Six Months and Still Getting Settled

After several visits from Mr. Fix-It and his buddy down at the electrical supply place, it seems that we have power and water restored for the moment (yahoo!), so I figured I'd attempt a post while everything was up and running, and then I'll be off to tidy up for the big Super Bowl party and Simultaneous Craft-O-Rama we'll be hosting here tomorrow.

Anyone that knows me well knows that I have a passion for obsession with decorating. When we lived in our townhouse, Husband would come home from a business trip and, along with the usual hug-and-kiss-hello routine would ask, “What room did you paint this time?” He became so accustomed to my regular decorate-redecorate-re-redecorate cycle that it didn’t even phase him to leave for a weekend and come home to a radically different bedroom or kitchen he didn’t recognize. My specialty is in use-what-you-have decorating, or transforming low-budget finds, something I haven’t had the time to engage in as much as I used to. While HGTV runs constantly anytime I can wrestle the remote from Husband’s hands, I always scoff at the “affordable” decorating ideas found on TV and the notion that you, too, can transform a room for a mere $20,000. My kind of transformation is a radical one for under $500, or overhauling a space with only what you already own (and maybe a gallon of paint or two).

Anyway, when we found out we were moving to The Ranch, my excitement for decorating kicked in full blast, and I somehow got the idea that with two months and some elbow grease, I could revive this once top-of-the-line and now-decades-outdated house décor into a Country Living feature home. I scoured the pages of Country Sampler for rustic-looking finds, and picked through age-old junk piles for treasures that would be at home here.

Sadly, two months passed with the majority of our belongings still in boxes… then four months… and now we’re coming upon month six (wow, I can’t believe it’s been that long). I’m finally completely unpacked and I’ve made significant progress in rearranging rooms for greater functionality, like the long abandoned game room that now houses sleeping quarters for seven and the hallway-style “egg room” at the back of the house that’s been repurposed as a cowboy-themed nursery, I am finding that the interruptions of more emergent needs (you know, like water, pest control, power, and heat) are sucking up all the time I have to devote to this place. I grossly underestimated the amount of time that would be required in the upkeep of those basic services, and of course, the regular requirements of three kids, a husband, a career, an emerging business, and a full-time college course load. I guess that’s all a long way of saying… I’m behind.

The approaching spring months (and the arrival of new issues of some of my favorite decorating magazines) have my inspiration renewed, though, and with Husband being out of work now, I’m hoping to put a lot of effort into getting “done” with our settling in around here…as if I’m ever “done”, when it comes to settling in. A huge challenge has been that, for the first time, I don’t have much of a blank slate to work with. Our tenancy here is limited and temporary – just how temporary, though, we really aren’t sure right now. We’ll stay as long as we’re able, but there are circumstances of our being here that are beyond our control and we knew when moving here that it was only transitional. My ability to jump right in and get this house to look like a million bucks is slowed considerably by the challenge of working with what’s already here. While this place is easily three times as big, square footage wise, as our last place, it’s 1) already full of furniture and a hundred years’ worth of personal belongings to work around, and 2) the electricity problems and other issues make sleeping space and other room-use tricky. My two older kids (male and female) are sharing the open-air loft space above the living room for their bedroom, and despite the adorable cowboy bedroom setup, the baby is rooming in with us, because right now, the nursery, guest, and bunk rooms can’t be heated. These are all things that will be worked out in time, but it’s all been a complex puzzle of arranging things for easy(ish) family living along with being able to take advantage of all the charm and character of every spider-filled nook in this sprawling rural estate.

My favorite room, so far, is the cottage-look master bedroom – the first to get any real attention and that which needed the least amount of work to create a workable vision for. The existing pink walls and gold-hued details made it easy to flourish this space with a girly touch without too much of a fight from Husband… I mean, what else do you do with pink walls? Besides, this was a great place for the ornate (and mostly too heavy to move) furniture to stay put, and I just adore the way it’s arranged now. The fireplace in there is my favorite detail (though it's unfortunately counterproductive to try and use for heat), and there’s a secretary in the corner where I can sit and write while overlooking the horse pastures and… well… I’ll just have to take pictures and show you.

Working around what’s already here is harder than it seems. With the temporary nature of things, and until piles of money emerge from somewhere, we’ve got to make due with what’s existing… existing aged paint, existing outdated fixtures, existing cracked and warped linoleum, existing avocado green carpet and harvest gold sinks, etc. This has been as fun as it is frustrating though, and in the next few weeks, I promise to assault you all with photos of how things look around here now and plans for updates in the future. (Note to the family: No major changes have been done and no permanent changes will be made without prior permission, in case there were any worries in that regard. Also, we wouldn’t dream of drastically changing the look of the lodge, just some furniture rearranging and such, but we’re pretty much leaving this room alone in all its log-form glory. We will be looking to put some of our own funds into things like flooring and paint pretty soon, with permission, of course, and according to the family’s biggest needs and preferences).

Stay tuned for photos of what’s already been done and what’s to come in the near future: A cute update to the dark and musty basement laundry room, a re-purpose of the dining room/office/front porch turned to a bright and functional office-studio-creative space, and an overhaul of the back bathroom, which I’m extremely excited about getting to when the weather is warm enough to even walk in there without contracting hypothermia. The bones of that little bathroom are great, and with some paint, bleach, and elbow grease, I think we can make great strides in honoring the authentic vintage fixtures and charm in there.

As always, onward and upward. Photos to come… eventually. Hope everyone has a great weekend and...

Go Saints!