Ready for Painting

None of us can believe the amount of shi stuff we had in our two rooms. The truth is most of it is mine.  I didn’t go through my stuff, I just packed and moved it.

Looking from the dining room into the living room.

I did a major clean out of my studio a little less than two years ago, so I’ve been operating on the theory that I didn’t need to purge. But after the first day of hauling boxes out and stacking them in the dining room, I revised that idea.

 

I’m going to go through and weed out my materials when I move into my new studio. I think I need to take a serious look at my fabric stash. I need to make some serious decisions about what I really am likely to use, and give away the rest. It should go to someone who will make use of it.

 

Did I mention we are having both rooms painted? That’s why we moved out of both at the same time. We’re getting new carpet for Sam’s new room.

 

When we moved in this house, we didn’t repaint the room that would become my studio, nor, as you can see, did we remove the so-very-ugly wallpaper. And there just is really nothing I can say about the light fixture. I’ll finally have a studio with white walls, and proper lighting.

This is the same corner as in the "before" picture.

This is why we waited till after Christmas day to really start packing. There is a dining room table in there somewhere.

Now, here’s the thing that concerns me: Michael is going back to school tomorrow, Sunday. The painters are coming Monday or Tuesday. The carpet layers are coming the day after the painter. Michael helped move all this sh-t stuff out of these rooms. Sam and I are going to have to move it all back in by ourselves.

The unbelievable amount of stuff spilled over into Michael's room.

 

This is a massive job, no wonder I put it off for three years.

Moving the Studio: the Packing Phase

Picking up where I left off. . .

This brings us about up to the decision to move our rooms. Having the house to myself was almost as great as I had hoped, but it just highlighted my problem with a lack of space– especially with those two large bedrooms sitting not empty, but unslept in.

I’ve been telling my daughter since her freshman year in college that at some point we were going to have to talk about trading rooms. When school started this year we began talking about what she wants to do after graduation, and she wants to get a job and stay in the Bay Area. She wants to work a while before going to grad school. Somewhere along the way I began to get tempted to trade rooms over this winter break.

When Sam and I did talk about it, it became clear that this is a perfect time to make the move. So we jumped in and began packing.

Packing in progress

The thing you should know about the before picture in my last post is that it only shows one corner of the room. Every wall was stacked almost floor to ceiling just like that with an incredible amount of stuff.

We had my sister-in-law and her boyfriend over for brunch on Christmas day. The next day, Sammy and I went out shopping for light fixtures, blinds, shelving units, and other stuff.

On Monday, December 27th, we began packing and moving stuff out of both of our rooms. We got an estimate for painting, color swatches, carpet samples.

All of this was under the big table, and will be again.

By Friday, I had my old studio (Sammy’s new room) emptied of sh - stuff, and it was time to take down the shelves, cabinets, and bulliten boards.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

We moved everything into the dining room and living room. At different times on Thursday and Friday, you could hear one or the other of us call out, “Oh my god, there’s all this stuff in here, too!” I weeded out some books and gave them to my weaving guild, Southern California Handweavers Guild. Claudia, who manages the guild library came over to get them. She smiled knowingly at our piles of stuff in the living and dining rooms. She just recently went through the same process with her oldest daughter.

 

We managed to completely fill the living room, leaving a path to the back doors.

Kids Gone

My daughter went back to college today. Last year, Daddy and I went north with her, but her brother never got to visit her at school. So he went with her, to see her school, and help her move her stuff.
They got up early and loaded her car.

They headed out by 7:30. . .

. . .and were gone by the time I could get to the bottom of the driveway.

he’ll stay overnight and fly home tomorrow. It will be quiet again until next May – It’s much quieter with just one kid in the house. Now that my son has his driver’s licence, he comes and goes on his own, and he’ll be driving himself to school. . .

. . . smells like freedom!