The House (Or: Where I've Been)

I guess everyone who reads my blog is well aware that my mom has passed away, and that I've been MIA for a couple of weeks. I've been off work, at first taking care of my mom during her last few days of life, and then taking some time off after she passed away to put things in order again. It's been unpleasant - but that's okay. It's supposed to be unpleasant. We all have to go through it sooner or later, and hopefully we're all as lucky as I have been, to have so many friends to help us through it.

Speaking of friends. Wow. I know I am never going to get around to properly thanking all of you as thoroughly as you deserve to be thanked. (No, Scott. You won't be getting thanked THAT thoroughly. Even though you did clean out that closet.) I love you guys.

The House Part 1: The Mess

So, after all the craziness was over, Dug and family and friends and I began the arduous task of cleaning out my mom's house. Let me preface this by explaining that my mom did not clean. In the 33 years that I knew her, I never once saw her clean. A few years ago, I made the monumental mistake of deciding that I wasn't going to spend all of my not-at-work waking hours frantically cleaning her house in an attempt to keep up with her record-breaking speed at mess-making. I just knew that if I stopped enabling her, she'd clean. I know. Stupid.

When she got sick, I retracted this edict and tried to undo the damage that had been done. I spent every weekend cleaning at her house, but I never got past the dining room table and the kitchen. I'd work on the table for four hours, come back the next day and have to start over entirely. Eventually I gave up.

I was going to burn the house to the ground after she died, but turns out my grandpa still owns it. And grandpa wants me and Dug to move in to it. It is a bigger house with a basement and central air conditioning and a nicer neighborhood, my grandpa put a lot of work in expanding it over the years, it has 4+ generations of my family history in it, us moving in makes my grandpa really happy, and probably we were going to clean it instead of burning it down anyway. So, moving in is really the only possible decision. We're okay with it.

On the other hand...well. I forgot to take "before" pictures, but here's her dining room after Dug and I did some cleaning:

You guys might notice that the walls are PEACH. Years ago, mom made me paint the whole dining room and the whole gigantic living room PEACH. It's like when my dad painted everything in his house magenta and left it to me, except I think the peach is more horrifying. (Note: you guys will see prolific use of the words "horrific" and "horrifying" and "horrors" in the coming months while my blog is devoted to house fixerupping instead of yarn. Just so you know.)

Here is my mom's bedroom after my grandpa's girlfriend Adorable Jan removed 6 bags of clothing to take to the thrift store where she volunteers:

Here is my mom's computer room:

After a week of working on the house, we did get ONE room entirely cleaned out and painted. I'll post more on that later because I'm running out of room here, but it's coming together. That one room. Very nice.

The House Part 2: I Need A Contractor

No, seriously, do any of you guys happen to be or know a contractor? Because OMFG. Here is one little detail from my mom's bathroom:

I don't have to show you the rest of the bathroom. It's the same.

The most interesting part of my mom's house is the kitchen. Circa 1978, my grandpa decided to redo the kitchen, but alas, never finished. He tore out one side of the kitchen and put in new cabinets and drywall and a pretend window:

But never tore out the OTHER SIDE of the kitchen (also with a pretend window):Those are two facing sides of the same kithen. 1980 and 1920. Sexy, huh? I like how one side has drywall and the other side has plaster, but the whole room is unified with a thick patina of nicotine. I so want to cook meals in this room.

There are other things in the house that will require contractor intervention, but which I forgot to get pictures of. Like the giant fluorescent light in the dining room that no longer has a cover. That has to go. I'd like to remove the pipe in the living room from where there used to be a bathroom before grandpa remodelled - when Scott noticed it he began shrieking with joy because he thought it was a stripper pole. The utility/laundry room was tacked onto the side of the house in the olden days and is actually falling off, causing roof leakage and other horrors. (See, there's that word again.)

Unfortunately I am not insanely wealthy so I think I'm going to start with the bathroom first, for obvious reasons, and save the kitchen and larger stuff for later. The kitchen is perfectly functional; it's just...weird.

Stay tuned for more installments on The House.