I arrive home, late at night, after having spent almost a week in the city of bridges.
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| Pittsburgh is beautiful. |
Excitedly, Adam walks me through the house.
While I was gone, he insulated interior walls (for sound reduction), HVAC ducting was installed, and the walls were sheetrocked.
Instead of being excited, I panic,walking through the house noticing all the things that are wrong.
- Framing is still missing here.
- And here.
- This doorway is too tall, too wide.
- We forgot a dryer vent!!
- THAT HOLE IN THE FLOOR IS IN THE WRONG SPOT.
I lay awake too long and worry.
Gorgeous reclaimed 10 inch wide fir planks from the now deconstructed Salvation Army, formerly located in downtown Missoula, are delivered by WasteLessWorks and Adam fastens them to the decks and porches. There are three!! We deliberate on how to finish them and then decided to just use them the way they are: square bolt marks, paint stripes, burn mark and all.
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| The view of the "Great Room" from our bedroom. The far doorways are the kid's rooms. The ladder leads to the loft. All upstairs. |
The sheetrock seems to take forever.
The weather turns cold.
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| Rain drenched fall leaves before dawn. |
It rains and rains. The wind forcing water into places it shouldn’t be and I frantically call for the roofer. Where is he? (Hunting, I imagine.) Finally, and not a moment too soon, the stack of reclaimed metal makes its way onto the roof. The galvanized metal, once a part of a mill, finally fulfilling its new purpose. I traded months of childcare for this metal. It was delivered by Heritage Timber years ago, and I’ve just waited. A stack of metal sheets that the kids climb onto and then over the neighbors fence, summer after summer.
We clean up the mess left after the drywallers "cleaned up" their mess.
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| Spraying Primer |
Adam covers himself from head to toe and sprays primer on the walls, the ceilings.
We buy coffee and deliberate paint swatches. The kids pick their favorites. We paint blocks of color. We paint them white again.
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| None of these swatches feel right. Darker ceilings in the bedrooms. |
Slowly one room after the other gains color. Yellow. Green. Lilac. Blue. Teal. Green. Terracotta. Cream. The whole rainbow, really.
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| Yellow Kitchen. Green Entry way. Lilac Guest/Maker Room. A still unpainted Piano Room between the kitchen and guest room. Most of downstairs. |
The downstairs bathroom is painted a bold copper wire, complementing the hand thrown sink I impulse bought from a going-out-of-business-sale my first week in Missoula, and carefully lugged from rental to rental.
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| I have had this sink in a paper bag for almost 10 years. I can't wait to see it being used. |
It is gonna be awesome next to the claw foot tub that was repainted gunmetal grey.
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| Gunmetal Grey Tub. Freshly primed claw feet. Look at that detail! |
A few paint touch ups are still needed here and there.
One white wall remains undecided.
We sweep, and sweep again.
My electrician buys me my own brand new wire strippers.
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| They are mine! MINE! (Ivory's room) |
On the inside, I’m doing a happy dance. I can’t think of a better compliment. On the outside, I coolly wire outlets, switches and lights. Adam moves through the rooms after me, tightening everything into place. We hand the kids screwdrivers and they attach faceplates.
We order appliances. Ceramic tiles. A door lock.
Sylvan helps us carry stacks of oak parquet flooring from the shop into the house. The flooring is the remnant of the Florence Building Ballroom remodel. Last summer, I happened to ride my bike past a builder’s moving sale and claimed it. The help of friends makes quick work of the stacks of flooring. The bundles of maple for the bedrooms, the first item from last winter’s crazy try state craigslist road trip, to move into our house. Four of us roll out underlayment and suddenly we are ready to install flooring upstairs.
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| Reclaimed maple floors in our bedroom. |
The largest puzzle I have ever played is in progress as we choose each piece of wood individually and lay them across the floor.
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| We have snow. |
So much has happened during the past two months.
It is hard to remember we are making progress.
Adam and I work all day, and then come home to try and manage to keep things semi-normal (HA!) and moving forward at the same time. The stupid waste oil burning shop heater is on the fritz again, a seasonal occurrence that takes up too much of Adam’s time, so far with no results. I make as many mugs as I can and am loading my last kiln of the season today.
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| Bozeman Made Fair! |
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| Flower Frogs! |
Two craft fairs are behind me and two more are coming up: The Missoula Holiday MADE fair and the Hip Holiday Market.
I wake up every morning with the heaviness of the to-do list weighing down my chest. I struggle with the daily guilt of juggling parenting with three jobs, and the frustration of not being able to do it all - ever. I hope that soon we can say we did the impossible.
