And I love you, I love you, I love you, like never before…*

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*Lyrics from Eva Cassidy‘s Songbird. One of the saddest songs I could think of, yet somehow beautiful, and sweet, and true. I think this song has become a dreaded ‘wedding song’ so now I can ruin it for everyone by using as my ‘leaving the only home I’ve ever known’ song.

**UPDATE: Rain date for the yard sale will be June 2nd, same time, same place. Something tells me that 49 degrees and raining won’t bring the shoppers out in droves. **

FYI: LOCALS We’ll be having a yard sale/tag sale/garage sale next Saturday, June 2nd, from 9-3pm, so come with cash, and don’t be afraid to ask for a deal. Everything must go. Unless we can’t bear to part with it, in which case we’ll be making the fool-hearty decision to store it in the hopes of using in the future. So, yeah, come by and talk some sense into us.

Lilacs in full bloom, on sunshine-filled day a few weeks ago.

As the rain sprinkles down on the lush and green lawn, lilac scent still hanging deliciously in the air, I look around at the madness, clutter and chaos of our move, and sigh. We’ve spent nearly 6-1/2 years here, more than I can say I’ve ever spent in one spot – ever – and I can’t really imagine not having this spot to come back to. This house, this home, has come to represent a childhood dream realized: to have a place to call home was that dream fulfilled, and one that I am reluctant to give up.

read on…

And after 1986 what else could be new…*

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*Lyrics from Modern Woman by Billy Joel. I know this song from Ruthless People, one of the funniest movies of my childhood (and to be honest, it still holds up today – if you haven’t watched it, or even haven’t seen it in a while, DO, you won’t regret it). Anyway, I had a note to myself that this song should be used for the blog, and I couldn’t think of a better moment to use it than now. Plus, I’m in a total nostalgia place these days, so a bit of youthful indulgence in 80s song fare can’t be bad, right? Besides, the video I found is pretty amusing. Completely the opposite of modern in every way. 

BEFORE: The chairs were upholstered in some sort of silk-ish chantung fabric in a 70s chartreuse. In other words, disgusting.

So, do you recall that a short time ago I said that I had to let go of fixing up my mom’s condo? I had been slowly purchasing her things that I thought she would like, and that I liked, so that she could have her dream home. But, a few weeks ago I discovered that the two tufted, swivel barrel chairs that I bought (pounced on, I think is a more accurate term) for her from craigslist were not holding up so well. A combination of an unsupervised child and a pair of apathetic adults led to one of the chairs being cut into, with scissors, ON PURPOSE, for experimental amusement. Needless to say I was not amused.

read on…

Electric ladies, will you sleep? Or will you preach?…*

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*Lyrics from Janelle Monáe‘s latest single, Q.U.E.E.N., featuring Erykah Badu. I loved The ArchAndroid, and am very excited about her next album, The Electric Lady. She’s also singing about acceptance, equal rights, and religious hypocrisy – things that are perpetually on my mind, but especially since the local area just sponsored the annual Pride parade. Watch the video, and await with bated breath the next masterpiece by this gifted and unusual artist.

 

Above: this image inspired my initial plans for the master bathroom at Project W.

Things I’ve discovered: my House Beautiful subscription ended; Instagram is my preferred method of interacting with strangers; Pinterest is the most useful design tool I use.

After initial face-to-face meetings with my Project W clients, I started using Pinterest as a way of narrowing down my vision for their home, and as a way of discovering their style. Visual language, as it were, is tricky to decipher with only words – my use of ‘modern’ might mean clean and bright, while someone else’s might mean black leather and chrome – so Pinterest has been essential in determining what we all mean by what we say.

 

Above: when I say ‘modern English’ this is what I mean.

read on…

No more will I stand up in your way, I resign…*

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*Lyrics from Goodbye My Love by Emilie Mover from her album Mighty Time. I like this song. I even liked the whole album when I spotify‘d it. But I wanted to choose a song that I wouldn’t hear on a regular basis to reveal this bit news. I made the mistake of choosing a song I loved for my post about losing Bec, and I still can’t hear the song without crying. So, sorry, Ms. Mover, I don’t think I’ll be frequenting this song, beautiful it may be.

The Big House: SOLD.

So, recently I’ve been dealing with a slow, but painful transition. Maybe it’s a mid-life crisis, maybe it’s just par for the course when you set out to reinvent your life, maybe it’s a symptom of accepting that your parents (and yourself, thusly) are aging, and we won’t all live forever. Anyway, no matter how you slice it, I’ve been blue. I’ve been sad, and I’ve been just muddling through.

Now, there is good news coming, so don’t fret, but it is bittersweet good news. We sold our house. Perhaps I should have written that like this: WE SOLD OUR HOUSE! We are currently under contract, and, barring crazy circumstances, it looks as if we’re going to actually close this sale, and finally move on from this stage in our life. So, even though we adore the new owners (neighbors of ours who just happened by on a walk on one of those first few warm spring days), we are (I am) so sad to let go of the house.

read on…

It’s not a perfect plan, but it’s the one we’ve got…*

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*Lyrics from St. Vincent‘s Champagne Year from the Strange Mercy album. I still really adore this album, and this song really just felt appropriate for this post. I don’t think I’ve used it before, but I apologize if I have. Plus, we at the new job were all discussing that we felt that this coming year was going to be good. Perhaps not a champagne year, but, well, we could all use a bit of a respite from doom, couldn’t we?

DURING: Exterior, mid-new roof. I neglected to do before shots of the exterior because the place was surrounded by snow every time we saw it until we started.

So, I’ve been pretty absent from the blog lately, and, well, that’s because I’ve been pretty busy in real life. We got the pied-à-deux livable, and then had to immediately return to life in the Big House, in part because I was asked to help some clients design a whole house remodel. You heard that right: they found a fixer in an incredible neighborhood (on a coveted street) and wanted to just go for it. And they requested me. (Picture a small tear of gratitude welling in my eye.)

Having seen Dave’s craftsmanship and my design work in this kitchen and bath, as well as my entire house, they asked to have us come through the house and toss out a few ideas. You can’t imagine how overwhelming it is to meet new people, have brokers, builders, and other subs there, and to try to get to know someone’s taste/aesthetic/vibe right away. As we walked through the house, I got a feeling right away for what it should look like. For how it should be changed to meet the needs of a modern family. I felt like I could do a good job. And I was scared shitless.

read on…

Suzanne, the plans they made put an end to you…*

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*Lyrics from James Taylor’s classic Fire and Rain. James Taylor equals Massachusetts to me. And this song is sad, and mournful, and at times joyful, and really feels like an anthem for the week we all just shared. All my love to the families and friends of those we lost this week. 

Cape Cod, Race Point Beach, sunset, August 2011.

I’m from Massachusetts. All my life, whenever I’ve left the area where I grew up in Western Massachusetts, people outside the area have assumed that if I said I was from Massachusetts that I was obviously from Boston. Now, if you’re even a little familiar with Massachusetts, you’ll know that you could never confuse the two regions (western v eastern Mass).

Western Mass (aka The Pioneer Valley) from Mount Tom, August 2011.

First, there’s the accent – ours is vacant, or perhaps vaguely Northeastern American, but not distinctive enough to make fun of (sadly). Second, there’s the city part. I grew up in a rural, farming area, where ‘city’ meant a main street with three or four blocks of shops. My hometown is approximately 30,000 people large, and the town where my parents lived in when they were married (and we were small) was populated in the three digits. One general store, one main street, that’s about it. Third was the weather. We had vastly different storm systems, often cutting diagonally through the state, with the Eastern part getting rain, and the Western part getting snow, or Eastern Mass getting a hurricane/nor’easter, while Western Mass got nothing. They were coastal, we were in a plain between ‘mountain’ ranges (sorry actual mountain dwellers, we called those short hill-ish things mountains, so that’s what they are to me). My experience of Massachusetts set a mild rivalry between west and east – although we did grow up saying wicked a lot – and we all sort of understood that you could never lump us together as a whole. Not really. I mean, sure, we all rooted for the same sports teams (but so did most of New England), and we all voted the same way (not block to block, mind you, but when averaged out there is more blue than red, but not by much), but we were different.

After this past week of events in Boston, I’ve never been prouder to be from Massachusetts than I am now. read on…

I’m waking up, I feel it in my bones*…

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*Lyrics from Radioactive by Imagine Dragons from their album Night Visions. I’ll admit to not listening to the whole album yet. I’ll admit to finding this album by the ‘top album’ feature on iTunes. I’ll admit that this video is bizarre. This song is rather pop-like, and not my usual fare, but the lyrics, and the mood suited my own today, so I used it. Maybe the album will be a good one for spring runs, or spring cleaning, or spring lounging in the sun that is finally penetrating our atmosphere and shining down on us again. Let’s all have a listen on spotify, and report back.

Need I say more?

Spring. She took a long time to get here this year. Maybe she didn’t but it sort of felt like that these past few weeks. Probably because I’ve been living back in The Big House, and away from my normal routine with my husband. He’s never worked this much before (this is his busy season, so to speak, but this is ridiculous), and we’ve never had two homes to keep us apart. Jeff’s office is in the city (well, Brooklyn, but you get the idea) so he MUST be down there during the week. And I’ve got my own things are brewing back at home, working on a new project with Dave from Innovative for some amazing clients on an amazing house. I’ve needed to be nearby for time-sensitive decisions about plans, materials, budgets, etc., while Jeff has needed to be buried in his work for his own time-sensitive deadlines. So we’ve been experiencing the season apart from one another, and our own work has kept us from having any real quality time.

So, this spring, which is finally springing forth, is really a long time coming. read on…

If I don’t use words then each sound goes unheard…*

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*Lyrics from My Better Self by Tennis from their album Young & Old. I’ve listened to this song at least a hundred times (probably the entire album that many times) and I’m not sick of it, nor did I – until today, reading the lyrics as I sung along – even understand what I was saying. Which is ironic, given what the lyrics for the full song are. So, do this: listen to it WHILE you’re reading the lyrics, then read the lyrics (I noticed that some of the lyrics were not written down correctly – for instance, ‘what is it made?’ is really ‘what is innate?’ – I couldn’t find the official lyrics, so, sorry about that). I feel dumb for not getting it before. “Only the value given shows, that meaning comes and goes.” 

BEFORE: With the tenant's belongings I snapped a few pics to see how things were laid out so we could figure out if it made sense to move at all.

Happenings are happening all around me. My brother just got a job in Los Angeles – he found out on a Wednesday, and his gig started the next Monday – and he left NYC for 5 months. All three of my sisters are currently in temporary digs (and in various states of disarray) – though my younger one is more settled, in a way, than the others – and we just moved from our old pied-à-terre to our new one. Let’s call it the Pied-à-deux. Whew, it’s been a bit of a lot. I know that’s horrible English, but it’s true.

And, mere days after we moved our things down one flight I got a call to return to land of the Big House for a meeting with a new client. And three weeks went by before I could return to Brooklyn, and to my overworked, and overtired husband. See? A great big bit of a lot.

read on…

Don’t worry baby, it goes right through me…*

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*Lyrics from Judge Jury and Executioner on the album AMOK from Thom Yorke‘s new band Atoms For Peace. We all know how I feel about Thom Yorke by now (LOVE, in case you missed it), and this new collection of songs is stellar, as always. I’m not a groupie or an über fan, so I don’t know the inner workings of why this band was formed, or what’s happening with Radiohead… all I  know is that it’s good, and you should listen to it. And I apologize to Thom for using his lyrics to vaguely indicate that beans, cauliflower and curry cause digestive issues. The song is great, and the mis-use of his words? Ok, well, it’s funny, is what it is. So sue me. (Ok, don’t, but please, I mean no disrespect.) Moving on.

Chick peas, ceci, or garbanzo beans… whatever you call them, they’re adorable (and really swell in size from their dried state!).

And now, anther installment of Kitchen Monthly… On a day like today, here in the Northeast, we woke up (and went to bed, frankly) with a winter storm mucking up all of our springy energy. We are having to shovel (or, having your delightful neighbors do your walkway for you because they are soooo kind! thank you, lovies!), and deal with one more grey, miserable, drizzle-able day. So I thought, perfect! I’ll share that recipe today! It’s warm, cozy, and easy to make. Well, except for the beans, they take a while to soak/cook/etc., but you can used canned, so, you needn’t do that step today. read on…

Last night a DJ saved my life…*

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*Lyrics from Last Night a DJ Saved My Life by Indeep. You may think you know this song, but after you hear my tale you’ll forever hear this song differently. Plus, broken heart sort of sounds like dirty floor, if you’re singing along. Go ahead, put it on, and start reading. You’ll thank me. ‘Cause away goes trouble down the drain.

The laundry room, nearly besmirched by refuse, lives to see another clean day.

Want to hear a story? Of course you do. Tuck in, kids.

So, we’ve been backsie-forthsie since our move from our pied-à-terre to our pied-à-deux. More like I’ve been back, and Jeff has been forth. Just after our move (the next day, to be precise) I got a call for some potential design work with my favorite crew, Innovative Construction Solutions. Naturally I hopped on a train to make it back for the meeting. (I’d do pretty much anything for those guys, and I think they’ve shown that the feeling is mutual.) I joined my sister (who is watching the house for us) at home for the balance of the week, awaiting Jeff’s arrival on the weekend (we were meant to celebrate my mom’s birthday as a family on Saturday).

Well, full house Saturday (this time that meant four adults staying here), and a few loads of laundry, and several showers later and our plumbing main backed up. On a Saturday night. During one of the most stressful weekends we’ve had in years. We noticed as I was cooking dinner (our family dinner was postponed for various reasons, least of which were that Jeff was and is working non-stop on a project that NEEDS his attention in full), and I ran to the basement to grab a seltzer from our beverage fridge. I found myself suddenly asking: Why were my feet wet? Why was the slop sink completely full? Why did this happen during the tricky part of cooking risotto and while Jeff was completely busy? What caused all of this tomfoolery?

read on…