Sunday, January 01, 2006

Hello, 2006!

January 1st...I guess I'm supposed to list resolutions here, huh? I'm starting the New Year sipping coffee, as four 14-year-olds sleep upstairs. There's also a man snoring in my bedroom (Hubby), and another snoring on the couch (Hubby's friend). The dog, for once, is not snoring.

I first woke up around 5am, and could still hear the teenagers laughing. All is quiet now, though, and I imagine it will be for quite awhile (except for the snoring). I'd be very surprised to see any of them until sometime in the afternoon. Probably late afternoon.

I like that they've got a spot now where they can hang out. After moving out of my parents' house, I lived in a series of one bedroom apartments until we bought our house, a spacious 900-square-foot, two bedroom, one bath shoebox. No, that's not a misprint. 900 square feet. Yes, I know most new houses have garages that size. No, you can't park your car in my living room (Are you kidding? It wouldn't fit. We'd have to take down the bedroom wall first).

After years of talking about it, and at least a year of actually working on it, we turned the attic into another bedroom. Doubtful That We'd Ever Finish Daughter was thrilled. She helped do a lot of the work, from nailing down the floor to putting up paneling after I framed the walls (No, that wasn't a misprint either...I actually framed walls. Just please don't lean on them). Nailing up the paneling was quite an experience. The person who invented panel nails should be shot. Repeatedly. With a nail gun. Panel nails come in 1" and 1 1/2 ". If you get the shorter size, it's impossible to hold them in place without hitting your thumb with the hammer. If you get the longer size, 8 out of every ten nails will bend before you finish nailing them in, because they're so thin, and made out of such cheap metal. By the time we were finished, Never Thought She'd Need To Wash her Mother's Mouth Out With Soap Daughter and I both had swollen thumbs, and had learned a few new words.

But, now that it's done, the new room is paradise to a teenager. Especially a teenager that has been sharing 900 square feet with two dorky parents for the last ten years. The new bedroom has also given us something I've never had before: A Spare Room. We were unsure what to call the my daughter's old bedroom at first. I thought about calling it The Library, since it has four bookcases in it, but that seemed a little presumptuous, given the size of the house. At one point I considered calling it The Nursery (A plant nursery, people, NOT a baby nursery), because the topiaries are in there, and for awhile it housed a braided Hibiscus Standard that I rescued from outside just before frost did it in. Also the spider plant hanging in the corner keeps having babies. Calling it The Nursery would require too much explaining, though, and besides, the Hibiscus is no longer there, it having been given to someone who will take better care of it than me. I suppose I could call it The Hotel, since for awhile it was home to 20,000 aphids, or The Death Chamber, since the aphids are no longer with us. On occasion we've referred to it as the Computer Room, because, well, there's a computer in it. In the end, though, I just like the word "spare" so much that that's what I call it. The Spare Room.

So I was supposed to be going somewhere with all this, wasn't I? Oh yeah, resolutions. Here we go:

1. I resolve to finish painting the trim in the Spare Room. When my daughter resided there, it had light blue walls & ceiling (with clouds), and purple sponged-painted trim. I painted the trim that would be covered by furniture with white paint before I put the furniture there, so I wouldn't need to move bookcases & such later. But the trim around the doors, and the doors themselves (both entry & closet) are still purple.

2. I resolve to figure out what kind of walls to have in the living room, and put them there. Currently 1 1/4 walls are sheetrock, 1 1/4 walls are knotty pine, and 1/2 wall is nothing but insulation (under the windows, behind the couch. You wouldn't know it if I didn't tell you). The other wall is the fireplace, and that's one of the few things that looks good now, and can be left alone. I like the knotty pine better, even though it's painted, but it's really old, we'd never match it, and any insulation that used to be behind it has deteriorated into the bottom third of the wall. So it'll probably be sheetrock. If we don't get much snow this year, at least I'll have snow in the living room. Hello, sheetrock dust!

3. I resolve to insulate behind the new walls before they go up. Hello, itchy skin!

4. I resolve to paint the new walls a different color (as yet to be decided), because Sasparilla is a pretty cool name for a paint color, but it's actually not a very pretty color. I also resolve to not let Hubby pick the paint color this time.

5. I resolve to go to a wine tasting. I've always wanted to, but never have, so when I buy wine I have no idea what I'm getting. I tend to go for the interesting-looking labels, or neat names. One of the bottles I currently own is called "Fat Bastard." Hubby can't taste anymore, but he knows a lot about wine, so I'm going to drag him with me to a tasting anyway. I figure after putting up with the sheetrock dust & itchy skin, I'll be entitled.

So that's about it. Oh, I also have all the usual resolutions: eat better, exercise more, be a kinder, more patient person... But I'm not listing those. I figure I have a better shot of actually completing the home-improvement projects than the self-improvement ones.

And the wine. Let's not forget the wine.

Posted by The Gradual Gardener :: 8:03 AM :: 3 Comments:

View Comments

---------------------------------------