Also also also: apparently ninety-years old.
*Email me if you want an invite – I’m serious. I will insist that you admire my walls, but this is gonna be fucking fun.
I’m getting a new central air conditioner today. It’s been dying a slow and painful death since Alex was a wee babe and we’ve put it off because, well, it hadn’t entirely bit the bucket. The guy came to install it and was all, “Holy shit, I can’t believe they hooked it up like this. It could have blown up.”
“Holy shit, I can’t believe XXX” is about what I think when I think back to our old first floor bathroom, so I think he and I are going to get along fabulously.
(yes, yes that’s right, Pranksters. That IS three types of wallpaper in that tiny room. And, why yes! How astute of you to notice that it’s GLUED TO THE FUCKING DRYWALL. GOD, that was a bitch to get off.)
Anyway. I couldn’t be happier to have this installed, even though it’s costing me a couple of G’s.
As I told The Daver this morning, “Hey, it beats the condo.” He laughed knowingly.
Back when I didn’t know better, The Daver and I bought a three bedroom condo in Oak Park. It was a beautiful red brick building, right on the edge of an “up-and-coming neighborhood.” (in this case, “up-and-coming” means “on the edge of the ghetto”)
Our condo was a charming thing, all tall ceilings and dark wood floors. Very beautiful.
Until we moved in.
It was only then when I realized what “vintage” really meant. It meant, “you’re a fucking sucker.”
We had a radiator in the basement, one that heated all of the units, and, well, it was on when it was on and when it wasn’t on, it was still on. Our condo was right below it, so during the winter, it wasn’t uncommon to see me walking around in a tank top and shorts.
We’d gone to a Condo Board Meeting to learn that our poor radiator was on it’s last legs…and there were no funds from our condo dues to pay for it. It cost something like ten billion dollars.
We’d just shelled out five grand for a new back porch.
Great.
And the lead-paint covered windows that may as well have been screens for all the air they kept out? Well, if we wanted to replace those, they were a thousand dollars.
Each.
A thousand dollars.
Each.
We had something like ten windows. Ten grand (plus installation!) for windows. Windows NOT made of solid gold.
See, we needed to get specialty windows – replicas of the original – to match building code.
(fuck you, vintage)
When we added fans (and learned about the faulty wiring that may have killed us in a fiery blaze, had we not gone up and fixed it) in our condo in the summer because it was 8000000 degrees and window AC units don’t work so well when the windows allow hot air to pour in? Well, we were in trouble with the condo board for not using their electrician.
I have never been happier to move back to the land of the pre-fab.
At least now, when our AC unit craps out on us, I can buy a FLOOR MODEL and have it installed. It’s not specially carved by small children in Zimbabwe to match my house. It’s just an AC unit.
And when I decide to recarpet my house, it will be regular carpet, not carpet hand-crafted on the backs of seventeen vestal virgins.
Which is fortunate. I don’t even know what a vestal virgin is.
Now, before a zillion of you click away disgustedly, this won’t be another boring ass garden post, well, okay, it won’t be TOO MUCH of a boring ass garden post. Because sometimes, Sugar Pie, Honey Bunch, I can’t help myself.
*ahem* Fantasy Football posts *ahem*
Besides, most of you read me in a reader (when the reader is working properly *angrily shakes fists at the sky*) and that ‘mark all as read’ button is just so damn handy.
After I got a house, I got a dog. Well, no, let me rephrase that. I got a dog that is actually a ficus in dog’s clothing. Sure, he may LOOK like a corgi/beagle mix/stuffed sausage, and his breath may smell EXACTLY like a vagina, but I assure you, o! wise, Internets, he is a house plant.
May I present to you Exhibit A (I’d add more shots here, but the only things that change are location and the length of already insanely-long page load time. Which I do not know what to do about):
Before you alert the authorities, Internet, let me assure you that this is not a dead, taxidermied dog that I’ve inexpertly displayed on my couch. No, this is how Cash lives, 98% of the time: he naps on the couch, suns his belly, licks his pooper, and then rounds it out with a snack and another nap.
So to all of you Dog Trolls who drop in to critique my Crappy Dog Skillz, let me assure you, Cash pretty much has a life that I want.
No intruder is going to be terribly deterred by the rancid vagina smell coming from his mouth or the awesome way he can totally nap while laying ALMOST entirely on his back, so yeah, I had to come up with another strategy.
The cats, although fiercely annoying as they yodel and scream hello to anyone and everyone and occasionally just for the hell of it–often scaring people into thinking that I have small children trapped on various floors of my house–which yeah. They might end up tripping someone in a desperate plea for attention as a potential Bad Guy (or Girl, let’s not be Sexist Here)
Then we got Auggie, The Most Feared Dog in all of The World, and by “most feared” I mean, he’s effing adorable and if you saw him you’d be all “squeeeee! Lemmie take him home!” and I’d be all “BE MY GUEST!”
And as you were leaving with him, I’d say all ominously, “You do know he eats poo, right?” and then you’d take a scalding water bath with a brillo pad and refuse to take my calls. But he’s cute and he weighs 16 pounds, and his only real defense tactic is that you don’t want his tongue on your person because it has recently eaten poo straight out of the butthole of another dog.
That’s right, he likes his poo ON TAP.
But, awww!
And The Daver, God Bless him, isn’t here very often, and let’s not forget the curious incident of The Thing In The Garage In The Night-Time, shall we? Dave weighs all of 45 pounds soaking wet (knock off the Jack Sprat jokes, people, I’m losing the mother-fucking weight) and, well, he’s as intimidating as a wee baby sheep. Actually, I take that back, a baby sheep is probably scarier.
So I did what any average suburban housewife with waaay too much time and science background and radon would do!
I grew ATTACK ROSES!
Naturally, The Devil was in the mother-effing details and I planted them in the BACK of my house instead of the FRONT of my house, but, you know, those wily burglars can come from any given angle, right?
You can see that my ATTACK ROSE has already eaten a soccer ball, a hose, and is working it’s way both towards a kiddie pool AND a Smoky Joe. It’s THAT full of Desire To Maim And Destroy.
(if you look closely, next to it is another rose, the Attack Rose of DANGER! is pink–naturally–which is thumbing it’s nose at the autumn weather and blooming like crazy. That rose, it has spunk)
Why sure, it has been pumped full of radiation:
But really, it’s not actually (read: sadly) been genetically altered. It’s a climbing, “rambling” rose. Which, for someone like me, whose favorite song was once The Dead’s “Ramblin’ Rose” makes me very happy.
It is also a HELL of a lot cheaper than a personal home security system. I guess this means that we can return Auggie, eh?
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How was your weekend?
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