Those things called dreams.
That was about two years ago—give or take a couple days. I hadn’t moved in yet. I’d owned it for three months and just started making the mortgage payments. I was rich then—I made really good money. I had a sizable amount in the bank and spent hundreds of dollars every week and had money to spare. I also weighed at least 50lbs more than I do now.
Those were the days—oh to be fat and rich again.
The kitchen of this house is roomy. They tried to make this place into a three bedroom by adding a wall in the kitchen. The “room” would be hard pressed to accommodate a twin sized bed and sure as hell you wouldn’t fit anything else in there—it was long and narrow. Completely useless. So we knocked the wall down. It wasn’t difficult. I patched the ceiling and we ripped up the linoleum. I painted it yellow even though I was determined to avoid having a yellow kitchen. I just repainted it in May, having wanted a pink kitchen before I moved in. The color I got was too pale and I never bothered putting on a second coat or moving the fish tank to paint behind it. It’s a 65 gallon tank so it weighs about 600lbs when it’s full.
The front room had dark wood paneling and brass seagull wall decor when I bought the place. Disgusting, dirty “new” carpet was throughout the house. That was ripped up and tossed into the dumpster I rented. That thing was filled to the brim by the time we got through demolishing the place. I forget how much work got put into it—mostly my parents doing since I worked whenever they were home. The wall underneath the paneling was a murky olive green. I painted the rest of the living room an elegant tan, including the hallway which was also covered in paneling that got destroyed (and it had a drop ceiling—the BANE OF MY EXISTENCE). I wanted a burst of color, so I painted the wall a deep blue. Then I painted over it with the tan. January I painted the west wall red and I loved it—but then I got bored a few days ago and primered everything—the hallway and the front room. I bought two cans of flat paint in Bamboo, a pale cream color with hints of green. It’s bright, avoiding the dreariness of “off-white”.
I finally painted the bathroom, covering up the white with Babbling Brook—a muted blue-green that is mirrored in the towels I’ve had for two years (along with the paint) and the shower curtains. There’s a chunk of plywood on the ceiling where the attic access is. There was once a soffit above the shower which was completely impractical—par for the course in this house. Nothing made sense, whoever made repairs before did it half-assed and they were never improvements, usually only making things worse or unusable. A soffit above the shower!? It closed into the space and I’m only 5’6” but if I tried to lift my arms above my head as if to wash my hair, my hands would touch the ceiling. That got knocked down, taken out, and a new ceiling put in along with greenboard around the upper part of the shower/tub.
We won’t even touch on the subject of THE CRACKWHORE ROOM.
That’s the second bedroom and still sits gutted to the joists and studs. Cold as a witch’s tit in there because there’s nothing to stop the cold air (AND MICE) from getting in.
The laundry room had paneling up and a drop ceiling and a cracked, scary looking red vinyl flooring from decades past. Subfloor was put on top of it, the drop ceiling was taken out along with the paneling. I actually should call it the pantry because there’s no way in hell you can do laundry in there—you’d have to get a washer/dryer combo or a small stackable unit in there since the water heater sits in the corner. You can’t open the dryer door and if you have a washing machine next to the dryer (which you can’t open!) then the door won’t open into the room. I know this because I had machines in there—but like anything else it sat useless, collecting dirt and dust, nothing more than a fancy metal table to put things on. Now only the dryer is in there (never hooked up) and my sister took the washer back when her’s broke. I didn’t use it anyway so I didn’t care. I’d like to get the dryer out too since it’s taking up space I could use to store stuff out of the way.
I’ve been cleaning, purging and rearranging for weeks now. It feels endless but I get distracted by finding old letters, books, objects, sorting through what I want to keep or throw away. Most of it I throw away.
My bedroom was originally a greyish blue but it depressed the hell out of me so I primered it in August of last year and never got around the painting it (or picking out a color) until this May, when I decided ELEPHANT GREY WITH HINTS OF PURPLE! was the color I wanted. I found it within seconds of going to the paint section of Menard’s. I absolutely love the color of my bedroom. It makes the floors glow. Oh the floors! Throughout the whole house (that’s finished) is dark vinyl flooring that I laid out myself—it looks like wood but it’s more durable. I was advised to get the lighter color, the modern color, because my house is so small—but I have never liked light colored wood floors and it wouldn’t go with the feel of the house anyway. I love my floors. If only I had baseboards and trim around the doors! Except the doors need to be replaced—there are gaps at the top and bottom and they don’t match, plus they get stuck. Everything was assbackwards…
My plan for the kitchen (white cabinets and a greenish grey laminate countertop) is to paint it a stone color with hints of brown in it. I already have a color picked out. It’ll be darker, but the room is large enough and has enough lighting to carry a dark look. I want browns and oranges in there. I have a table and 4 chair set that I got at an thrift shop about two years ago…it’s old, but serviceable. It’s also a dull dirty yellow and in the French Provincial style…boring and blah. I took off the old vinyl seats and will sand and primer all of the pieces in the morning to either paint them all white or a shade of taupe…I can’t decide. I’m going to recover the seats myself, shouldn’t be hard, and I want a deep orange print fabric. I can see it all in my head and it’ll look really great.
I wonder if the crackwhore room will ever get finished…or if I’ll ever conquer this homeowner thing. It’s a neverending battle. Cleaning, improvements, the furnace breaking, bills bills bills bills bills…
I hate growing up. I hate this house. I hate not being able to take care of everything like I want to. I won’t even get started on the outside, or the fact that the walls aren’t insulated and my gas bills are astronomical. I would say my heating bill, but if you keep the house at 45-50 degrees (55 if I was feeling rich!) just so the pipes don’t freeze when the temperature hovered around zero outside, there’s not much heating going on—and that still cost me $270+ a month. WHICH IS RIDICULOUS and made NO SENSE. My house is the smallest out of anyone I know, they kept their heat in the 60’s and had bills have the size of mine. I called the company, NIPSCO, but they’re a bunch of monkey-fucking morons. I hate them—in case there was confusion there.
Deep breath. One day at a time. It’s better. Sort of. Or maybe it’s just as bad, but it’s not getting worse—at the moment. The other shoe ALWAYS drops. I never have good luck, only days absent of misfortune.
