Stories of Stuff

Like most people, I have seasons of accumulation and seasons of divestment. Sometimes, it's even at the same time, I'm chucking and acquiring all at once, in different categories. 

In my fifties, I desperately wanted to renovate my basement, but the huge barrier was getting rid of all of the stuff that had accumulated there, from my several moves and my mother's big downsizing into an apartment. I worked away at it, and finally declared defeat and hired someone to finish the job. "Just get rid of it, and keep it out of the landfill" I said. By then, I had picked through it, and successfully disposed of most items of value. But some stuff I wasn't prepared to sort or part with, and so it all went into boxes to be stored in a shed in the back yard until the renovation was complete. Then, when my beautiful basement was complete, I sorted before allowing anything back in. Much stuff was gotten rid of. The basement was furnished, but uncluttered.

Then, my mother died.  Not tragically, at 92 she was just beginning to fail, but suddenly, and unexpected at that particular time. Among the tasks that fell to me was the cleaning out of her apartment. 

I was pretty organized back when I started in the storage unit

"Gosh, she has a lot of nice stuff! I mean, it's really nice, but it's a lot!" was the universal comment that came from everyone that came in to help. Yes, yes it was. I had embraced the philosophy of minimalism (though not entirely the practices, in fairness). All this very nice stuff. What to do with it?  I wrote about the struggles at the time.

I'm now down to the last remaining items in the storage unit I rented. To get it cleared out, I brought several boxes home, where they are cluttering up my office and spare bedroom. I'm done with most of the sentimentality that made me want to hang on to things. But, I do have sadness for the stories that attach to the objects. I had an idea years ago - about the time I retired, before my mother died, of using a blog as the place to capture the stuff and tell the stories. I even started the documentation when I retired. I had a big box of awards I had gotten at work, and I was never going to hang them up on the wall at home. So I photographed them, and blogged about them, in a separate blog. But I never published it, and shortly after, overwhelm hit me and I never got back to it.

But now I have picked it up again. I have some objects I am going to dispose of, and the blog posts are partly advertisements! Other things, I'll just write about without trying to flog them off on anyone. They may be gone already, anyway.

So, take a look at my Stories of Stuff blog.

 

Books

My sixth birthday
Yay, a book! Cowboys!

I've been a reader since I can remember. One of my earliest memories is sitting with my brother with him teaching me to read. I was skipped a grade because in kindergarten I was reading at second grade level. Now, I'm probably not tops in comprehension, but I am quick. Books I read along the way have had a profound influence on my life. Even the light entertainments I consume have had a positive influence on my vocabulary.

Despite having been employed at a library for four years, and having family members and many friends who became professional librarians, I was not a good library user. I loved going and checking out books. I would read them, and then let them sit around the house for weeks on end. I decided it would be cheaper to hang out at bookstores than to pay fines. The decade I spent in Ann Arbor at college coincided with the founding there of Border's Books - I've met Tom Border many times. During my first years post-grad school, going to the bookstore was one of the biggest pleasures of many weekends. It remained a constant pleasure for decades.

Around about the turn of the century, I realized I needed to either stop buying books or else get more bookshelves. My small house was bursting at the seams. I opted to line my entire basement with Billy bookcases from Ikea. When I found an author I liked, I went all in, usually buying an entire series of mystery or science fiction and often re-reading them. I loved looking at a series all lined up together on the shelf.

Then came e-readers and the possibility of not only not having so many books lying around but instant gratification when I wanted a new book. I was not a first-wave adopter, but I got a kindle in the second or third generation. I made a decision to never buy a mystery or science fiction any other way. For me, it's seamless to read on the device - it doesn't get in my way at all. But I have learned that actual physical reference books, and coffee table books, and cookbooks, have big advantages over something accessed on a small black-and-white kindle or an only slightly bigger (though colorful) tablet. Three or four years ago a friend showed me how to get library e-books onto the kindle, saving me literally thousands of dollars on novels since then.

When I'm into something, I can be really into it. I like to learn about them. Often that means buying books on the topic. My remaining shelf of "how-to" books can serve as a little chronology of hobbies I've had over the years. Backgammon, sewing and specifically quilting, knitting, cross-country skiing, kayaking, motorcycling, all make an appearance here. I still have these books because I'm not necessarily done with these activities.

All the basement books left after culling

When it came time to renovate the basement, all the stuff down there was an obstacle to getting started. It took me about three years to get through all the crap (with some left at the end to be disposed of only when I was moving back in). I got rid of an incredible number of books. Our county library has a very active "Friends" group that run two retail used-book stores. One of them was located just a mile from my house for several years (it's since moved much farther away). After my first ambitious culling into boxes, and subsequent struggle to get them out of the basement and into the car, I realized I couldn't carry a full box of books, and so brown paper grocery bags became my favored method of disposal. Each weekend I would drop off 3-4 bags, not wanting to carry more than that at one time and also trying not to overwhelm the volunteers at the library.

I had to hide my books behind a fence
to keep Rocky from indulging his literary taste

I worked in a library for quite a while. I have to organize my books. Currently I have them roughly sorted by topic into different physical locations, but not actually alphabetized. I still have bookcases in the two upstairs bedrooms, my office, and in the room formerly known as The Dog's Room, just renovated. I took advantage of the reno to get rid of ten brown bags of books from the Dog's Room (and a shelf of DVDs), most to the library bookstore. The books remaining in the room now are travel books and garden books. This includes travel writing, even fiction set in destination locales, and nature writing and field identification guides. All of these books have value to me in hard copy with the ability to look at pictures and flip back and forth between pages.

Travel books

Taking the time to dust, clean, and sort the books as I moved back into the Dog's Room this week has sparked a real interest in looking at them again. I kept old travel books for places I still hope to go to, though I'll probably buy an ipad version of a new travel guide for any place I go.  I haven't really looked at some of the garden books for a few years, because I had to keep them locked away from Rocky and it just wasn't convenient to get them out. So I have some of my winter reading set! 

In my bedroom, I have an entire six-shelf bookcase of books on aviation. Not how-to books, I got rid of those to some eager takers in the neighborhood in the basement culling. These are mostly memoirs and biographies of early women fliers, and some fiction also starring mostly women. When I got bit by the flying bug, it was an extreme situation. For a couple of years, I read little else. I was traveling a lot for work and I would drop into bookshops in whatever country I was in, searching for books about women fliers. So it's really a good collection. I think I could part with it, but I want to part with it as a collection to a home that will appreciate it. Any ideas?

Garden books

Room Reveal

I decided to act on updating my room variously known as Rocky's Room, Abbey's Room, The Dog's Room, the TV Room, the Sun Room, and The Porch. In a big stroke of luck, I contacted my contractor just as he had a room-sized hole in his schedule. As a result, from deciding to act to having it done was less than a month total. This almost never happens! Here is a link to the post from a month ago when I was poised to move forward. When I spoke to the contractor who did my basement, we worked out a reasonable scope of work for a reasonable price, and I just went ahead without getting any other bids. I had to leap into action going through my piled up stuff and especially books. I took ten brown grocery bags of books to the library bookstore, yay! And now I'm sitting in this updated room, all cozy with new heat and clean walls and books I can actually access and my plants, and I'm thrilled!

This shows the cluttered corner
with books wedged into the shelves

As often happens, I don't have good "before" pictures. I was pretty good about taking the "during" photos. As soon as I was well moved back in I quickly took the "after" pix, before I start messing and cluttering up the place.

   

 

 

 

 

 

Just started - air conditioner out of the wall,
electric baseboard heaters next

Drywall going up. See the hole where the a/c used to be.
Drywall going on top of the paneling. 

Ready for paint!

Painted! I'm shampooing the rug before moving back in.

EEEK! A hole in my wall!

The outdoor component of the mini-split

This was funny - when they pulled the baseboard and heating unit off this wall, what seemed to be an entire bag of dog food fell out! There have often been mice in this room, but it seems a little excessive to think they stored all of this. Maybe it just came from Rocky throwing it around accidentally - I did used to feed him in this room.

Done! I mostly sit in the chair here, so this is my view,
and Bixby mostly stays on patrol looking out the front window.

Done! The furniture will be adjusted some more,
but all the components are in place.

Done! This is the view no-one gets from this corner.
I used the phone's wide-angle lens, and you can see the
mini-split near the ceiling.

The Dog's Room

I have a small room off the main house, like a place that was conceived of as a screen porch, but was converted to a year-round room sometime in the distant past. It has huge windows on three sides, and even a glass door and a leftover window on the interior wall to the main house. It has knotty pine paneling, a symptom of the times in which it was built. It also has fake beams in the ceiling, and an incredibly ugly and in-your-face linoleum now hidden beneath carpet tiles. It has its own electric baseboard heating system, and I installed a through-the-wall air conditioner. 

It used to be the dog's room, since my Abbey adopted it as her own maybe twenty years ago, because she had been an outside dog and she wanted the visibility. When I got Rocky, he needed to be confined initially because he was undergoing heartworm treatments, and I used this room, which had room for his big crate. Later, he had to be confined in order to manage his voracious destruction. The TV has always been in there. Bixby is not generally left in there, so perhaps it’s becoming the TV room. Or, maybe it’s becoming the green room, as I concentrate plants in there.

The last time I substantially upgraded the room was in 2013, between Abbey and Rocky. Between dogs is often a good time for a really deep cleaning. I took all the books off the shelves and dusted and vacuumed all the dog hair, and shampooed the carpet. I acquired my first flat screen tv, and worked the wiring to set up a sound bar.

Now, I’m contemplating a major upgrade. It could use a more efficient and quieter heating and cooling system, so I want a mini-split to hang on the wall. But that requires rerouting an electric line from the opposite wall. Once that is in place, the through the wall air conditioner should be removed, so the outer and inner walls will need to be patched. Patching the knotty pine wall might be a problem, so why not just drywall the whole thing? If I’m doing that, should the fake ceiling beams come out as well?

And so the dominoes begin to fall.

I typically think about these things for a long time before acting. I have researched mini-splits (but don’t understand the name or it’s origin). It’s time to discuss with a contractor. 

Fall Rituals

I've tried to up my game at making things "nice". That includes changing displays through the year. This rotating also works for my desire to have stuff but to not be cluttered. While I'm not strictly seasonal, this village strikes me as appropriate for Fall.

The black horse at the left was a recent impulse buy at Ikea. It'll be put with my other swedish horses when I dig them out with my Christmas decorations, but I don't want to forget it. For right now it's looming over the Bergen townhouses.

Home Refresh

The kitchen and office updates are (just about) done. There always seems to be this dragging 2% that takes forever - in this case, switch plate covers. But here are Before and After pictures!

Notice not just the drab counters but also the clutter!
The big flowers were from Ikea -
my girl and I brightened up a winter day long ago.

View from the other end- food stored on the counters.

I had started to store a lot of stuff out on the counters. After I cleared it out, I liked the uncluttered look and tried to keep it.

 I kept the cabinets, appliances, and floor. I changed the cabinet pulls, the countertop, the backsplash, and the wall color. I also had to do the sink, the faucet, and the disposal. Overall, it completely transforms the space!

The backsplash was where I put my energy, though the quartz countertop was the most money. I went to several places before finding the tiles I wanted. I had started with only vague ideas of what I was looking for, fueled by HGTV. I sharpened my focus on the internet, and found what appealed to me on pinterest.

This is as de-cluttered as it gets. A new fridge is in my future.
I also will get new dish towels.

At the tile shops, I found the ceramic tiles dull, and I knew I didn't want a busy pattern. Glass tiles added depth, and they change dramatically with the light. I finally found, on the internet, a local tile shop that seemed very promising. An opportunistic trip (it was a block from my dermatologist) led to the answer. I had brought a drawer front and a counter sample along, and agreed with the design rep on a predominate glass tile color salted with a complementary color in a random pattern. I drew out the pattern to scale on the computer one night, and I'm thrilled with the result.

My fresh veggies and cutting board will stay out.
The lower open shelves hold recycling staging and kitchen towels.

 The cabinet pulls are from Home Depot - I swear I looked at all 657 choices on-line. I informed my choices by looking at and touching the in-store stock, but on-line had a wider spectrum of choices. I ended up special order, but it was still just a couple of days.

My sink is really deep - I bought a sink with an added inch of depth, and then the mounting under the countertop adds more than another inch (which then required some jiggering to fit the disposal in). A small dog could go swimming in there. I can store my dish soap and sponges inside the sink to keep the countertop clear. The big, arched, faucet is all the style, but I find it splashes more than my old one.

As things went back in the kitchen, I scrubbed all the cabinet doors and insides. I got rid of a few things, but mostly I re-arranged. Items seldom used went to the basement (which may be staging for eventual disposal) and I moved things around so the most used item became more accessible. I treated myself to a visit to the Container Store and got some back-of-cabinet door racks to increase the amount of area easily accessible. And the huge Instant Pot, which I use pretty often, lives out of sight!

Just for fun, I moved the countertop appliances around. The microwave is where the toaster oven was, the toaster oven sits where the coffee pot was, and the coffee pot is by the kitchen door where I used to keep fresh veggies. My huge stash of dog treats and dog accessories has been either put away or put into nice canisters. Right now, I'm motivated to keep the place bare. I stroke the countertops and touch the backsplash, finger the substantial drawer pulls, and love being in there. We'll see how it evolves as I start really inhabiting it, cooking and just living there.

Before

The other project was the office. There, I had a formica countertop that wrapped around, and I wanted to get rid of the part that was designed to be a desk. I never use it, (now that I have laptop and don't spend hours working on documents or photos) and it just took up space.

During

I bought a standard-sized countertop from Ikea, which was (frustratingly) ONE inch too small to fit the existing layout of the lower cabinets. I knew this when I bought it - the contractors said "oh, it's easy to just slide the cabinet base over a couple of inches". Thus, the dominoes start to fall:  baseboards, flooring, what else is affected? We managed to contain the effort, and I love the additional space and light from the fresh color on the walls.

After. Still clutter to clear from the countertop

This room has a high shelf that wraps around - to pull in and make whole the space over the basement stairs. I had a small collection of birds picked up on my travels over the years. This was a tendency adopted from my mother, who had a large collection of birds. After the construction was done, I integrated the two collections and put them up on that shelf.

Like the kitchen, I also emptied out the cabinets and thought through what I needed to keep or toss, and how to organize it to make it accessible. (I spent a couple of hours in front of the TV trying all the ballpoint pens that were in a big box.) I've got the paper and file folders all squared away, but I have a lot of electronic bits, cords, and gadgets still to deal with. Many of them are in two other closets (and even the basement) and I'll need a long day or two to consolidate and sort out.

I also had the living room ceiling painted - it had been damaged years ago by a leak - I got a new roof, eventually new drywall, but the paint waited until now. So to close, pictures of the disruption during the work.

Home Ergonomics

“Before” - my cluttered office with morning light

I’m in the middle of getting an update to my office and kitchen. Much less than a full renovation, but exciting enough - for the kitchen, new countertops, backsplash, sink and faucet, new paint (with new colors) and new cabinet handles. For the office, new countertop and paint. There will be plenty of pictures, once I get to the “after” stage for before and afters. But right now, I’m thinking about any changes I may want to make as part of moving back in.

Since I kept all the kitchen cabinets and appliances, I didn’t need to completely empty the kitchen. But I did need to get everything off the counter and open shelves, window sills, any surfaces. Also, I emptied the top drawer of each cabinet bank, so there was room to demolish the old and install the new stuff. All of that stuff is now out on tables and floors in other rooms. I was struck by how much stuff I had out. It’s clutter, guys. The stuff that was out in the open tends to be the stuff I use all the time, but there is stuff in the cabinets that I hardly use at all. When I get to move back into the kitchen, it’s going be a process of making sure everything in there needs to be in there. And everything out in the open really needs to be out all the time. And, that things are placed where I want them placed, for how I will actually use the kitchen.

I just had a fun conversation with my contractor about where to put things when I go back. It’s good to be challenged. I’m going to need to find places out on the counter for my microwave, my coffee pot, and my toaster oven, all of which I use all the time. I’ve also had a jar for putting my most often used hand tools sitting out next to the stove. But I’ve had places for dog treats (need to be high up and out of his reach!), cutting boards, knives, water bottles and travel mugs, trays, vases, and non-refrigerated fruits and vegetables. I’ve had a cart that holds linen towels, a recycling staging area, and my instant pot. It added up to a lot of clutter. If I’m going to put all of these things away, I will need to pull things out of my cabinets or off my open shelves to make room.

I’ve got space in my new basement on open shelving, where I can put things I’m not willing to get rid of entirely. But definitely, it’s time to part with more stuff that I just don’t use. Things should only go in the basement if I am going to use them sometime. But things I don’t use too often. I found out a couple of years ago, when I wanted to cook more, that putting the cuisinart in a cabinet below the food prep counter meant I used it more than I did when it was stored in another room entirely. Going to get it was one more hurdle to cooking.

Should the microwave go next to the stove instead of across from it? Do I want to keep my longest stretch of countertop clear for food prep? Can I find an accessible, but out of view, place to put the cutting boards and trays? Do the knives go back in a drawer or will I find a place for my magnetic knife rack? Can I make room in a lower cabinet for the instant pot? (I already keep the cuisinart, rice cooker, and mini-chop down there.) Thinking systematically about this stuff will make my life easier.

Warring with my desire for clear, uncluttered surfaces is my awareness that I’m very visually driven. If I have cool things put away where I never see them, I don’t think about them. That’s one of the reasons I like to keep my fresh fruits and veggies out - so I remember to eat them before they go bad. Also, accessibility is crucial. I’m short. I’m getting older. My cabinets go up to the ceiling, but it takes a tall stepladder, not just a step stool, for me to reach the top shelves. Probably, there are things on the top shelves that have been there for years and not used, that could go away. But I couldn’t use that space for anything that will be needed more than a couple of times a year. The good news on things for entertaining is most often I am entertaining my family, all of whom are younger and taller than me. So, they get the job of reaching the inaccessible stuff!

I should be able to start this process of moving back in as early as tomorrow. This will be fun!