A Room A Day #15

15. The Deck and Garage

Ack! We're heading to my hometown soon, as in we will be there at 2 p.m. but we forgot we wanted to stop at the mall out there, so I'm really rushing this last post. I'm also going to take advantage of the panorama function of my iPhone so my posts aren't full of tiny pictures.

I remember the deck being built in time for Easter when I was about six years old. The patio furniture excluding the swing were presents from my sister to my mother to help them spruce up the deck a few years back. The swing was a present from my dad to my mom for mother's day at least a decade ago. The big plastic trunk is meant to store patio cushions, but since all the furniture was left out for several winters in a row, everything is rusted and junky already. I don't remember where the fireplace came from, but I remember it being stored in the original garage (now the family room) and for the past ten years or so it's been on the porch. Sometimes my mom gets a hankering to weed or clean up dead vegitation, but it doesn't get farther than being thrown on the deck or blown around.

The safe in the photo below came from the first house my parents shared in another state. My mom insisted that it be moved with them when they moved to Iowa, and then to this house. The bottom is rusted out so it doesn't hold anything, no one knows anything about the keys or combination anymore, and the cement underneath it is deteriorating. To make it more convenient for my mom and her pets, they took out the screened door from the sliding glass door in the family room and replaced it with a magnetic mesh net that the pets can push through and it magnetically closes behind them. I'm not sure why my mother put up a small picket fence, because if the dog goes outside and is corralled in this area, it can't get to water, grass, or off the hot/cold cement.

 This is the inside of the greenhouse on the deck. This was the most recent mother's day present from two or three years ago. It looks like she was excited the first week, and started sorting her tools and making it a nice little place. But now there's a bedsheet on the deck, all the plants in the greenhouse are dead, and the tools and containers are all over the place. I worry about the pets getting into fertilizer or pesticides, but luckily it has a door on it.

This is the overgrown area between the family room (original garage) and the two stall garage. The sidewalk is pretty well hidden here, you can see the trellis is up but there is picket fence behind it because when I lived there my dog would dig out. A rusted wheelbarrow, and the rusted trash can caddy are back there too. I can never recall my parents using the city trash service. I understand the merit in keeping it for when they sell the house, but honestly? Who wants "Oh and the 20 year old rusted trash caddy is included!" Toss it, and if you feel so-inclined, buy a new one when the house is on the market.

 I've lumped in the two stall car garage as well, because I would love for this building to be cleared out and used as...I don't know, a garage. This is so much bigger than just the building though, because the stuff in here is very, very old, and therefore attached to much deeper memories and emotions.

 My parents actually brought this cooler to our house warming party over a year ago. I can't believe I drank anything that was contained in it.

Here are all my grandpa's tools that my dad took home after he passed away. All the bikes my sister and I ever used are hanging up. 

This is the old entertainment cabinet from the family room TV. When my dad got a bigger TV, my mom refused to let him throw it away, even though it's older than I am.

I remember when they built the garage. My dad was excited for the window, he was going to work in the garage all the time. I think it was also in the original plan to insulate the garage.

Here you can get a small glimpse of the junk they store in the rafters. Oh and the lebaron. The last time this was driven, I pulled into the driveway freaking out because it was smoking. This was an anniversary present from my dad to my mom, and she has never really liked it.

Okay, we did it. I'm off to shower and change for the trip. We'll make a couple stops on the way, and then...well we'll see. 

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A Room A Day #13 & #14

13. Stair Closet
14. Game Closet



















Like any house full of closets, ours have always been dysfunctional. In our condo now, our linen closet isn't great, and even though I blame it on the angled shelf design, I usually care enough to neatly place folded towels on the shelves about every other time that I put the away the laundry.

As long as I can remember, the hall closet over the stairs has been full of stuff. It was relatively organized for a few months, I remember tearing it apart and folding everything before putting it back. Everything was in there. Sheets, towels, blankets, old Halloween costumes,baskets, bags of craft supplies, and random scraps of unidentifiable things. This is how I found it a year ago.

Off the top I see a basket, sheets, a lamp and cord, pillows, stuffing, and the giant faux fur blanket that my dad made my mom for Christmas several years ago, I took the last year or so that I lived in the house, and then left it when I moved. The problem with this closet, is that it's not strictly vertical like most. To the right it stair steps up and I climbed up to get a shot but it was packed. There's actually a door that shuts off the stair stepped area, but it's crammed so full that the door is stuck behind the pile of sheets and the basket on top, with stuff spilling out of the side area. It doesn't look like it, but there are shelves in there.

The game closet (no picture, sorry) is between the back bedroom and the third, smaller bedroom. As a kid it always had tons of board games, card games, party games, and all of them were in varying states of disrepair and stages of lost pieces. There were also usually plastic grocery bags of random fabric scraps and craft supplies shoved into the cracks, packing it solid. If you wanted a game, you had to prepare for an avalanche. Just after I moved out, I think my mother went through it in an empty-nest rage and tossed everything. Then she called my sister and I to tell us what she had done hoping for a reaction. At that point, I hadn't really identified as a hoarder or COH, but I was so frustrated with my own issues that I told her I didn't care about the stupid games. Now I still don't care about the games, but I wish I had known better how to encourage her and use gentle reinforcement to diffuse the situation.

A Room A Day #12

12. Bathroom


















The main bathroom has always been in a transitional state. It's gone through phases of ivy, white, pastels, Americana, and most recently birdhouses. The floor is only about ten or fifteen years old, the window and shutters are probably about the same age. Everything else that is permanent, is original to the house.

The counter top is the late 60s early 70s style of pink starbursts and gold sparkles. The walls that you can see in the photo were painted and wall papered at one point, but the humidity from the shower brought down most of the wall paper. If I remember correctly, the wallpaper that is still up is taped. The wall section that is jutting out is from the attached bathroom off the master bedroom. The right side of the nook area is the shower and tub. The wall you can't see, across from the toilet and sink, is all built in cabinets that match those under the bathroom sink. At one point, I think my mom was considering going to a white-wash country style, so 50% of the trim down there and around the door is painted white...but nothing else.
 

I have cleaned the cabinets and drawers out several times. At some point, I'd go in for a shower, and look for something, shampoo, or something, and realize that there was shit from my parents dating days in there. They lived in a different state then! I found a wedding present of bride and groom figurines that held perfume and cologne that my mom hadn't seen since they moved there in 1989.

This bathroom, like the other one, is small, but functional. The smartest thing to do here is clean it out and paint it something neutral. The giant pane mirror is nice, but a new, double vanity would fit, and the built-in cabinets need help.

You might be wondering why the mat on the floor isn't closer to the toilet. It's actually for the cat. My mom had moved the cat's litter box into the cabinet, and put the mat there so she could clean her feet on it. This was such a horrible surprise when I visited last. The last place I would put a litter box, is the one place that company is sure to go eventually. I guess they haven't had guests in a while, and maybe it made sense to her. I hope this has moved, especially with the boyfriend's allergies.

A Room A Day #11

11. Third Bedroom


















The third bedroom is the smallest, and was the last room I lived in from high school until I moved out. I was in this bedroom when I threatened to move out at 18 while in college. I had packed up half of my stuff and found a place to move, but my mother told me if I was adult enough to live on my own I was also adult enough to be cut off.

It's where I lived when my boyfriend came over for the first time, while my parents were out of town. I was so embarrassed by the state of my room that I tried to keep him out. He eventually saw it and the rest of the house, and wasn't shy about voicing his surprise at how messy everything was. Shortly after that, I decided to do a make over. My parents were in Colorado for a few weeks, and I took advantage of that time.

The following is my bedroom makeover from about six years ago.

First I cleaned up. My room was very Oriental/Tae kwon do themed at the time.

Then I started packing things up. I dismantled this desk and meant to take it to goodwill or the thrift store, but I think it's probably still in my parents garage in pieces.

I put up three sheets of fabric on the wall adjacent to the living room, two black pieces on the ends and a piece of metallic bronze on the inside.

Then I painted the wall with the door and the wall with the window.

With several years and miles distance, I would have a slightly different style :) But at 18 this was amazingly empowering transformation for me. 

After I moved out, it took two weeks for my mother to hoard the room. If she knew I was coming over, she'd lock the door. Some time later, she moved most of her stuff out of this room, painted, and my dad moved in. The bookcase is one of a pair that I borrowed the year I lived alone. It was originally in the family room, but now it holds my mom's junk in this room, and the rest is my dad's bedroom. 

Thinking about resale, this room would be best as a guest room, library, or in-home office.

A Room A Day #9 & #10

9. Back bedroom
10. Closet



















Obviously this has morphed from "A Room A Day" to "Several Rooms Rushed at the Very End." I put this off long enough, and now that I know I'm going home Sunday, I feel that I should finish what I started before I see the house and give an update.

The back bedroom is one of the two that I have lived in while at home. This is strange, I thought I'd have more to say about it. Most of my childhood was spent in that room.I remember being in that room with my pets over the years, being young and having a constantly messy room. My mother yelled at me because she insisted that I clean my room before I went to a friend's house. I saw what she did in her room, and I grabbed a dozen paper grocery bags from the kitchen and stuffed everything from my floor into the bags and into the closet. This made her furious. I remember a few times she would have to sit me down and supervise me as I cleaned my room to keep me on task. So many times, I lost my shoes for dance. And never just on a random day, or before class. I could never find what I needed the night before a recital.

Now it's my father's in-home office and closet.

The photo above shows the "office" space in the back bedroom. The walls are ocean blue because while my dad was out of town for a job, my mom got a wild hair and decided she'd paint it for him as a surprise. She talked it up so much to herself that she didn't even finish the decorating (like most of the rooms). When he got home and didn't like it, she lost it. I recognize this tendency in myself now.  I'll plan a big dinner, or craft, and either I never follow through, or it was a silly idea that turns out to be all wrong.

The closet isn't shown in detail, but it's to the left here. My mom painted this too, and again I would either make the closet a useable storage/office nook, or I would organize and minimally decorate the room for guest bedroom-use. 

Still, my dad has several empty boxes lying around, and cables running askew. My dad isn't big on sunlight, and I think that clutter blindness affects him more directly than my mother. He's learned to live with a situation that doesn't make him happy. He can turn the lights out on the room and and the issue disappears, until he has to turn the light on in the morning. 

 Here is the direct view from the doorway. To the right is a piece of dresser set (different than the others in the master bedroom; the other pieces that match this one are at the shop). The framed piece on the wall is a 7" vinyl of "Sugar Mountain" that I gave my dad a few years ago. My boyfriend found it online and I printed the lyrics and my sister and I signed them before I matted and framed it all at work. Like the song says, "You can't be 20, on Sugar Mountain." It's hard to be an adult in my parents house.