One month ago, we closed on our new house! We're all moved in, which was easy considering we have no furniture. Our previous apartment was tiny and the few pieces we did have, we sold or gave away. Most of them were cheap pieces I had collected from Ikea or Craigslist over the years and I decided we should upgrade for the new house. Except, we can't really afford a houseful of furniture all at once. So right now our house contains one bed, one couch the previous owners left behind, one chair, one ottoman, one dresser, and a portable camp chair. That is all.
A couple weeks ago, I ordered a new couch and a new bed with the upholstered headboard I've always wanted. Our current bed will furnish the guest bedroom and the new bed will go in the master. Of course, the fabric I wanted for both pieces had to be special ordered which means neither will be here for 8-10 weeks, so the camp chair it is for now.
In the meantime, we're taking advantage of all the empty rooms and we painted the living room and the hallway with the master bedroom and the kitchen on deck next. I can see every room finished in my brain and can't wait until the house actually looks like it does in my head. It's stressful and overwhelming, but it has also been so fun to pick paint colors and fabrics and choose every detail of my home for the very first time.
The most surprising part of this whole process has been my father-in-law, who has at once delighted me and driven me crazy. He's a former contractor and construction foreman and the very first day we moved in, he gave the whole house a once over, pointing out every flaw and potential issue in our 50 year old house. "Did you know there's a soft spot here in the bathroom floor?" "What's up with the water pressure?" "I'm calling Randy, he's a contractor who owes me a favor, about this bathroom floor." "You know that spigot on the front of the house is leaking." "You're going to need to get under there with a level." "I think you're going to need new windows in this room." "Well, the good news is that the retaining wall should be an easy fix." WE JUST MOVED IN, GIVE ME A MINUTE.
In the last few weeks, he has randomly come over with a new spigot pipe, a new dehumidifier for the basement, a new shop vac in case water gets into the basement, a new lawn mower, a new weed whacker, various new tools, mulch, a new tower fan, a new shovel, and a bunch of stuff I have no name for but I think they sell at Home Depot. He has installed the new pipe and stripped and smoothed a few spots in the walls that appeared to be peeling from ages old painted over wallpaper. I have come home from work more than once to find that new plants along the walkway leading to the front door had suddenly appeared and plant beds had been laid with fresh mulch. He insisted on buying all the paint for the new house. Yesterday he started a sentence with "I was over here watering the plants..." and I pointed out that we could do that, did in fact do that, and he was all "oh, I was just in the neighborhood, so figured I'd do it." Apparently, there's a lot going on over here while we're at work. Joe's dad is not an overly demonstrative, affectionate guy so it has been so sweet seeing how proud he is of his boy and his new house and all the ways he's trying to take care of us.
Although, the other day he was over and Joe poured him a glass of ice water which elicited commentary about why we use tap water to fill the ice trays, and why don't we use the Brita to fill the ice trays, and this ice tastes terrible. (The ice tastes fine.) And then conversation about his desire to buy us a $900 water filtration system. Umm...I have a $30 water filtration system called a Brita and the ice is fine. Here's the thing - I don't have a dining table, or a coffee table, or a nightstand, or side tables, or dining chairs, or framed pictures, or lamps, or rugs, or bookshelves, or curtains, or curtain rods. So before we talk about the water filtration system, maybe we could talk about the fact that you're sitting in a camp chair watching a television on the floor.
I adore him and the delightful ways he drives me crazy with his over-the-top generosity, and vested interest in our house, and his priorities that are so not mine. But I'm just saying, if you really want to insist on this whole buying us stuff thing, can I interest you in something on one of these tagged pages in this catalog?
I do love that guy.
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