So one of the "perks" you get as a military wife is the excitement of redecorating a whole new house every couple of years. For those of you who aren't keeping a running tally of my incessant moves, I'm currently working on the fourth house in two-and-a-half years. Don't get me wrong, I love that delicious thrill that comes with a new set of house keys and an empty house waiting for me to make it ours. But after moving an average of once every 7.25 months, the novelty of playing "This Old House" is finally starting to wear off.
For instance, I have stubbornly refused to hang any pictures on the walls this time around. I mean, it takes so long to figure out where you want the pictures...then you have to choose an arrangement...then you have to make sure each picture is level and evenly spaced...it's just so much tedious WORK! So, for now, all of our "wall art" is neatly leaning against walls all over the house, carefully positioned under the space it will eventually occupy. Whatever. I'll get to it...eventually. Probably right before the Navy decides we should move somewhere else. Sigh.
Oh, and another frustration: as soon as I have a house set up just the way I want it, we move. And, inevitably, our new house has a vastly different floorplan than the one preceding it. When we moved from Guam, we downsized dramatically. Our two-story, two-bedroom house with a garage and backyard became a second-floor condo, with a single bedroom, a "laundry closet", and a carport. I can't even begin to tell you how much stuff we were forced to give away. It wasn't such a big deal, though...until we moved into our current two-story, three bedroom house with a garage AND a shed and a big backyard. We're still figuring out the best way to use up all of the space we suddenly have.
Another thing...at least one piece of furniture dies a horribly violent death during each move. We had this big nice bookshelf in our dining room in Guam that was full of cookbooks and knick-knacks and photographs. It shattered--yes, shattered--into a million tiny pieces somewhere over the Pacific. We didn't even bother filing the mounds of paperwork to have it replaced...we just sucked it up and pressed onward. We never did get around to replacing it.
Anyway.
Our current house has an absolutely amazing kitchen. It's big and bright and airy, with a beautiful garden window I've filled with little white pots of fresh herbs, and a big built-in desk, and a big gas stove. I totally love my kitchen. But there's this big empty wall across from the desk. It's been driving me nuts. I just want to put something there so that wall doesn't look so...I don't know...lonely. I was sitting in class this morning, sketching (I mean, "taking notes"), and I suddenly realized that I was sketching potential furniture to put against that wall.
Side note: Daniel is THRILLED to have a garage and a shed, and is starting to collect power tools and woodworking toys at an astonishing speed. This is awesome for me, because if I ask him to cut me some wood for some random project, he happily goes out to the garage and does "man things." Like, he spent an entire weekend building these astonishingly sturdy plyometric boxes that he can jump on and off of for PT. They're far more impressive than they sound, trust me.
Anyway, over the course of the class, I sketched out plans for a bench with shelves and cubbies underneath the seat. I decided it would be four feet long and about a foot-and-a-half both high and deep. A six inch shelf would run the length of the top, for stashing photographs and candles and other girly things, and under it would be four foot-by-foot cubbies that I could slide junk baskets into. I figured I'd have Daniel cut the wood for me, and then I'd assemble and finish it while he's off at team training this June. I pranced out of class feeling very proud of myself...not only had I figured out how to fill up that empty space in my otherwise-perfect kitchen, I was going to make this piece of furniture all by myself. I know, how amazing am I?
Paul, I can just hear you laughing at me. Knock it off. ;)
Daniel's working nights right now, so Daisy and I spent the afternoon hanging out with a girlfriend, Kalia, and her pup Kinga. As I was walking Kalia out to her car so we could feed the dogs dinner, I saw a ton of random furniture spread out across the driveway across from us. It was kinda weird, because the occupants of that house moved away last week, and the lockbox was still firmly attached to the front door, so no newbies had moved in. It turned out that the people who moved out had left a bunch of random stuff in their attic and garage, and the contractors prepping the house for the next tenant hauled it out for the garbageman to take away. A couple of the other wives and I wandered over to poke through this pile of junk, and that's when I found it: a beautiful, solid wood bookshelf, the same shade as the rest of our furniture. I was so stoked! Amber and Lara and I hauled it across the street and into my kitchen, and I discovered that it fit that empty wall perfectly. Coincidence? I think not!
I spent the next hour cleaning it up and buffing out scratches and polishing it until the wood glowed. I'm still so totally excited about this totally serendipitous find...talk about killing two birds with one stone! I filled the bottom shelf up with all my cookbooks, and the rest of the shelves hold all the photographs and souvenirs and knick-knacks that have remained boxed up since their bookshelf arrived in pieces.
You know that feeling you get when you slide the last, elusive piece of a puzzle into its spot? Well, that's pretty much how I feel now: my perfect little house is now complete. Maybe the Navy will actually let us STAY here for a little while now!
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