WHAT THIS IS
What is this? Just a shared journal about the process of a major home renovation. I am a chronicler by nature and by training (thanks, Mother) - keeping personal journals, travel journals, bird lists, trip lists, bucket lists... and of course I had planned to keep a journal about this rather major event in our lives. My dear friend Karen encouraged me to do so as a blog -- (WHAT????) Seemed most unlikely at first. I’m also pretty private, preferring to discuss politics or natural history or nearly anything else to my baring my personal life. However, upon reflection, it made sense to do the blog. Folks who are interested can keep up with the process without nagging me, and I don’t have to send annoying emails to people who may not be the least bit interested (or are too busy with more important things).
So….here we go. My intention is to try to write once a week -- which I've mostly been doing -- but the posting is just starting so there will be some catching up...
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| Me an Ed -- about a year ago |
THE HISTORY
Well, six years ago Ed and I met. Both of us had been single for quite some time, and both of us had just bought the house of our dreams -- Ed in Santa Fe after retiring from a career in Ventura, California. Me in the North Valley, after living in a very small, quirky, charming, one-bedroom condo in an infinitely quirky and often intensely irritating community. After seven years, I needed space -- in every way imaginable. I bought my new house because it embodied many things I love about the Valley -- the ascequia flowing for miles right outside my gate, the historic, funky, mixed neigborhood, the sandhill cranes and Canada geese flying over the house at dawn in winter. I bought it for the light and space. Ed bought his house outside Santa Fe because it had 5 acres of privacy, gorgeous views of the mountains, and most importantly -- A SHOP (which, by the way, was larger than my condo...)
Miraculously, in spite of all that, three years later we got married. And decided to live in Albuquerque. And resolved to find a home that would suit us both -- making compromises when necessary, but containing the critical ingredients for us both. These included -- quiet space, safe neighborhood, mountain views, valley trees, sandhill cranes, a dance floor/meditation/yoga/social space, a shop for lapidary and woodworking (NOT in the garage mind you), green built, good friends nearby, preferably within walking distance, a great kitchen. We spent a year or so shopping around -- it became clear that we might get what we wanted for several million dollars...which we don’t have. Plus we want it to be UNassuming, right?
Cut to the chase, we had the VISION - which had started with my thinking how nice it would be nice to sit on top of our portal of a summer evening, viewing the stars...or the mountains in the morning. The VISION submerged, incubated, grew a LOT. Ultimately, we had the ARCHITECT. Now, well now we have a major UNDERTAKING.
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The Pre-Vision Inspirational Portal, June 2014
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The Inspirational Portal with all the furniture moved out
to make way for Construction April, 2015 |
WEEK 1
THE DISCLAIMER
So let me be perfectly clear about something right up front. Any whining, complaining, and frustration communicated herein are expressed with full awareness that these are the problems of the privileged class to which I belong. I am not among the 50 MILLION or so who have recently become displaced refugees from war, brutality, famine, insurgencies - or the hundreds of millions more who continue to struggle with all of the above and meeting their basic needs every day. No, these are, as my wise and resourceful hair stylist and friend, Kelli proclaims ..."rich people problems".
MONDAY, APRIL 6
Day 1. Returned from a blissful week of beach vacation yesterday. Today: eleven, count them, eleven vehicles parked on our street. It looks a bit like Phoenix at rush hour. The porta-potty arrives at 0700 hours and lands smack at the end of the cul-de-sac, nicely framed against the wall between Charlie and Marie Chavez ‘s little house across the street and our home. Marie is not pleased...although she valliantly attempts gratitude when I knock on her door with a vase of flowers from our lilac bush which, of course, bloomed with lavendar magnificence for the first time ever this year -- just in time to be torn out by the roots. I reassure Marie that the porta-potty will be moved our way, and that we are obtaining permission for parking in the empty lot next to them. Our first day is mostly about the plants -- “please try to save that one” -- I am absurdly avoiding looking at the 30 foot tall pecan tree which we know is slated for destruction....
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Harvesting the lilacs
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TUESDAY, APRIL 7 - Of Rosemary, Pecans, and Crows
“What happened to the rosemary???” I wail. Our lovely bed of rosemary, which for years had brushed the bottom of our dining room windows with it’s distinctive scent...it’s gone. “Ummm.....I may have miscommunicated with the guys when I told them I’d transplanted what we needed...” Ed replies sheepishly. Ok -- that’s of course in direct contratdiction to what I discussed with Michael, our curly-haired gentle site foreman, on Monday...
Clearly, communication needs work in all directions. However...Ed’s rescued the flaming bush, the autumn sage, and the Mohave sage, all of which are clinging desperately to the soil in their new locations. The pecan tree is mostly down -- I try not to think of the coming outrage of the crows next fall, when they arrive expecting to find their ripened treats. We’ve always enjoyed the racket they make, chortling and calling encouragement to each other as they drop the pecans from some pre-planned aerial flight to our neigbor’s metal shed. If that manuvour fails to relinquish the desired contents, our kitchen skylight makes for a nice shelling platform.
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| Digging out the pecan |
THURSDAY, APRIL 9 - Auditory Torture
7:45 am. I am sitting in the car several blocks from our house, eating my oatmeal, listening to npr, watching the morning dog walkers begin their day in peace at the Open Space....
These insightful people have clearly NOT made the decision to fork over vast quantities of cash for the privilege of beginning their day inside a giant's molar undergoing dental surgery with a surround-sound drill. Well, it sure feels like that when the workers arrive with cement drills to resume their work on the walls of our house. I still don't fully understand the purpose - something to do with anchoring the new foundations to the old...I think. Maybe there is a metaphor therein for our life ...but in the meantime, the auditory torture has sprurred me to action - today, I'll move my little unused writing desk back to the place it first lived with me - my tiny, cozy Adobe condo at Cimino compound. The story of Cimino is a book in itself - it's enough now to say it was a refuge I created during a caticlysmic period in my life...and has presented itself as the answer to our current chaos. If it preserves my sanity and our marriage-it's been worth every penny and headache required to maintain it. (please remember the disclaimer…)
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The pecan stump -- this bugger took 2 days, 3 men, and a bobcat to remove.
But we have the wood saved -- sorry crows ):
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FRIDAY, APRIL 10 - The Sudden Evacuation
4:30 pm. Hey, if any of you read the insert on your New Mexico Gas Company bill this month you learned that April is national digging safety month. HA! Sweet irony. Around 1 pm today, Ed, Hamish (who is, among other things our accountant) and I were having an intensely focused discussion over our income taxes, due next Wednesday. Suddenly, the doorbell is ringing frantically - Michael, our forman, says "we gotta get you guys out now - gas leak - where are your pilot lights? We grab the dog, and hustle out to the empty lot across the street, joining some 15-odd workmen, none of whom, I quickly note, are smoking.The smell of gas, even in the open air...is overwhelming, the sound is like the air being released from a hundred semi-truck tires simultaneously. I hear the wail of approaching sirens ....I enter command and control mode - "Ed - go tell Charlie and Arthur (our adjoining neighbors) to get out! Hamish, for some reason - finds this hilarious (surely I shouldn't be expected to go myself?). Ed strides off manfully, while I fight down visions of our entire neighborhood blowing up. The fire truck arrives, followed by the gas company folks, who calmly get out and clamp off the offending hose - which by the way is just that - a RUBBER hose about 2 inch diameter.....I could have cut the thing with my kitchen shearers. So...crisis ended. Richard, our builder, attempts tries to look completely unfazed and says.."..well that's never happened before..." I guess that's why they are licensed and bonded and insured and maybe that's the worst thing that will happen on this particular journey???
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| The fire truck arrives |
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| Our gas line clamped off |
