project work at the little house by the marsh

I have failed to post about all the construction, remodeling, landscaping, swearing, crying, painting, scraping, digging, sanding, sweeping, drinking, and washing we have done here so far.

I want to.
I want record it all.
For posterity.
For me.
But - it seems that with the end of each project or task comes a new one on its heels. They have mounted up in a heap now, and I am so far behind that I became paralyzed.

Today I throw my paralysis to the wind. Who cares if I am starting in the middle (or the end?). Just start. Today is now.

ok. so.
Monday we started renovation on the one car attached garage.

Seen here on move-in-day last July. Ew. That isn't even our crap in there.

You see, one of my 'had to haves' when we were house shopping last year was a two car garage.
This house didn't have that. We liked the house anyway (what were we thinking.. more stories to come)

And so...

The (my) garage is now almost complete - we are landscaping (by we, I mean my hardy-wife - you can see her wheel barrow there) and still need electric.

Since I am too lazy to actually get out of the car to open a garage door. This winter I ran an extension cord across the back yard into the basement. I am so clever.





Converting the one car garage to a studio was also part of the original plan when we looked at the house.

Sadly this renovation has been idle all winter...


Happily it is no longer idle.
(seen here after being gutted- new rafters installed to allow for insulation and lofted ceiling -more pics coming as we make progress) 


I have lived with this enchanting artistic woman for ...well most of my life now... and in all this time she has never enjoyed a true studio space. In our last house we shuffled her from basement to garage to backyard to front porch to back bedroom. Never a space that was hers. Never a space that could really be called 'the studio'.

I have longed for many many years for her to have one (o sure... I bet she was longing too).

And so finally... after all this time -- well in a couple more weeks...

My love, my best friend, this amazing artist will finally have a space.
A space to be creative, and enlightened.
To paint, to draw, to cut glass, to sip wine, to chortle, to dream, to inspire, to be.

she picked me

My adorable wife was catching up on my sparse blog posts the other nite.
Noting how my last post fit so nicely into the 'my blog is my diary' concept.

Hey... she picked me...

to win?

On my commute into work this morning I concluded that some people seemed threatened by merging traffic.

Threatened to the point where they need to block other drivers from simply merging in from an on-ramp.
I believe this keeps other drivers from 'winning'.

To stay out ahead of the race, I notice some drivers will follow very close to the driver ahead so as to not allow any evil merging cars to get in front of them.  This assures them a front spot - well... ignoring the thousands of people already in front of them of course.

Others are so clever as to pull their cars to the right, into the active merge lane, to block the evil oncoming commuters from moving forward where they may find a spot to merge in ahead of them. This causes lots of people to get backed up, mucking up the entire merge process, and therefore is a big win.




To top off this mornings commute, a woman in front of me in a very large, high end (am i judging?...) gleaming white SUV tossed her cigarette out the window.
Really?
Really people?

the change?

Let's face it.
I'm 50.
Half a freakin' century. A century is a really long time.

So this weekend when I began a new demo/remodel project in the basement, I not only quickly realized I was in over my head - I got weepy about it.

Seriously.
Luckily... being 50 has the added advantage of being able to afford professional help in such matters.
My choices would be - a therapist to help me work through my issues, a doctor to prescribe some sort of hormonal replacement, or a handyman to do the job I am clearly too old to do.

I bucked up and hired the handyman.

My workshop...before the makeover (yes. its that messy... can you believe this is in MY house)

after pics to come...

my diary

Somehow I keep forgetting that the thing I love most about blogging is being able to look back and remember how I did something or when it happened.
So now - with over a year of sporadic posting I am completely confused.
It's really like the ultimate list. Weese LOVES lists.

Excuse me while I go review my previous early spring lawn posts.