Belben's Building Blog

2008-08-29T10:31:00.000-07:00

"It's going to be just like Christmas!" people said about the archeological adventure of moving my belongings from two storage units, Mom and Dad's house, and Laural's basement. Opening all those boxes and rediscovering the possessions that had been packed away for a year might have been like a holiday...if my idea of a suitable gift included a liquor box stuffed with pantyhose and orphaned socks.

It's been a week now sinces James took my hand and announced solemnly, "Well, Cathy Belben, my work here is done," loaded up his borrowed tractor and drove away, leaving me and Frida watching from the driveway of my now complete home. We are ensconced comfortably in the abode I've come to think of as The Nap Castle (after my fondness for naps and also because I can take one in nearly every room)--and by "we," I mean me, Frida, occasionally Kosha, and of course, Andale, who tolerates our presence.

Among the surprises of home ownership and residence in The Nap Castle is that there really aren't that many surprises. This is exactly the house I wanted to build and live in. This nighborhood is the place I want to come home to at night and walk my dog(s) around during the day. The people whose houses border mine are the people I want to greet, help, and gossip with. My only disappointments are that the on/off switch for the garbage disposal is too far from the sink and that black granite countertops are, in fact, hard to keep clean (I can hear you out there, people, you and your "I told you so's.")

I was fortunate not to have to invest in loads of new furniture--just a couple of beds for the guest rooms--and have spent more time and money on decorations, specifically art. My friend R.R. "Randy" Clark (a.k.a. Fishboy) has contributed two pieces so far--one with the lyrics from a Twineman song, and the other a three-dimensional art box "peep show" that continues on with my boobie art theme. He's also currently finishing a piece which combines my love of thrift stores, words, and humor.

The only way for you to see these (the cat, the dogs, the house, the art) in their full glory is to come on over. I won't even charge you--which is not the case with guests of my in-the-process-of-being-established bed and breakfast business (more on that at another time; suffice to say that I have two rooms, am currently advertising on Craigslist, and have some guests booked for this weekend!)

The house is done. The grass seed is planted. And this blogger is going to devote herself to some other writing pursuits (perhaps a collection of essays on how to get back in shape after a year of random, occasional workouts and restaurant meals). My work here is done.

This Has Been a Sycamore Woodworking and Building Production

Featuring...
James Bradbury, Contractor, and His Able Assistant, Jon Orange Supported in their roles by Jennifer Bradbury and Melissa Orange.
Gretchen Van Dusen, Set Design
Paul and Susan Belben, Executive Producers
Laural, Tom, Noah, and Dana, Props and Wardrobe
Diane Blake, Spiritual Advisor

Pippin, Nicky, Millissa, Aimee, Cameron, Herb, and anyone else at BEHS who put up with me and my scatteredness and occasional meltdowns over house-related chaos this year

Paula Wlaznak, Color Quality Control and Kitchen Design
(Remember how when you were a kid there was always that one friend's house you loved hanging out at because they had better food or a cooler car or whatever? Well, in my world, that was Amy's house...and it has extended long beyond just fourth grade. Her mom, Paula, has been welcoming me into her life and her kitchen for 30 years, despite my many attempts to corrupt her daughter. Highlights this year have included celebrating Paula's birthday on the beach in Puerto Vallarta and tapping her design-savvy brain for ideas about the house.)

John and Amy Boyle, Craft Services and Travel Consultants

(In the real world of Hollywood, Craft Services is the amazing spread of food and treats provided on set for the cast and crew. In my world, it's the people who open their homes and refrigerators, their backyards and guest rooms for me when I need food/shelter/a moment of puppy-free peace and provide me with hijabs when I'm having a bad hair day.)

Art McKinnon, Floor Manager
Art is aptly named. His ideas for flooring and tiling were creatively designed and beautifully implemented, and he was patient with me when I kept referring to Travertine as "tetrazzini." He and his crew installed the wood floors, slate in the bathrooms, entries, and shower, and tiled the baths. I am so excited by the use of natural stone and colors that feel northwesty and yet, still warm.

Ann Martin, Lighting (Village Lighting)
John Major, Painting

whoever the guy is that loaned James the tractor
Andy, Fred, Kathleen and the Crew at Buyer's Market

Note to Self

2008-05-28T12:49:00.000-07:00

It is my goal to avoid giving advice when acquaintances build their homes just because I've now done it and of course know everything. Instead I will present in one chunk ten pieces of wisdom I've accumulated over the past year and then forever hold my piece.

1. Find one place to live and then stay there. Moving around house-sitting and living out of a van isn't worth the trouble, and you won't save that much money, anyway. Mostly you'll just end up with a lot of mismatched shoes and a serious case of residential vertigo. This would be Priority Numero Uno on the "Stuff I'd Do Differently" list of advice for any future homebuilding projects I might endure (which I won't, because I plan to live at 1510 17th until my withered, dusty nonegenarian corpse has to be Shop-Vac’d off the sofa).

2. Take photos of everything and everyone involved in the project from beginning to end. This will remind you of the progress you've made, keep a record for future enjoyment, and document the faces of subcontractors who may or may not have left their cigarette butts in your driveway. Also, take a lot of photos of yourself looking harried and sloppy (I recommend a gray hoodie and paint-stained jeans) so that when you finally move in and are back to normal, you can take comfort knowing how much better you look now that the stress has ended.

3. No matter how cute they look in pictures, wait until AFTER you move in to adopt a giant puppy. In my case, adopting Frida when I did was not optimal timing, but because she was part of a package deal--the twin of Kahlo, who was adopted by my lifelong friend Amy and the nephew of Amy's dog Copan--it was unavoidable to bring her into my life when I did. Frida has kept me occupied and less stressed about the house, but she's also given me tendonitis in my elbows and made me appreciate the importance of carefully stashing anything chewable.

4. Plan some stock answers to questions because you will get asked the same thing over and over again. Usually I'm asked when I'm moving in, and I say "as soon as the house is done," which sounds smart-alecky, but I don't mean it to. I don't know when I get to move in, so it's the only answer I have. Lots of people ask "what's the [bedroom/kitchen/etc]" in your house like?" and I have wasted a lot of time describing these spaces, when I should have wiggled my eyebrows and said, "You'll just have to come over and see for yourself" wink, wink. At least if the inquirer was a George Clooney lookalike.

5. Stay busy, but not too busy. I believe that I took on too many projects during the course of construction. Or maybe it just feels that way. Maybe I wasn't doing that much, but it just felt like it because I was constantly packing things into boxes and moving them from place to place and driving around with a truck-cab full of costumes/athletic equipment/dog paraphernalia. But a healthy level of busy-ness can detract from the tedium of waiting, a lesson I failed to remember on Sunday while I sat for 3 hours preceding my leg of the Ski to Sea Race (I mountain-biked…see photo of this year’s disguise).

6. Craigslist! James has to cover his eyes when I back into the driveway, knowing as he does that I've been spending way too much time accumulating stuff for the house that has to be stored at the new place and is therefore competing with the table saw and assorted other construction items for space in the garage. Alas. I’ve saved a ton of money on a used washer and dryer, a set of patio furniture, a bed, lights, and a dog kennel. I also saved $275 by NOT purchasing the giant 6-foot tampon sculpture recently posted for sale.

7. Commit yourself to learning from the experience. Hard to say how knowing what a rafter tail, a jamb saw, or a belly board are will enhance my life in later years, but it’s fun to learn something every day...whether I want to or not. For example, I learned from my parents that I was conceived in this house on 14th Street, just three blocks from the new house. Cool...and ewww.

8. Take risks, be bold, and build the house you want to live in. Unless someone advises against the fire-walking pit in the living room or a swimming pool on the second floor, you're going to be happiest fulfilling your own dream of home, and not building a showplace that others will envy or admire. YOU are the one who will be living there...they'll just be stopping by occasionally for cocktails, in which case you can numb their disappointment about the ideas they pitched that you rejected.

9. Do the happy dance. I know no one wants to picture me doing my Elaine Benes impression on the balcony, but it has happened. More than once. When I’m not griping about waiting and making decisions and hauling my possessions all over town, I’m celebrating, and that seems like the smartest thing I can do.

10. Maintain your sense of humor. I genuinely believe that if you’re not laughing, you’re not doing it right—whatever “it” is. I am completely guilty of having lost my sense of perspective, and with it my smile, during several stressful moments in the last year, but ultimately, I’ve had a lot of fun and many laughs during this process—and I know that once I move in, they’ll continue to multiply.

Welcome to Einsteinia

2008-05-01T12:36:00.000-07:00

"If a cluttered desk is a sign of a cluttered mind, of what then, is an empty desk?" -Albert Einstein.

One of my favorite books from the past year is A Perfect Mess: The Hidden Benefits of Disorder by Eric Abrahamson and David R. Freeman. Freeman and Abrahamson's thesis is that we lift in an order-obsessed culture that overlooks some of the positive side effects of certain kinds of mess. We tend to ignore the fact, for example, that organization takes time, is often expensive, and may frequently create more problems than it solves. Messes can lead to creativity, greater flexibility, and in many cases, just make us happier because we're not spending emotional energy and time fixing, tidying, cleaning, and classifying when we could be napping, singing, and playing with dogs/kids/toys.

My entire life, or at least enormous portions of it, has been for the last 10.5 months, a perfect mess. Well, maybe "perfect" is a bit exaggetory. Exhibit A: I am now living in my 9th "home" (quotation marks entirely justified) since selling the condo in July, and that counts 5 days I spent sleeping in my van.

Exhibit B: Saturday, I tossed clothers from my dryer onto the floor. Sunday, I sorted them into piles (towels, running gear, unmentionables). Monday, I stepped over them. Tuesday, I chastised Andale for shedding on my favorite cords. Wednesday, I put them "away" (i.e. stashed them in the overstuffed Rubbermaid bins in my closet.

Exhibit C: In the past three weeks, I have adopted a 38-pound puppy (Frida, pictured), begun marathon training, applied for summer jobs, spent several nights babysitting my three-year-old friend Henry, attended Cinco de Mayo and Chinese-themed birthday parties, resumed writing group, organized a Ski to Sea team, and volunteered to portray FBI agent Monica Venus for my friend Jen's book reading in Seattle. Oh, yeah. And I'm building a house.

Or rather, James is, and he's doing a mighty fine job fine-tuning the ever-decreasing mess at 1510 17th. Among the accomplishments in recent days, the house now features a front porch complete with decking, a hand-crafted railing, and steps. In addition, there is a working doorbell, functioning lights in most rooms, switches and outlets, a garage door, completed wood floor and nearly-almost-entirely finished slate flooring (thanks Art and John O!) and the beginnings of travertine walls in my shower and tub.

In even more gigantic news, Elements Design delivered and installed my kitchen and bath cabinets (!!!), including my desk center and bookcase. I now have a home for my Rachael Ray Library and all those Weight Watchers cookbooks that don't seem to be doing any good. Viva la construccion!

The interior painting is complete, and I don't hate any of it. The front bedroom (henceforth known as The Sunshine Room) glows with a soft yellow, the back bedroom is the exact shade of Zen-green that I imagined, the halls and living room are a soft, beige neutral called Sand Pebble, and the kitchen is exactly the red-purple-cranberry that I planned. Only my bedroom, which turned out to be Advanced Uber Periwinkle instead of Soft Lilac Dream has given me any pause. But I'm getting used to it.

There is a lot of action at the house and in my life, action that is really accomplishment disguised as messiness. As Abrahamson and Freeman point out in their book, systems are often messy simply because "they lack one specific type of order, even though other forms are present in abundance." Certainly that is the truth with my life right now--the "one specific type of order" is certainly lacking, but there are plenty of little tiny systems being squared away at 1510 Donovan. Despite the messiness around me and inside my head, there is a light at the end of the tunnel. And if you drive by, you can see it shining.

The Rainbow Connection

2008-04-16T08:30:00.000-07:00

Now that the drywall has been hung, taped, sanded, and textured, I finally get to make some fun decisions about aesthetics instead of structure. Bored with rafter tails and railings, I'm ready to move on to the stuff that'll make the place look real purty.

I began with the patient, funny, and helpful Ann M. at Village Lighting, logging about five hours with her selecting lights and a doorbell. Most of the rooms and spaces have recessed lighting, but the dining area called for a decorative fixture, and the seven-foot island in the kitchen needed illumination, as well. I'm satisfied that the choices we made will be enhancements, rather than distractions, and I'm grudgingly pleased to have been dissuaded from purchasing this 40-votive "candelier" for the master bedroom. (As Ann and I discussed, by the time I finished lighting all the candles, anyone I was attempting to seduce would probably have fallen asleep anyway).

Besides lighting, the place is going to need some color, and I've wavered from my original plan to paint everything "warm neutral" (of which there are oh, about 867,459 varieties) and use some coloration in the rooms. Right now, the whole place is WHITE WHITE WHITE and it's not a flattering shade for either the house or its occupant(s). The place looks like a set from Grey's Anatomy, only without the added horror of a whiney Ellen Pompeo Eyore-ing about how Sheetrock makes her hair look straggly.

The kitchen cabinets are maple and the granite will be black, so I've (almost) chosen a rich red color for the walls. Red dye, or Color Additive E120, that tints everything from lipstick to Lexuses, comes form the blood of the cochineal insect, which is bred on and harvested from the broad, flat leaves of the prickly pear cactus. I like its dramatic genesis and its warmth, plus it will match the nipple of the nearly-naked woman on the painting I plan to hang in the kitchen. In her book Color: A Natural History of the Palette, Victoria Finlay writes of red's historical symbolic significance, "for many cultures, red is both death and life...red is anger, it is fire, it is the stormy feelings of the hearth, it is love, it is power." It makes sense for my house, then, where the kitchen is the planned center of the place--the heart, if you will--to have that room be red. Or Cranberry Craze. Or Salsa Splash. Or Blood of Bug. Or whatever.

Remember the Friends episode where Monica gushes about turning Rachel's former bedroom into a guest room with mints on the pillow? I have the same dream for the back bedroom, if only so I can have one room that remains pristine and animal-hair free. I've selected about 40 different manifestations of sage green, and hope to narrow it down to one before next Monday, when the painter plans to start. I'm going for a cool, calming, uncluttered space for guests to rest, which will be much more convenient when I actually have an extra bed for them. But never mind that for now--I have a mini Zen garden and fountain, a couple of soothing candles (Jan's Serenity, anyone?) and some paint. Or an idea of paint. What is more relaxing, after all, than nothingness?

The front bedroom, the one with the nook under the stairs where I'll have a little bed built in for the World's Cutest Nephew, will be pale yellow, assuming that I can find a pale yellow that actually turns out to be both pale and yellow once it hits the wall. The last time I used yellow, it looked like Colonel Mustard did it in the bedroom with a paintbrush. Finally, my bedroom upstairs will be some variation of pale lavender in order to match my seventeen purple throw pillows.

Underfoot, where it now looks like a cocaine factory exploded thanks to the drywall dust, I'm going to have a combination of oak (living room, kitchen, and hallway); carpet (stairs, bedrooms, study) and slate (entry, bathrooms). Art M. is patiently awaiting my decisions, so that he can begin on April 28th (OMG!), and I hope to placate him soon. James and I compared the oaks offered to the pine in the ceiling and came up with a combo that is complementary without being, as my friend Jill says, "too matchy-matchy." My main criteria for carpet is that it be spill-uponable, from both an easy-to-clean sense and a whoops-hide-the-sloshy-red-wine sense. I like the stuff I've chosen, and if blogs were touch-and feel, I'd show it too you now. But they're not, so I guess you'll just have to stop by and squish your toes in it yourself. Very, very soon...

Size Does Matter

2008-03-27T09:34:00.000-07:00

“The splendor of the rose and the whiteness of the lily do not rob the little violet of its scent, nor the daisy of its simple charm. If every tiny flower wanted to be a rose, spring would lose its loveliness.” -Therese of Lisieux.

The advent of spring is all about minutia—almost imperceptible changes that transform brown to green, bare to lush, dark to light, and gray rainy days to slightly less rainy, slightly less gray days. Observers of natural phenomenon engage in a careful study and recording of the gradual transition between seasons, noting the tiny changes on phenology checklists. Things like “rhubarb ready to harvest,” “robins return,” and “squirrel activity increases” are among the harbingers of spring signaling us that it’s time to put away the space heater and figure out which %^$&# storage unit is hiding the oscillating floor fan.

At 1510 17th, tiny hints of the season are appearing around the perimeter, in places where the ground isn’t covered by straw and cast-off boards. On the chestnut tree that will eventually shade the southeast corner of the yard, there are new buds; tiny purple flowers (liriope muscari for you floriculturists out there) are poking up next to the porti-potti (please god don’t let it be leaking); and the grass on the Donovan-side strip is rising to annoy-the-neighbors heights. Birds are chirping in the branches of the remaining alders, worms are squiggling underfoot, etc, etc, blah blah blah.

Inside the home, which you can see peeking through the still-bare branches of the trees, minutia is also being attended to. Now that the exterior is nearly done (with a few minor exceptions, such as decking and paint), details on the inside are demanding attention—mostly mine. Since I bounce hourly between impulsivity (book-buying, snack foods, web-surfing) and procrastination (flossing, exercising, decision-making), I’ve managed to put off selecting interior and exterior paint, carpets, hardwood and slate; kitchen countertops, dishwasher, oven, and microwave; shower and tub tile; interior and exterior door knobs and lock sets, and a dozen other things that I’m sure will pop up like crocuses over the next few weeks.

I have no magic formula for choosing all of the intricacies that will make home livable, although a concrete list and definitive budget are obviously a start. Now all I need is to extricate my derriere from the sofa and seek out the needed items. But wait, perhaps I can stall a little…surely there is a book that I need to read in order to make the best choices. Or at least shove the regular choices a little farther into the spring…

Enter Marni Jameson. Jameson, a syndicated home design columnist, covers the tiniest details of home decorating in her new book The House Always Wins: America’s Most Trusted Home Columnist’s Guide to Creating Your (Almost) Perfect Dream House. Besides having one of the longest subtitles in recent memory, The House Always Wins is a kick-ass guide to selecting everything from carpet padding to light bulbs. Jameson is funny and honest about her own home design challenges, and her suggestions are sensible, imaginative, and for the most part, extremely useful.

Among the best advice Jameson offers are reminders about designing a home that suits your needs and lifestyle FIRST, and then focusing on making it look nice, an argument that she maintains consistently until her chapter on accessorizing, where she recommends organizing books according to their type (hardback vs. paperback) and size. Up until this point, I had a neck-ache from bobbing my head in agreement. But give me a break—books organized by anything other than topic is insane. I won't have my Calvin and Hobbes Treasury intermingling with The Illustrated Kama Sutra just because they're the same height.

Jameson's book has made me thankful, actually, that I've postponed some decisions. With her advice, I have a better grip on how to choose hardwood floors, carpet, area rugs, and colors for walls, tiles, and the like. I also have some awesome tips on window coverings and maintaining houseplants, should I ever have the money to afford either. All things said, attending to the tiny details is one of the joys of homebuilding. And life.

Catching Up Is Hard To Do

2008-03-12T08:34:00.001-07:00

Regular blog maintenance has fallen off here at Belben’s Building Blog, due to an assortment of other activities clamoring for my attention. Thankfully, the action has died down a little and I can get back to documenting my growing homestead. I am happy to report that I survived my role as Ms. Sheena Brannigan in the BEHS musical, “Back to the 80s;” I’ve recovered (mostly) from financial woes brought about by an error at the bank; my mother has returned from the hospital with a shiny new hip, and I’ve lived through yet another change of address, leaving behind the indescribably greedy and unreasonable snots at Apex Management and the crazy neighbor next door who once woke me up at 3 a.m. screaming at his girlfriend, “You f---ing pissed on my f----ing barbeque, you f---ing b-----!!!”

Comfortably ensconced in what I hope will be my last temporary residence before the BM, I finally have some time to reflect on things like whew! I finally have a front door! instead of figuring out which cardboard box/storage unit/friend’s house contains my black skirt/hair dryer/cheese grater. Inspired possibly by my participation in the aforementioned theatrical production, I’ve been thinking lately about story-telling. A 19th century French writer named Georges Polti is credited with describing the 36 possible situations that can occur in stories, and with an OCD-esque flair, carefully explicated each one (see sidebar and links for exhaustive details). I'm fairly certain that at least half of these situations have been a part of my adventure in home-building.

Take, for example, situation #16, "Madness." In this situation, according to Polti, "Strong emotion causes powerful arousal, which leads to a loss of rational thinking...and the person loses all conscious control, effectively becoming a different person for a while." Anyone who has witnessed one of my I CAN'T MAKE ANOTHER %$#@&%$ DECISION meltdowns or my APEX PROPERTY MANAGEMENT-induced craziness can verify that this plotline runs steadily through my current world. It's occasionally accompanied by situation #34, "Remorse" and the infrequent but nevertheless gut-wrenching situation #33, "Erroneous Judgement."

Polti defines "obtaining" (situation #12) as "When one person wants another to do or provide something but the second refuses, [and] a tension arises between the people involved." Certainly all of my house-building so far has been an effort to obtain a new place to stash my self and my worldly possessions, and there is no other person involved.

My only real adversary is time. And while it sometimes feels otherwise, time is actually cooperating in my quest--the house is on-schedule. The garage floor has been poured, the corbels are nearly all in place, the siding almost done, exterior painting scheduled for Spring Break, the insulation has been installed (see photo at right of the gable in my bedroom), and soon the drywalling will be underway.

Yes there has been some situation #20, "Self-Sacrificing for an Ideal," but I've luckily escaped Disaster (#6); Fatal Imprudence (#17) and I'm not even sure I know what an Involuntary Crime of Love (#18) is.

A more fitting plotline for my project is #9, "Daring Enterprise," even though I am not "a young male who proves himself, perhaps by acts of ritual and rites of passage, as worthy of esteem and thus being allowed to belong to a higher level within the group," nor am I involved in an "adventure undertaken for the purpose of obtaining a beloved woman." Nevertheless, I feel like I've done something daring, even if the only ledge I'm hanging from is the one on the boundary between Able to Buy Groceries and Standing in Line at Food Bank.

Polti says that the Enigma (Situation #11) satisfies our need to solve puzzles, to experience a sense of completion and the reward of closure. "Resolving enigmas," writes Polti, "makes us feel clever and intellectual and hence more able to face life's other challenges." I'm hoping that I feel smarter when this is all done. I know I'll be better equipped to face challenges.

Love, Exciting and New

2008-02-07T09:10:00.000-08:00

Every Saturday night in the late 70’s, my brother Dave and I would watch “The Love Boat” and “Fantasy Island,” two programs that featured formulaic plots, cheesy humor (in the case of The Love Boat), predictable eeriness (Fantasy Island) and the presence of B-list celebrities. In both shows, the three story arcs led to complications, minor suspense, and ultimately, resolution. The Love Boat ended with, well, love, and Fantasy Island ended with the guests having either experienced their fantasy or some permutation of it and as a result, Learning An Important Life Lesson.

Valentine’s Day approaches, with its emphasis on love and fantasies, and here, I reflect on both. First of all, building this house, despite its making me a disorganized, cranky crazy lady, has given me occasion to reflect on the things I love about the homebuilding process. God knows I need to concentrate on the positive, what with four more moves (1 more apt, two house-sitting jobs, and the Big Move—aka the BM) on the horizon.

1. I love that I have amazing friends who offer living and storage space (see my future storage space above my garage at left), and continue to not only listen to me talk about this project, but actually ask questions about it. Their deep reservoirs of patience for my talking about the house amaze me. I know people who are currently growing whole other human beings inside their bodies who talk less about what they’re doing than I do. And these same people often ask me questions about MY venture. Wow.

2. I love that I have a builder who is conscientiousness and quality-obsessed, not because he gains from it, but because that’s just he way he lives. James is, of course, creating a signature product that will help him generate future business, but he never talks about that. His concern is doing the best work he can do to create the best house he can create. And he is sensitive about including me in the decisions about things, rather than assuming he automatically knows what’s best. Choices, however, are often winnowed down to Really Awesome and Really Super Awesome, so my decision-making often takes the form of two shoulders rising skyward. Choosing things for this project is like having someone offer me a large pizza loaded with cheese and delectable toppings and then asking, “Do you want that calorie-free or extra-calorie-free?”

3. I love that I live in a country where this entire project is even possible. Everybody just calm down for a minute while I get all political and American and shit. Last week, I attended a school assembly featuring guest speakers who (I wish I were making this up) told the girls in the audience that boys had a problem with their necks that made it physically impossible for them to not turn their heads when “honeys” walk by in tight pants and midriff-baring shirts. Think sexism isn’t alive and well in 2008 America? Guess again. (Here I am on the pull-down ladder to the storage space, modeling the same decidedly unsexy grey sweatshirt that I wear for most of my photoshoots at the house).

4. I love that I learn something every day, whether I want to or not. I learned from the roofers that hooks will be left in the roof for future repairers to snap their harnesses into. I learned that the “trap” in drainpipes is there not to trap wedding rings that have been dropped down the sink, but to prevent gasses from the sewer from rising into your house (apparently so we can claim to neighbors that in fact, no, our shit does not stink).

Yes, there are many days when I wish I could just Rip Van Winkle myself through the gloomy winter and the waiting and awake, refreshed and content (but without a beard) in the bedroom of my new home. I dream often of the day I won't be on a ladder, peeking out the hole in the shower that will be a skylight. It’s easy to forget that less than a year ago—just six months ago, in fact—I had an empty lot, a truckload of rotten boards that needed transport to the landfill, and a longer wait ahead of me. I love that I’m no longer waiting for the beginning, but for the end.

A Place in the Sun

2008-01-30T07:24:00.000-08:00

Long before I purchased the lot and began the actual construction, I had a visual image of the house that I wanted—its color, general shape, and the interior layout and features that would make it a comfortable and satisfying place in which to entertain my friends, take naps, and grow old. I had effectively made a number of decisions and eliminated many options before this house existed, and contrary to the messages constantly bombarding us about MORE MORE MORE BIGGER BIGGER MORE MORE MORE, this is actually a good thing.

According to Barry Schwartz, author of The Paradox of Choice. Why Less is More: How the Culture of Abundance Robs Us of Satisfaction, the multitude of options in our culture has led not to greater happiness (hooray! I can have ANYTHING I want!) but to greater stress, anxiety, busyness and overall unhappiness (#$@%!!! Who cares about GROUT?! I could be sipping margaritas in Mexico right now instead of worrying about this…or, as mi amigo John would say after watching hours of telenovelas, Que Lastima!). “The growth of options and opportunities for choice has three, related, unfortunate effects,” Schwartz writes. “It means that decisions require more effort. It makes mistakes more likely. It makes the psychological consequences of mistakes more severe.” It makes a home builder caught in the whirlpool of decision-making want to run away to Puerto Vallarta for the weekend.

As I read Schwartz’s book, I can identify with what economists call the “tyranny of small decisions”—the sense of being overwhelmed when our options expand one by one. I’ve really tried to avoid being tyrannized in this way: I try NOT to look at just one more catalogue; I’m not obsessed with finding the best, most cost-effective, most environmentally-friendly anything. Mostly, I’m satisfied with being able to select from a limited range of products for any given situation. I’m happy with the skylight in the bathroom, the gush of winter sun streaming through the veranda doors, the big front porch, the unexpected storage nooks above the laundry closet, bathroom door, and in the front guest room.

Unfortunately, while this system works for me, I still suffer occasionally from others’ expectations. With as many options as there are for windows, doors, cabinets, tile, granite, flooring, drip guards, fascia, light switches, Trex, siding, drawer pulls, ad nauseum, I’m comfortable NOT caring about some of them. We’re so saturated with choice in this culture that we’ve started believing that every choice matters, simply because it exists. I don’t think they all matter. I’m going to have a roof over my head (see photo!), a terrific neighborhood, a beautiful view, and an array of rooms in which to read, sleep, eat, and enjoy what in some places (Mexico, for example) might be considered Una Casa Muy Grande.

Happily, said Casa (name to be revealed soon!) is coming along nicely, and thanks to Mr. Schwartz’s suggestions for reducing the negative impact of mega-options[1], I was able to make a few efficient, satisfying decisions over the weekend. Saturday, at Unmentionable Big Box Store, I stood in the bathtub aisle, aglow with the minimal options before me. Having previously decided on a whirlpool tub, my choices were immediately reduced to 5, then 3 as I eliminated the two that were too large, then 2 more as one of the 3 was out of stock, then I called James. “Apron or no apron?” I asked. “Yes,” James replied. “Yes, apron?” “Yes.” Only one of the two had an apron. To Do List, meet Mr. Check Mark.

The greeter at Costco looked at me strangely when I asked for help “loading up some toilets,” but once we established that I needed assistance purchasing and not using them, peace was restored. The decision to buy the johns at Costco was simplified by the fact that they only sell ONE model, and it’s the dual-flusher I’ve long dreamed about. I then spent an hour grocery shopping with a flat bed cart heavy with commodes, parmesan cheese, a 32-pack box of Orville Redenbacher Lite Popcorn, a box of Larabars, and an 8-pack of Healthy Choice Italian Soup (0 Weight Watchers Points!). Talk about coming full circle.

I went to Another Large Box Store to purchase the Juno soundtrack (super fun), and ended up leaving with a receipt for a French-door LG fridge, a cooktop with telescoping downdraft, a dishwasher, and Season 2 of Veronica Mars on DVD (I’m in the liner notes! Check it out!). Belben, VISA, and a cold boring Sunday are a dangerous and expensive mix. However, picking out the appliances feels like an accomplishment, as does the progress on the house, not all of which I can take credit for: the roof is done (thanks Mt. Baker Roofing!); the ventilation and heating has been mapped out (thanks, Northwest Energy Systems!); the plumbing is underway (thanks, Ideal Plumbing!) and James and John O.’s work passed recent inspection and the house is ready to wrap (thanks, City of Bellingham!)

Although the enormity and number of decisions I’m making during the home-building process has driven the meter on my cranky scale all the way to eleven a few times, I remain hopeful and thankful about the project and the process. Choice, as Barry Schwartz has pointed out, is not just an overwhelming depress-fest. It’s an opportunity, too—for learning, self-discipline, self-expression, and “to be actively and effectively engaged in the world, with profound psychological benefits,” as a Schwartz says. And most days, I take time to remember that primarily, this opportunity is a gift, even it sometimes seems to be wrapped in a thousand layers and tied with a hundred knots.

[1] See sidebar for a list.

The Ark in my Heart

2008-01-06T19:37:00.001-08:00

Building-wise, not much has happened over winter break. James, Jen, and Evie June traveled to their homeland (West Virginia and Kentucky) for the holidays, and John O. spent a couple of lonely days on site by himself. I stopped by on an Evil-Knieval Memorial Visit with Rebecca and her three boys (ages 4, 3, and 2) and we spent 45 minutes trying to keep them from falling off the second floor onto Arlene’s house. Evan planted himself in a crawl space hatch, but other than provoking Cooper and Brandon to do the same and ending in one minor bump on the head, the visit was benign, if muddy.

Home developments that did occur over vacation were those of my own doing, as I trekked around town trying to finalize decisions. At Elements, Danny created a 3-D schematic of my kitchen, complete with a desk/mail-sorting area, dining room buffet, and an island that accommodates a 5-burner down-draft cooktop, a built-in bookcase for my library of Rachael Ray (thanks, Mom!), but alas, no space for a prep sink (sorry, Paula). I chose a simple maple shaker-style cabinet with bar handles, and while I’m sure there are reasons why I should/should not consider this/that/another option, my ulcer and I are not currently accepting commentary.

I expected the visit to the roofing place would be intolerably tedious and boring, but thanks to Tami S. at Mt. Baker Roofing, it was entirely painless. “I want black composite,” I told Tami. “Great,” she said. You can choose between Blah Blah 1 and Blah Blah 2.” “I’ll take Blah Blah 2,” I said. The end.

Also during vacation, I had to revisit the 40-pound lighting catalogues that include, among other options, a collection of fixtures by Mary-Late and Ashley Olsen and an overwhelming number of chandeliers, sconces, and flushmounts with ornate flowery enhancements (pictured is an item from the “Floradora” collection that is 38 inches wide and 64 inches high. I wish I were making that up). Since I’m not decorating a hotel for a geriatric Red Hat Club, I’ve made some simpler selections.

More than anything this break, I felt a bit like Noah. I spent a lot of time building a figurative ark-in-my-heart for an assortment of animals in need of care. I had two house-sitting jobs, one caring for Annie, a delightful feline who led me daily to the cabinet where her food was stored, rolling around as I filled her dish from a recycled yogurt container labeled “gold nuggets.” Just up the street, I looked after a rabbit with 24 names [note to self: do NOT spill bunny urine on one’s clothing ever, ever again], and I took care of my own dog for most of vacation, a responsibility that included an overnight visit to the doggy hospital for a urinary tract infection (a bargain at $1060!). Dr. Ed Sullivan (really! That’s his name!) is as compassionate, intelligent a vet as a dog-mom could hope for. Also, Dr. Ed, enjoy that next trip to Hawaii.

In the continuing saga of my relationship with Amy’s family of animals, I also spent time at Dr. Ed’s with Amy and her Bernese Mountain Dog, Copan, who suffers from a form of cancer sadly common to his breed. Copan accompanied Amy to Seattle when she was battling her own cancer, and it was hoped that a stem-cell transplant might cure Copan’s disease. It’s hard not to believe that Copan’s role in Amy’s life isn’t part of some karmic plan—he comforted her, and now she him. My dad says “animals are sponges for pain,” and while we hope that our pets don’t literally absorb our disease, there’s no denying that they recognize our struggles and are compassionate caretakers.

As my house grows, so does my animal family. Amy’s cat, Andale (on-duh-lay) has come to live with me (pictured watching LOST with me—I think it’s the episode where Sawyer loses the ping pong match). Andale’s placement alleviates Amy’s allergies, his and John’s ongoing battle for territorial dominance, and my need for feline companionship nap buddy. Happily, John and Amy are settling back in Bellingham, just in time to celebrate the 30-year anniversary of mine and Amy’s friendship and the holidays (including a Frida Kahlo Christmas Eve at the Boyle’s new home—that’s me in the middle channeling Fride through my unibrow). Fostering Andale is an honor and a joy—my sense of displacement and homelessness is assuaged knowing that I can provide a haven for another.

Ho Ho Home for the Holidays

2007-12-07T10:25:00.000-08:00

The home-building process has begun to seem a lot like being pregnant (I imagine), what with all of the anticipation and questions, although thank god, no one tries to rub my belly or tell me about their episiotomy. But much like a pregnant belly signals to the world that a woman is a walking repository for horror stories and advice, outing myself as a homebuilder apparently signals to the world that I need/want advice. And like the suggestions collected by my fertilized friends (hi Jessica!), some of the proffered wisdom is useful, some of it useless, and some just bizarre.

Advice That Doesn’t Apply

So far, my favorite piece of advice came from a former neighbor, a retired gentleman who advised me, “Watch your contractor like a hawk!” and then proceeded to enumerate the many errors his own contractor made. “He would have put a window in the wrong room if my wife hadn’t been onsite everyday!” I’m sure the builder really appreciated the supervision. I worry that James has to steel himself for my every-other-afternoon drive-bys, and the idea of watching him like a hawk is absurd. He's one of the most meticulous, conscientiousness people I know, and it’s hard to imagine him putting a nail out of place, let alone a whole window.

Advice That Isn’t Needed

I think I’ve been spoiled by James’ and Jon O’s tidiness, because people are always telling me to make sure my contractor keeps the site clean, and I pretty much have no idea what they’re talking about. The lumber is always neatly stacked and the scrap pile contained when I stop by. The only garbage I’ve seen is neatly secured in regularly-emptied cans on the corner of the lot. Oh yeah, that and the piles of crap that the neighbor’s dog leaves behind. I know there are job sites littered with nails, cans, wrappers, and cigarette butts. I’m thankful mine isn’t one of them.

Advice I Can’t Forget, Part I

At the Large Box Store that Shall Remain Unnamed where I went to look at appliances, I was greeted by a VERY helpful sales rep (code name: Dwight) who first words to me after learning I’m building a house were, “Can I give you a piece of advice?” How else could I respond? You might as well,” I told him. “Everyone else has.” Dwight proceeded to advise me to plan my kitchen around the appliances. Apparently, some folks build the kitchen and its cabinetry, and then try to squeeze in the electronics. Amazing how many ways there are to screw things up.
“So, how big is the pass-through between your island and your counter?” Dwight asked. “Because you want at least 30 inches. You don’t want to get everything built and then find out that you can’t open the reefer door. I assured Dwight that I had paid a professional designer thousands of dollars to create a floor plan that would, in fact, allow plenty of room for maneuvering, including opening the “reefer” door. Dwight went on to point out in exquisite detail the pros/cons/superfluities of what might have been every appliance Big Box Store had to offer until I was ready to fake a seizure in order to escape.

Advice I Can't Forget, Part II

James and Jon O have been visited at the site by a neighborhood wanderer, a long-haired fellow named Gordy who claims to be a Native American Shaman. It's not my place to question anyone's ethnic heritage or abilities associated with it, but my guess is that any visions Gordy has can be attributed to that funny, sweet, smoky smell emanating from his person. In addition to being a shaman, Gordy has also professed to being a "broker" and told James and Jon O he estimated he could sell my house and only take $250 in profit. Again, Gordy may be a "broker," but I think he has more experience brokering items that he can carry in snack-size baggies in his pocket than he does houses. Gordy hovered around the site for a few days, but has since moved on, claiming to have been adopted by the Tulalip tribe. His nuggets of real estate wisdom will have to enrich someone else's life now.

Advice I'm Actually Using
From Brubaker: leave out the wall between the upstairs hall and the study to create a more open space because it's easier to put a wall in than take one out; from Anna: put a gas bib for a BBQ on the back porch and have hot and cold water taps in/near the garage for car-washing; from everyone: put in more electrical outlets than you think you'll need, because it's much cheaper to do now than to try to add them later; from Gretchen and Sarah Susanka (the author of The Not So Big House): design a mail-sorting center in your main living area; from Paula: get rid of the skylight in the master closet or else your clothes will fade and have unsightly pale squares on them (which would totally mess up my faux fur vest).

The Hardest Advice to Follow

Many folks have urged me, sensibly to do things I'm considering NOW, as opposed to after the house is done. "If you don't do it now, you won't want to spend money on it later," is the usual refrain. This is difficult for me, due to my PhD in procrastination, but I'm trying to follow it. I know I'll never put pull-down stairs in the garage later, so it'll get done now. I'd love to save money on windows and flooring, but again, I'm hardly going to rip the place apart later, so I'm going to for the best my budget allows. I figure appliances will have to be updated later, so I'll get the best I can afford without getting kooky about it (I can live without a TV in my "reefer" door).

It's easy to get frustrated by the suggestions, the decision-making, my current housing situation, the cold weather, the muddy worksite, the long wait, but I know what an amazing opportunity I have, and how much there is to be thankful for this holiday season--a wonderful family (including adorable nephew pictured left), good friends, wonderful pets, lots and lots of books, and the chance to be here, now, living and learning with people I love. Laural reminded me not long ago, "You have a good life." And that's perhaps the best advice all: to remember that, everyday.

A Kitchen Full of Corbels

2007-11-26T10:39:00.000-08:00

From the corner of 14th and Larrabee, I look up the hill and three blocks away, rising above the incoming fog and Arlene’s house, I see my new roofline. It’s a steep pitch, not one I’d want to be harnessed to on a rainy November afternoon, but in only days, James and John O. will begin nailing plywood to the rafters, encompassing the second floor and creating the sloping 11-foot ceilings that I hope will make the master bedroom and study seem lofty and light.

I can almost imagine joining them atop the roof, where the gabled dormers now point skyward and the corbels from James’s corbel-manufacturing operation in the kitchen are soon to be installed. In this imaginary scenario, I strap on a tool belt, crank the Indigo Girls’ “Hammer and Nail” and frame up a wall. This is, of course, an alternate universe where I’m not afraid of sharp whirling blades of metal, and where there’s no mud or sneeze-inducing sawdust. Also, there’s an on-site massage therapist, a sparkling clean powder room with fluffy towels and a flushable toilet.

I don’t mean to suggest that I think the builders’ job is so easy a cavewoman could do it—only that like many seemingly incomprehensible, complex tasks, now I’ve seen it broken down in bite-size pieces, I can imagine performing one of the steps, preferably one that doesn’t involve electricity, heights, sharp tools, or getting wet. I never thought I’d ever rip down a building, but when it came time to demolish the shed on the lot, its manageability became real when chunked up: empty the contents, rip off the doors, bust out the walls board by board, enlist strong boyfriend to shove the whole structure over, and then load up the remnants and cart ‘em off to the dump.

In education, we call this process task analysis: break the objective into parts and then teach the parts. I like the methodical, can-do nature of this approach: maybe you can’t cross a chasm in a series of small steps, but you can cross a mountain that way, and it sure as hell is the only way a house gets built. It is, I believe, the only way to do most things. My most-favorite recent read is a non-fiction compilation by Sasha Cagen called To-Do List: From Buying Milk to Finding a Soul Mate, What Our Lists Reveal about Us. For years, Cagen collected to-do lists of all sorts from people around the country, and in her book, categorizes them (relationships, work lists, goals, life-lists, etc), introducing each chapter of lists with an insightful essay before presenting the lists, each with a brief explanation from its author.

“[Lists] represent the brain on the page, in its most raw form. They are not only reflections of our mind states, they’re also often tools for action and decision making. The represent the conversations that we have with ourselves but don’t often voice to others,” Cagen writes, and I know EXACTLY what she means. I am a fanatical list maker. Mostly they’re just to-do lists, but I also list stuff that inspires, motivates, enlightens, and delights me about life. Recently I made some lists about the house-building process, and for once they have nothing to do with accumulating pay stubs or signing lengthy, notarized documents.

List #1: Music to Bruise Your Shins To: The Plywood Playlist.

This is the soundtrack that I would choose if they made a movie about building my house, although clearly one would have to be both brain-damaged and drug-addled to do that.

“Little Room”—The White Stripes. Short, thumping, wickedly cool song about being in your little room, thinking up shit. I’m going to have lots of little rooms, and I’m going to think in every single one of them.

“Hammer and Nail”—Indigo Girls. Besides the obvious, this is just a really cool song about getting up and getting ‘er done.

“My Song”—Brandi Carlile. Brandi kicks ass, and this is an ass-kicking song. It makes me feel powerful, daring, and paradoxically calm about making big decisions and committing huge quantities of money.

"Right Moves”—Josh Ritter. Am I making 'em?

“Keep Off the Grass”—Todd Snider. I don’t have any grass, just mud, straw, spauls, and piles of crap from the neighbor’s dog, but that isn’t the point of Snider’s song, which is basically that we should just do what we want regardless of the advice/instructions people are giving us about how to live or where to put the laundry room.

“She Don’t Like Roses”—Christine Kane. A sweet song about a woman’s bedroom and the smell of lavender in her home. Pretty much the opposite of Snider’s entire portfolio.

List #2: Mrs. Winchester on Prozac, a.k.a. Stuff I’m Going to Do When I Move In

1. I’m going to make sure my guest room is really mellow and calming, like one of those rooms you go into at the Chrysalis to get a massage—you know, a little fountain, soothing music, lots of flowing fabrics, and the scent of rosemary.

2. I’m installing a swing on the beam between the kitchen and the living room, I don’t care how weird my mother thinks it is, and then I’m piling up all my throw pillows and soft stuff, and I’m going to invite my willing friends over to swing into them and take ten years off their lives. (So in the coming months, if I ask if you want to come over to swing, don’t take it the wrong way).

3. Before I get furniture in the living/dining room, I’m going to recreate that scene from Dave Eggers’ A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius where he and his little brother have sliding races down the length of their wood floor. I hope my not-so-little brother will join me.

List #3: Stuff I’m Thankful For

1. A really cool, meticulous, safety-oriented (note to Jen!) builder with a reservoir of patience for my indecision and complete lack of spatial intelligence.

2. Bellingham=bike lanes, Boundary Bay, Bikram Yoga, Ben Mann, Village Books.

3. Awesome family and friends who lend out their space for my collection of craft crap, lent their power before mine was hooked up, made my 40th birthday memorable and amazing, and support me in yet another dramatic, time-conusuming endeavor.

The last list could go on for much longer, but it seems like a good place to end for now. Plus, no one's probably too interested in my List of Favorite Paint Colors and Book Organization List: Room by Room. Suffice to say, I'm thankful for pretty much everything.

Vagabondage 101

2007-10-31T17:34:00.000-07:00

Despite the speed at which things are progessing at 1510 17th, what with the walls and temporary electricity and all, I've finally reached the terminus of my rent-free life. The house-sitting gigs have stopped appearing, probably because word got out that I kill people's houseplants and let stuff fester in their refrigerators. It's too crappy outside to sleep in the van, even if it weren't full of boxes and the not-so-vague odor of dog. And despite many generous offers, couch surfing for the next eight or nine months sounds like a really super way to screw up some friendships (guess what? I'm not much of a conversationalist at home! I'm a secret slob! I get up at the ass-crack of dawn!) So I've decided to rent an apartment--not so that I can think Deep Thoughts and construct some National Book Award winning memoir about paint chips and subflooring, but so that I can be gross in the privacy of my own space.

It's hard not to get excited about the house, since there's progress everyday--joists, trusses, studs, and beams are organized and installed, replacing the mud and air with structure and permanence. James demonstrated the purposefulness of the kitchen windows, crouching in front of the void where the sink will be. When I was asked what he was doing--why the squatting? he said, "I was imagining about where you'll be when you wash dishes." I replicated his play-acting throughout the house: here I am greeting guests at the front door! Here I am vacuuming the bedroom! Here I am tripping down the steps from the kitchen to the living room!

I'm able to maintain a state of subdued ecstasy simply because there are so many other things to be excited about. My group of friends that's been together 30 years gathered to celebrate Amy's 2-year triumph over cancer; I'm busily planning my birthday party; I visit daily with Laural's parents, who've dwarfed the Vanbulance by stationing Eldora II in the neighborhood for their annual month-long visit; and I occupy myself, as always with good books (see sidebar), great music (Josh Ritter at the Showbox; Brandi Carlile at the Mt. Baker); a fabulous, fun boyfriend, and as always, work and work-outs. I've also been doing lots of writing and recently posed for a photo for Village Books' Community of Readers campaign--look for me and Kosha soon in the Cascadia Weekly.

My energy is truthfully devoted to the impending end of my vagabondage: this weekend I'll assume the lease on the downtown apartment of my co-worker, Pippin. My mind is busily occupied thinking about how I'm going to get my storage unit open without my entire life's possessions crashing down from the mountainous pile towering above the DO NOT STACK ABOVE THIS LINE line. The apartment is small, but I would gamble it's got at least a hundred times the square footage of the Vanbulance, with the added bonus of toilet and shower facilities. I'm also looking forward to reuniting with my pillow-top mattress, having a place to hang my clothes, and of course, a potential reunion with Stinky, The Cat Who Traveled the World, although there's a good chance that he'll continue on with his adoptive family (a.k.a. Charlie and his children) in Sedro-Woolley. Shh...don't tell, but I might adopt a cousin for him. I've been checking out the options at Whatcom Humane Society. A warm fuzzy pet would be a great addition to my new home. Also, the cat box can help me gross it up.

My Psychology of Space

2007-10-13T10:46:00.000-07:00

Former New Republic journalist Jake Halpern, a self-described “bad homes correspondent,” writes in his book Braving Home about people who endure unusual circumstances, remote locales, isolation, danger, and bizarre circumstances in their desire to lay claim to and maintain their own slice of space. Like the folks who insist on living in Whittier, Alaska, a tiny settlement reachable only by a special tunnel and consisting mainly of a 6-story “apartment” building. Or the Hawaiian hermit housed in a shack surrounded by molten lava. Halpern’s treks lead him to conclude that home is “not just a place, but a work in progress, something built and rebuilt over the course of a lifetime…home is simply who you are.”

My home isn’t anywhere near a lava flow or a flood zone (believe me, I know; I’ve paid for confirmation), but it will definitely have a dose of the unusual…or least the individual. Despite warnings that I must think about resale value, or that I don’t have enough storage space, or that laundry room “should” be near the kitchen/garage/back door, or that this/that/the other thing is going to be too expensive/too strange/too trendy, I’m planning the house that I’m going to live in based on extensive experimental research that I’ve conducted over the years by moving so many times that my mother has erased holes in her address book under my name.

My quasi-methodical research has led me to some conclusions about how I live and how my house is going to accommodate my habits and quirks. I realize this is a luxury, and I’m thankful every day for it. I also realize that in six weeks or eight months or seven years, I might totally contradict myself and question why I ever built that ten-story faux lighthouse above the garage. Pre-forgive me. I am large. I contain multitudes.

Conclusion #1:
Like a lot of people, I live in the kitchen. I dump my stuff there, make my phone calls there, conduct my home office from there, watch TV from there, feed myself/my animals/my friends there. Therefore, the kitchen is the center of my new house. My friend Paula W. just helped me redesign the space to include a larger island, more counter space, a prep sink, a nice corner bench for guests to lounge on while I cook, and a groovy built-in desk. I’m more excited than ever to live there! Paula’s awesome. (That's me at work sketching out the kitchen plan).

Conclusion #2:
Many of my ideas about home have been influenced (big surprise) by the homes I’ve lived in or known, so I’m trying to incorporate elements of those. I’m not going to have a Murphy bed a la my Hollywood studio, but I am going to have a day bed built under the stairs, kind of like the under-the-stairs spot in my Grandma’s old house. And the bench seat in my kitchen is also in homage to Grandma Westcott’s house, as are the built-in bookcases and dining room buffet. Now if I can only find a light-up map of Washington State for the wall.

Conclusion #3:
There’s a chance I could go all Mrs. Winchester on everyone. Not because I plan for endless construction in order to appease evil spirits, but because I’m including some secrets within the walls…a swinging bookcase, a hidden door, and some nooks and crannies that would make Nancy Drew proud. Why? Why not?

Conclusion #4:
Having removed at least five football fields’ worth of wallpaper in my immediate past (including an end zone’s worth of Rocky and Bullwinkle paper), I’ve overqualified to make this pronouncement: wallpaper is wrong and its manufacture should be prohibited. I don’t care if it’s made from the delicate inner thigh skin of endangered albino Siberian tigers or second-growth bamboo dyed with organic dingleberry juice. No house of mine will be befouled by it. I’m busy picking out paint colors, thank you very much Cameron M. for bringing me those samples from Behr’s Disney collection. Bibbiddi Bobbiddi Blue™ will be perfect for my guest bathroom.

And I'm getting closer and closer to actually having a bathroom. The first load o'lumber arrived this week, the site has been meticulously prepped by James (see photo of him explaining to Evie June what a "spawl" is), we have temporary power, any day now the bank should begin releasing chunks of money.

As for an estimated "done date," I dare not guess. Like those Hawaiians living with the uncertainty of eruptions and lava flows, and the Alaskans secluded behind that tunnel in Whittier, I'm living with the strange sense of not knowing when I'll be home. In the meantime, I'm content living with the knowledge that when it is ready, it will be everything I've dreamed of. At least for now.

Spacing In and Out

2007-09-18T13:25:00.000-07:00

While it’s true that I’m only technically homeless and I don’t really live in a van down by the river, I am living much of the time out of my van. House-sitting means 1) cable TV; 2)kitchen amenities; 3) a soft bed and 4) a parking space. But house-sitting is not home; as grateful as I am for these temporary shelters, I miss being weirded out by mystery condiments in my OWN fridge. The same oozy, sticky bottles and jars of unrecognizable goop are somehow less gross when they’re mine.

I miss having a place to store my clothes. Even if the hundred-pound closet doors in my condo did roll off their tracks and bonk me on the head and fingers, the system far outranked the Rubbermaid boxes I’ve been dragging from house to house. I miss folding t-shirts and rolling socks into compact little balls of tidiness. I miss hanging my garments by color. Also, where the hell is my brown A-line skirt?

I don't believe that I'm plagued by hardship, just a little scattered. My shoes are like foster children, all placed in different homes--a few at Charlie's, a basketful in the Vanbulance, some in mini-storage (probably buried under that #%$@%$ brown skirt). My cat lives in one house, my dog in another. My snail mail comes to Laural and Tom's, my email to school, except for some that comes to cathybelben@gmail.com which I can't access at school because of the filter, nor at the current house-sitting job because they don't have a computer.

Thus, these are my constants: work, the Vanbulance, my cell phone, my friends, and the gym. My home-in-progress doesn't count because it is anything but constant, although some of you philosophers out there might argue that change is the only true constant. I check development every day when I go to pick up my mail, marveling both at how cool it is to watch my plan materialize and also at how many steps there are in the process.

The good news is two-fold, 1) the foundation is done! and 2) standing on a mound of dirt that approximates the height of my second story, I can see Bellingham Bay. It's very tiny and far away, but it means I'm not wasting money on the veranda that'll stick out of the master bedroom. Also, I'm now aware of the view that I'm "stealing" from the neighbors. I'll try to feel bad about that.

James told me that building a house means a constantly shifting sense of space and perspective, and it’s true. After the excavation, the footprint for the house seemed really big. Then the footings were poured and it shrank—so much so that I thought they’d made a mistake reading the plans. The forms went up and the rooms expanded. The forms came down and the rooms seem small again. According to James, this illusion will continue: the studs will go up and the spaces will enlarge, then the drywall and subsequent shrinkage, etc. I hope someday to have a house that’s just the right size. Like Goldilocks, only without the bears. And with lots of closet space.

Stung!

2007-09-07T14:45:00.000-07:00

I waltzed around bragging for 27 years that I had not been stung by a bee for 27 years. I am uproud of the pride with which I did this, because practically the next week, a bee flew into my bike helmet and stung me on the ear. And just when I thought it was safe to go back to my bee-boasting, I stood on my lot yesterday chatting with James, felt a pinch on the back of my knee, squished the pincher with a reflexive snap, and spent the next four hours trying to ease the sting with a combination of arnica gel and Cabernet-Sauvignon.

Not so easily alleviated the sting issued by the neighborhood anti-welcome wagon brigade, a committee of two who took it upon themselves to visit James while he was knee-deep in rebar and inform him, in great detail, how sad it is that this new house is taking the place of the lovely, green, empty lot that they evidently thought of as their own little private slice of weed-infested Eden. Never mind that this project is 1) James’s first ever lead construction project; 2) my future home and the first house I’ve established on my own, and 3) the culmination of the talents, plans, and dreams of half dozen people. One woman’s idyll is another’s eyesore, apparently.

To be fair, things aren’t so pretty right now at 1510 17th, unless your idea of “pretty” is a hole in the ground, a silt fence, piles of dirt, yards of rebar, foundation forms, and a mishmash of cryptic neon paint markings, string, buckets, and junk (including this little red piece of crap wheelbarrow that someone just wheeled over and left on the property a couple weeks ago). In the eyes of this beholder, it goes way beyond pretty, all the way to full-on smoking hot. Jessica Alba hot. George Clooney hot. Matthew McConaughey-naked-on-the-beach hot. I’ve never seen so beautiful a pile of dirt and its accompanying hole in my life. I think you’ll agree, even if certain cranky neighbors whose window-crack views of the bay may or may not be obscured by my house don’t.

The hole, in all its glory (hee hee), is gradually disappearing, and the alleged view-blocking about to begin. I returned home yesterday to find the street between Larrabee and Donovan clogged with equipment—trucks and trailers, a cement mixer and a pumper. I parked and disembarked the Vanbulance, clapped my hands, and ran across the street in my school clothes to watch as the footings were poured. I destroyed my nylons and got my pumps dirty, but it was totally worth it to watch as the foundation of my future home began to take shape. The event wasn’t even ruined when I stood near a neighbor who was watching the pour and said to his four-year-old daughter, “These big machines are really noisy, huh?” and she replied, “Yeah. This is what we have to listen to ALL day.”

Across the street, my less-amnst-encumbered and more welcoming neighbors, the ones providing me with a home base(ment), a mailing address, and a place to store my voluminous collection of rubber stamps and crafting supplies, celebrated the progress with smiles and excitment. "It's not just negative space now," Tom said, referring to the disappearing hole. "It's a positive one!." And I thought, yeah, it is. Despite the bees...and the b-words.

My Name is Matt Foley

2007-08-25T16:50:00.000-07:00

A confession: since last writing, I have unfortunately formed an opinion about toilets. After committing myself to Just Not Caring about some issues of the homebuilding process, I’ve had the good fortune to be homeless(ish) and shacking up in an assortment of other people’s houses while they go places like Michigan, New Zealand, Rome, and Turkey.

Fun part of house-sitting: new and exciting liquor cabinets! affectionate pets! CD/DVD libraries! Not-as-fun part of house-sitting: alarm systems. Quirky light switches. Canoe-shaped futon beds (a.k.a. “canutons”). Low water pressure. In a previous life, the one where I owned a home and a pillow-topped mattress of my own and a toilet that (mostly) flushed with great vigor, I could take a shower in less than five minutes.

I don’t need my new house to be equipped with the Turdbuster Ten Thousand™, but I’m not going to be reducing my environmental footprint in the bathroom. I’ll bicycle to the Co-op for recycled sponges and organic locally grown tomatillos, but I am NOT flushing three times for every number two, and I won’t take a shower that requires me to wash my hair one strand at a time under a lethargic, lukewarm trickle.

That isn’t going to be so much of an issue for the next week, since I’m between house-sitting jobs and will be living in a van down by the river. Seriously, the Vanbulance is stuffed with every ridiculous thing I seem to think I need to cart from one temporary housing situation to another, including a dog, a mountain bike, seasons 1 and 2 of The Office, a giant suitcase with a broken zipper, a box of craft projects, a basket full of shoes, a jockstrap and a pair of sliding shorts (not mine), and 3 bags of non-perishable groceries.

Luckily, I’m able to station Vivian across the street from the construction site, plug in to Laural and Tom’s house, and keep a close eye out for any progress at 1510 17th Street. Exciting new development #1 was the delivery of the porti-potti on Wednesday (no flushing issues there) and then, early Thursday morning, the rumbling arrival of the excavator.

Emerson said that you should “write it on in your heart that every day is the best day of the year,” and I embrace his enthusiasm, but let’s face it, realistically, some days are way better than others. Thursday was definitely one of those days. At nine-thirtyish the crew arrived—Ron and Chris with their earth mover, and James with his safari sun hat, his blueprints, and the building permit neatly encased in a plastic envelope.

Across the street, Noah prepared an address sign to help future subcontractors and curious friends, and Dana and I tripped to Farnandia to inform Cooper, Evan, and Brandon that the big rigs had arrived, and we trouped back up the alley to set up a viewing gallery for the show. The lineup was impressive, and as the hole got bigger, so did the crowd. If I’d known fifteen years ago what a man-magnet an excavator is, I would’ve driven one around instead of spending all that money on grooming supplies and acid-washed jeans.

The day soon evolved into Testicle Festival 2007, with 9-10 men and boys watching as stumps were plucked and earth moved. The only man not impressed with the events was one of the neighbors, who seemed a little miffed that my house is going to block his negligible quasi-view. If he wants a better view, he might start by getting rid of the broken-down mini-van full of crap that’s been lodged in front of his house since 2001.

Excavation went about as expected: we didn’t unearth any ancient Indian burial grounds or underground springs or beehives or anything. The digger did collide with a sizeable chunk of rock in the area that will be my living room, so thanks to Planet Granite, there will only be two steps down from the kitchen instead of three. I think I can live with that. In fact, at this point, living as I am in a cramped van that smells like dirty shoes and dog, I’m freakin thrilled.

Entry Systems and Exit Strategies

2007-08-03T21:30:00.000-07:00

“This is where your house actually begins,” James said, tying a fluorescent orange bow around the log he’d dragged into the location of my future front door. The question now is whether that front door (excuse me, “entry system”) will be the Ashurst, the Prestwick, the Arcadia, or the Barrington.

Now that the city has officially granted us permission to build (a bargain at $16,452, including the city’s $5 “technology fee” and a four dollar and fifty cent charge for the state building permit), the project has lost a degree of hypotheticality and my life has evolved into a happier shade of chaos (I call it Quivering Sunburst). My condo is sold, most of my belongings are in storage, and the 47-page lumber package bid has finally arrived (see photo). Now I can focus on truly important issues--this week: doors and bathroom fixtures for my invisible house.

“This is your homework,” James told me last Wednesday as we sat at the Colophon (I had the gazpacho—fantastic!) He passed me a worksheet with teeny-tiny blanks into which I was to write the model number and price of all of my appliances, lighting items, bathroom fixtures, and doors. Despite my difficulty selecting an Entry System, choosing interior doors was pretty easy.

“I want solid wood doors,” I announced, perhaps envisioning a future requiring excessive privacy from houseguests or stepchildren. “None of those ticky-tacky hollow things. I want a door I can throw a hairbrush at.”[1]
James shook his head. “They don’t really make solid wood doors anymore. Too heavy.”

“What?!”

“Well, they’re solid, but they’re not exactly solid wood,” he explained. “To really understand, we need to take a trip to the door factory…”

Ten minutes later, more fully educated in the manufacture of interior residential doors, I re-surveyed my options, leaning towards more traditional 6-panel “Jefferson” or “Plantation” or “Elite Virginian” or some such thing but opting for the classy but simple “Cambridge,” with its “ovolo[2] sticking profile.”

Choosing bathroom features was tougher, in part because of tricky trends like tempting sinks that sit on the counter like shiny fruit bowls and lots of slick glossy catalogues from European companies that make a visit to the john look like a day at the spa (only without the paper bras).

Here’s the dealio: I want a toilet that flushes with precision. I don’t need a bidet or a special Japanese toilet seat that shoots water at my undercarriage. I don’t care what brand it is as long as it’s not the same lidless jobs they put in prison cells. Self-cleaning would be swell, and so would a toilet with a seat that automatically slams down and frightens men when they don’t put it back in the proper position. YOU KNOW WHO YOU ARE. But that’s just my little fantasy.

I cannot get excited about bathroom sinks. In my world, they are repositories for toothpaste globs and spiders that I’ve had to squish for frightened houseguests. YOU KNOW WHO YOU ARE. I don’t know or care what “undermount” or “self-rimming” means. Both sound suspiciously like something from Penthouse Forum, so no-thank-you, I’ll just go with the vessel that fits in the hole on the counter and holds water. Taps, toilets, tubs=basics are a-ok. I’ll spice things up with purple towels and sassy shower curtains.

Oh, yeah, and I might spring for a whirlpool tub in the downstairs bath. It won’t be long before you’ll find me there, I hope, with my aromatherapy candles and my soothing bath oils. Just peek behind the Cambridge. That’s the entry system without the hairbrush-shaped hole in it.

[1] As a curly-haired pre-teen, I struggled to achieve the popular feathered look of the early 80’s and at one point, blamed both my hairbrush and the bathroom door. See photo.
[2] I don’t know what it is, either.

I've Got a Lovely Bunch of Condiments

2007-07-17T09:38:00.000-07:00

Of all the not-so-brilliant ideas I’ve had, this one might be might not-so-brilliantest: in the midst of packing, I decide that a great way to get rid of my extra baking supplies would be to do some cooking in between lifting heavy boxes of MISC and FRAGILE. It’s nearly 90 degrees outside, I’m sweating from the exertion of carrying my tiara collection to the garage, and I decide to heat the oven to 450 and bake 2 coffee cakes, two dozen muffins, and strawberry shortcakes for Charlie’s baseball team.

Aside from the obvious, this was an absurd plan for other reasons. Of course every recipe required at least one item that I didn’t have, so on top of greasing pans and whisking eggs into oil, I had to schlep over to the store to acquire some ingredient that I wouldn’t use all of. My muffin tins and cake pans were packed, so I had to buy disposable aluminum ones. I was one egg shy of a coffee cake, had no milk, needed a bottle of almond extract, and spilled my last two teaspoons of vanilla. All just to avoid packing a box of biscuit mix and a pound of flour. Thank god I learned my lesson before deciding to use up the remnants of 47 different condiments lining my fridge door. I don’t even know what Spicy Tahitian Baja Tomatillo Marinade is.

When finished, I had a dozen dirty bowls and utensils that now not only had to be packed, but cleaned as well, and my kitchen counter, floor, and stovetop were coated with a sticky batter that could probably hold 747s together. Also, the muffins totally sucked. If you’re ever thinking, “Gee, my mouth feels overly moist and saliva-enhanced. I think I’ll dry it out with some surgical gauze and a cotton ball,” STOP RIGHT THERE. Call me and you can have my dry, flavorless “carrot cake” muffins. I also think they might be useful for absorbing wet spills, and possibly as doorstops (I call them Muffin Stops).

In addition to the baking, for some bizarre reason, I also decided this that it I should get a head start on my homemade Christmas gifts (!?!?), so I’ve been copying photos and organizing ideas for a handmade book for my nephew, who likes to read (see photo). Charlie and I are training for a triathlon, I’m learning to keep score for baseball (and therefore, watching Mariners games almost nightly to practice my F7s and BBs and 5-4-3s), I have the details of three and a half house-sitting jobs to manage, an all-school book read to organize, and a column to write for Writers on the Rise.

Plus there's this whole other "new house in progress" business. I've got to select locations for every outlet, light switch, and fixture in the new house, choose toilets (dual-flush or standard? DoI need this "one-of-a-kind life-enhancing bath product" "Washlet" feature?), meet with James occasionally to talk about subcontractors and examine things like sewer drain access. Also, since my permit application was submitted, I've begun receiving mysterious advertisements from businesses offering everything from new furniture to on-site sanitation facilities. NEW HOUSE?! YOU'LL NEED TOILET PAPER! CHECK OUT OUR SELECTION OF BRAND-NAME TISSUES--EXQUISITE QUALITY AT AFFORDABLE PRICES! WE CARRY ONlY THE SOFTEST, MOST ASS-FRIENDLY PRODUCTS!

Multi-tasking? I’ve got a PhD.

Thus, the REAL reason I’ve fended off offers to help with the packing—I don’t want to reveal what’s really going on over here—the baking, scrapbooking, and boxing interrupted by periods of napping, spectating, and the occasional trip to Lake Padden for a swim and a dog-dunk. NONE OF IT in any particular order. “Oh, Belben, you’re so random-abstract!” my psychologically-minded friends might exclaim. But the truth is, I’m not. I’m one of the most linear left-brainers on my alphabetized list of linear left-brainers. I just have a lot of lines going at any given time, and they’re aimed in a hundred different directions. Right now, one leads to Discovery Park Mini-Storage, one to Goodwill, one to the Dumpster, and the others? They lead, in loop-de-loops and curlicues, into the future.

Two Weeks and a Couple of Three-Day Follow-Ups

2007-07-07T11:47:00.000-07:00

I’ve spent a lot of time at the liquor store this week, and not just because it’s within walking distance and I have hours of unsupervised time on my hands. It’s because they have good product at the WSLCB—and it comes in sturdy cardboard boxes that are free for the taking. This is my focus now—find good boxes, accumulate newspaper, pack everything I won’t need for the next six to eight (?) months and stash it wherever I can. Which, sadly, amounts to quite a bit of stuff, begging the question, if I can live without it for the next half a year, why not just live without it for good?

Why, indeed! Because a life without a squeezable squeaky nun, a glow-in-the-dark Virgin Mary and a collection of vintage perfumes from the late 80’s would not be a life worth living. Seriously, though, how many times have I moved (do NOT answer that, Mom) and thought to myself, Why on Earth do I own all of this shit?! I have one bed, but 11 sets of sheets. I have two tables (dining, coffee) and (I’m not making this up) I own 17 vases. A couple hundred rubber stamps, 337 CDs, 3 vacuum cleaners, a set of South Park finger-puppets, a collection of tiaras, and—surprise!—a truckload of books, including an entire Xerox box full of what can only be categorized as “death books.”

If I wanted to dispossess myself of my unnecessaries, all I need to do is station them on the sidewalk in front on my house, without even a sign indicating FREE, because apparently, placing items on the edge of one’s property is universal for TAKE ME. This was my experience with the cord of wood I stacked at the perimeter of 1510 17th Street after the woodcutters chopped and chipped an alder, chestnut, and assorted shrubbery on my lot. At least now I don’t have to worry about giving all that quality firewood to my friends. Thanks, thieves!

As I watched the tree people clear the building site, a few curious neighbors stopped by. Cooper, Brandon, and Evan were fascinated by the machinery. Arlene, as welcoming and friendly as ever, reassured me that the noise was no bother, as she’d been away on her morning walk to the Y. Only one woman had anything dream-crushing to say, commenting, “It’s so sad to lose a vacant lot…I didn’t even know the land was for sale.” My reply, that she would be getting a really cool neighbor in exchange, didn’t seem to console her. Evidently, she’s the glass-is-half-empty sort.

Emptiness surrounds me—my closets and cupboards, bookshelves and bathrooms are slowly being drained of things I can live without, and my lot is nearly void. But my life is full—of baseball games, bicycle rides, swims at Lake Padden, friends to have fun with, and best of all, it’s full of anticipation. I can’t think of anything more intoxicating.

The Tattooed Toddler: A Solstice Story

2007-06-27T12:37:00.000-07:00

Ummm…an apology. If you or someone you love lives anywhere within a six block radius of my (current) home and were awakened at 7:45 a-freaking-m on the first day of summer, I humbly beg your forgiveness. That was me in the parking lot at 12th Street Village with the blaring car alarm and the string of expletives. Because, apparently as a cosmic rule, one’s anti-theft system, the one they haven’t learned how to deactivate, is guaranteed to go off in the early morning when one is late for a two-day babysitting gig for friends who expect to catch a crowded ferry to the nether-regions of Canada.

Unable to operate the Vanbulance, I hitched a ride to the home of my friends Ryan (4) and Katie (2 ½) for a faux-parenting stint that included Sensational Toddlers, where I learned the Hello Song, the Hot Dog Song, the Good-bye Song, and that hands-on play “teaches children the delight and power of tactile engagement.” Or something like that. I went to Tube Time (permanently closed), McDonald’s (god forgive me), and the library for a new supply of books about lions and ducks.

I had just returned from this assortment of tiny-tot activities when two things happened. First, I unbuckled Katie from her car seat and discovered that she’d made fine use of the ballpoint pen I’d neglected to confiscate, and her arms were covered elbow to wrist with black scribbles in a Jackson-Pollack-meets-Vlad-the-Mad-Tattooist kind of way. In the midst of my laughter, I got THE CALL. “Cathy? It’s Colin. Good news.”

Good news, indeed. After the Vanbulance Incident, Blue House Toddler Time, PlayPlace, and the Ballpoint Pen Fiasco, I was ready for a little pick-me-up. “We have an offer on your condo,” Colin said. "It's solid." So, after not-so-quiet time, the three of us loaded into the van again (estimated loading time, including rounding up needed toys, carseat bucklage, and sippy-cup placement=16 minutes) and went to my condo to search for Form 17.

Unable to locate said document, we all loaded back up and headed to the real estate office for form-filling-out. That done, it was time again for chicken strips, assemblage of the Digeo puzzle (complete with placement of 3-D animals in appropriate spots), an episode The Wiggles (OMG), another dispute about who should get Alex-the-Cake-Topper-Lion, bathtime, bedtime, and (for Auntie Bleb) a beer.

I love(ish) children, and I am grateful for wonderful friends who have so boldly chosen to relinquish their sanity to the continuation of the human race. I am thankful they entrust their offspring to me for fun and diversion during this crazy-busy period in my home-selling, house-building life.

After 48 hours with two delightful, energetic toddlers, I take back every smug idea I’ve ever had that hmmm…well…if I were the mom, I would… There is no way I would be able to achieve what my mom-friends and dad-friends accomplish on an hourly basis. You people are courageous, dedicated, amazing, and I am so glad you are there to raise the next generation, because God knows, I will do something easier, like building a house.

You Take it on Faith, You Take it to Heart

2007-06-17T15:05:00.001-07:00

"Catherine? It's James. It's 2:57 p.m. Tuesday, June 13. I've just left Bellingham City Hall. The plans for your house are officially under review."

"Now what?" I ask.

"We wait," James replies.

Except for that detail where every last penny is sucked into the whirling vortex of theoretical invisibility that is my new house, the waiting is, in fact, not necessarily the hardest part. Regardless of my hyper leg-swinging fidgety ADD-ish-ness, I pride myself on my reservoir of patience. I always carry a book. I like to walk. I don't mind a line. And, (cliche alert) the good stuff really is worth waiting for. So here's how I'm passing the time while the COB examines the plans:

1. I take care of my animals. Kosha has taken to Incredible Journeying himself from his dad's house to mine, so if you see this panting, bedraggled dog with a shit-eating grin and a filthy undercarriage anywhere between Fairhaven and H Street, let one of us know. Stinky mostly takes care of himself, but on Open House days at the condo, he has to ride around with me in the Vanbulance. Also, completely without meaning to, I've quasi-adopted Snowball, who hangs out on my porch daily. If this is your cat, or the cat of someone you know, please call me.

2. I surf the net. Currently, I'm obsessed with baby animals, so I visit http://cuteoverload.com/ every day and follow along on other assorted Blogs O' Interest. Also, I check in with my celebrities at http://www.thesuperficial.com/ and investigate important house-related stuff like the price of dual-flush toilets .

3. I make shit. Rachael Ray, step back. I recently cooked a spinach-stuffed sole, a shrimp pasta salad, and some broccoli thing. "Big deal," you might think, but that's because you didn't know me during the quesadillas-every-night years.

4. I hang out with The Most Adorable Nephew In The World. This is a blatant, unabashed excuse to include my brother's precious son here. Again, you might think, uh-huh, big deal, a baby. But in this family, Tom is THE big deal--the first baby born in like, 35 years. So the pressure is on. I'm pretty sure it won't screw him up.

In these pix, he helps me navigate the blueprints for the new house. I've explained that his guest room is the one with the under-the-stairs alcove, like the nook in my grandparents' house, but he really only seems interested in pointing at clocks and shouting "COCK!" and trying to figure out where Grandpa has hidden the chocolate. Wait till Mom and Dad won't buy him his own Camaro. Bet Aunt Cathy and her Fairhaven pad seem pretty cool then.

5. In no particular order, I also read, listen to music, go to baseball games (I'm totally not making that up! Ask Charlie!), clean house, ride around town on Ruby (my bike, not a horse), and spend way too much time earning my 1000 Schrute Bucks watching downloads of The Office. Also I take a lot of naps (no photo available, but please note the featured artwork...proof that I am, in fact, becoming my mother.)

There is no such problem as having too much time on your hands. Time is all we have, and the problem is not that it creates a barrier between the now and the not yet, but how to turn that blockade in to a bridge. The house I'm planning to share with my boyfriend, our families, and our friends is months away from being more than a vision on paper and in my head. The time between its imagining and its existence is mine to spend--with worry or whim. I'm going to go ahead and squander it gleefully.

Harry Potter and the Magic Thong

2007-06-05T22:32:00.000-07:00

The arrival this summer of the final installment in the Harry Potter series will probably go uncelebrated at XXXX 17th Street (my lot’s current address), because I am busy reading about houses and homes and the business of building a dwelling and a life. Why? Because I read a book about everything. New dog? Read Caroline Knapp’s Pack of Two. Suddenly single? Read Bachelor Girl. Move to Hollywood and write for now cancelled detective show? Read Girl Sleuth: Nancy Drew and the Women Who Created Her. I’d probably read a book about nail clippers if I thought it would improve my home pedicures (I’m pretty certain there’s not an entire book on nail clippers, but there is a fascinating essay about them in Nicholson Baker’s collection, The Size of Thoughts.)

S arah Susanka is to the small-scale homebuilder what Rachael Ray is to everyday gourmets (and I thought I’d never use an analogy again after the GRE). Susanka’s columns in Fine Homebuilding and her books, including my favorite, Not So Big Solutions, advocate functionality within gracious design and architectural artistry that serves lives rather than egos. Her books have been inspirational and influential as I plan my new home. Thanks to her, I’ve learned that a home’s entry begins at the curb, remembered to build a mail-sorting station, and tried to design a house that encompasses my values and my lifestyle as well as my future. Also, I've been persuaded to do without the indoor pool.

On the opposite end of the library, we have the Not-So-Small book. House as Mirror of Self by Clare Cooper Marcus weighs as much as my cat and references Carl Jung in the foreword. This is generally a bad sign as far as leisure reading goes, unless it’s a sentence like “Matthew McConnaughey tossed aside the boring book on Carl Jung and went to surf the internet for librarians.” House as a Mirror of Self is a serious book, with lots of multi-syllabic words and references to the psyche and intense passages about recreating our childhoods and constructing our realities. It made me think, and that’s not such a bad thing. But mostly I just want to build a really cool, affordable house near the Farnand Five and the Caldwell-Ringlers and have fun parties and be able to walk to Village Books and Mambo Italiano in five minutes.

Somewhere in between Susanka’s practicality and Marcus’s intellectualism lies Winifred Gallagher’s book, House Thinking: A Room-by Room Look at How We Live. “The orverarching insight that unifies our dwellings and this book alike is that home exists as much between our ears and in a building," Gallagher writes. She mixes history, psychology, and interior design to create a unique, highly readable, and intriguing glimpse behind the doors of American homes.

Alexander Master’s account of the life of an adrift man in London, Stuart: A Life Backwards, gives me much to be thankful for—both because it is funny, original, and deeply moving, but also because it offers an entirely different glimpse into what it means to have a home. Stuart, who is often drug-addled and floats on and off the streets, in and out of shelters and subsidized housing for most of his adult life, nevertheless manages to carve meaning and joy out of his existence. While I am thankful for all that I have—a warm shelter, a home-to-be built to my specifications, and family, friends, and mementos to fill the space, Stuart’s story is a powerful reminder about the most important places of all—the invisible ones that hold us steady, give us hope, and make us whole. And what is home, after all, if not these things?

You don’t have to be building a new house or moving from one to another to engage in thought and discussion with your live-alongs about the space you occupy. I encourage you to stop and reflect on what makes your dwelling meaningful. If you do read what I recommend, support your local bookseller. Community and community-maintained businesses are a part of the place we all call home.

I Dream of Cleaning

2007-05-30T06:17:00.000-07:00

I pull the Vanbulance into the park-n-ride next to Diane Thursday morning. “Where’s Laural?” I ask. Diane shrugs, and I immediately plunk my head on the steering wheel. “Oh, shit.” I was supposed to have picked Laural up on the way to the carpool, but in the whirlwind of planning my ensemble for the Bellingham Wig-Out, the Ski-to-Sea Race, and the flurry of pre-dawn cleaning I’ve been doing around The Product That Is My Home, I somehow forgot.

The backstory? One of my real estate agents (not the one I used to be married to) called yesterday. “The walk-through went great!” He told me. “The other brokers liked the place. There was no detectable cat smell.” “That’s good,” I replied. “You might want to double-check the kitchen, though,” he continued. “There was a smear on the front of the dishwasher.”

Hence my increasingly vigilant morning routine: arise, greet the day, stumble from bed, do bathroomy-stuff, sanitize toilet, make coffee, sanitize sink, make toast, sanitize countertop, shower, sanitize shower stall, get dressed, make bed, arrange throw pillows, sanitize cat box. It’s something of a miracle that I have the energy and time to even go to my job. Not to mention the fact that Clorox Super-Shine Bleach Formula Spray has eaten a hole in my cerebral cortex, apparently in the picking-up-a-friend-for-work lobe.

The morning of the forgotten Laural, I attended to my usual array of OCD-inspired bleaching and then stepped in something squishy that had once been in my cat’s belly, so I had to scrape that off the carpet. Makers of Friskies must be in collusion with manufacturers of carpet cleaner. [Mr. Burns voice] “You guys dye the cat food bright orange! And we’ll cut you in on our profits on Extra Strength Cat Barf Removal Spray!” [Cackling, rubbing of palms.]

Stinky and I were kicked out of the super-sanitized and de-barfed condo on Saturday while an open house was held, so the cat sat in the Vanbulance while I tackled another cleaning project: removing the remains of the shed from my lot. Although I invited everyone I know, the only person there for most of the day was the one who was paid to be there: my builder, James Bradbury. My mom stopped by with a baggie of fresh cookies and Charlie arrived in time for me to attend to my responsibilities as the captain of the 2nd place Women’s Recreational Ski to Sea Team, Kiss My Tiara.

As we hauled what amounted to 3,362 pounds of boards and crumbling tarpaper, James and I had plenty of time to discuss important building-related issues, including, but not limited to 1) the genius that is the magnet sweeper; 2) his heroic act as a ten-year-old involving a drill, a garage, and his father’s jagged tooth, and 3) writing as therapy.

Evie may be howling twenty hours a day as her tiny teeth wiggle their way through her gums, and I may be tapping my feet, eager to move my purple reading chair into the study that exists only in the invisible void between paper, brain, and twenty feet of air above 17th Street, but we are both processing the torture and the tedium through writing. Yes, teething sucks. Yes, building a house involves a lot of waiting. But much is relieved when we look for the humorous, the unusual, and the fascinating to report upon.

Words are calming. For James and Jennifer, they penetrate the shrieking of a teething baby. For me, they soothe the anxious foot-tapping. They give us all a direction for our energy and our angst. I consume myself seeking them out and arranging them, sweeping up those that clutter my peace and using the others to build a quiet home for my thoughts and a solid shelter against worry.

An Egress[1] is Not a Bird

2007-05-22T08:59:00.000-07:00

It’s been said that a homebuilder makes about 7000 decisions in the course of the project, and given the number of new vocabulary terms I’ve learned so far, I’d say that is off by a few thousand. Fortunately, I love words, so I’m eager to add to my repertoire. Not so fortunately, many of the words I’m learning will only be useful for the next six months and after that they’ll just be clogging up brainspace that might be better dedicated to things like Scrubs re-runs and Mariners stats and fermentation.

The first word in my new dictionary is estimate. An estimate is a fake price that a business suggests it will charge for what later turns out cost twice as much. Example: “We estimate that the landscaping outside your condo will cost a couple hundred bucks.” (True cost=$551.35). An estimate can also be a delightfully optimistic but nevertheless inaccurate approximation of how long a project will take; for example, anything estimated to take one week will take 21 days; one month=three months; two months=sometime next year. Just for fun, a homebuilder can make her own estimates, too, such as “oh, it’ll take me about a day to tear down that shed on the lot,” and “I should be able to clear that pile of rotten lumber and broken bricks in about two trips to the dump.”

The folks at Cascade Joinery have kindly underestimated the cost of the complicated vaulted ceiling in my future great room, and have taught me a few new words in the process. The 24x17 space will be sheltered by a Douglas Fir tongue-and-groove ceiling supported by a king-post truss and insulated by panels called SIPS, which I’ve heard more about in recent weeks than I care to discuss. I’m not even going to mention what the “estimate” for this project is, but I will say that it involves a crane, and I know that will cost more than 6 months worth of payments on the Vanbulance.

Like the lingo of timber frame construction, with its ridge beams, collar ties, rafters, and struts, there is an entire lexicon devoted to windows, as well. The great room and master bedroom will feature double-hung windows, which according to my sources are “classic in appearance and offer excellent control of ventilation;” and clerestory windows—a high band of narrow windows; the study and other bedrooms will have casement windows, and the front door will be flanked by long vertical windows called sidelights. None of the windows will have mullions, which are grid-like lines that divide large windows into smaller ones.

Like the terms in the preceding paragraphs, most of the vocabulary I’m learning is plain and functional, unlike the impressive architectural terminology I learned in college humanities class. But unless I change my plan and build a Gothic cathedral complete with flying buttresses, the most exotic-sounding feature of my home will be the French drain that surrounds it. I do believe that almost any process can be endured as long as I try to learn something from it. Yes, I’m spending my life savings, but now I know what a silt fence is! Maybe people should get a degree when they undergo this process—an SBH, or Survived Building House degree. Surely the accumulation of this terminology is the equivalent of a few quarters at university. God knows there were semesters at WSU where I learned less.

[1] It’s the amount of space required by building codes that will allow firefighters to enter a window or a resident to escape.

Mi Casa es Su Casa…or Somebody’s Casa…I Hope

2007-05-11T17:10:00.000-07:00

So far, the most stressful part of building a new house has been the process of trying to get rid of the old one. My condo, which I purchased new in 2004, is now officially For Sale, and besides knowing that strangers are going to be peering into my closets and cupboards and snooping around my bookshelves and refrigerator (so many condiments! so little fruit!) there are a host of other nerve-rattling issues at hand.

For one thing, I have to keep the place perpetually and unnaturally clean—no more stand-up snacking in the kitchen and leaving a puddle of crumbs on the floor. No more avoiding the cat box for 5-7 days. My kitchen smells like bleach. My sinks are toothpaste-globless. I can sanitarily lick the bathroom floor (not that I’d want to). I can see through the shower door. If I need something to wear, I actually have to look in the closet, since I’m no longer maintaining what Urban Dictionary.com calls a “floordrobe.” Most extraordinarily, I arise each day, make my bed, and daintily arrange the throw pillows in an eye-pleasing pattern (stripes/solids/stripes/solids). It’s almost like they planted the For Sale sign in my front yard and I turned into my mother.

Prepping to sell the condo, I did some research about “staging” it for sale—which is pretty much what it sounds like. “Stop thinking of your house as your home; think ‘this is a product to be sold, like a box of cereal on the grocery store shelf’” one site advised. The same web page suggested that I arrange all my coffee mugs with the handles facing the same direction and alphabetize my spice jars. WTF?! People see that, and they’re going to think the place is possessed by the ghost of Julia Roberts’ husband from Sleeping with the Enemy. I’ll spring for the expensive cat litter that clumps together and makes poo smell like pinecones, but I am NOT alphabetizing kitchen supplies.

The Bellingham real estate market is a little saturated right now, but my place has a lot to offer. Even if it weren’t my house and it was a box of cereal, I’d still think it was more Kellogg’s than Food Club. The location is prime—a two-minute walk to stores and restaurants, Padden Creek trail, and Fairhaven Park—and my neighborhood is clean. There’s even a nice woman named Joanie who walks around collecting cans and bottles, and the bi-monthly 4 a.m. street-sweeping keeps Old Fairhaven Parkway sparkly. It’s generally pretty quiet here, except on Sunday mornings when the church across the street is blasting its live Jesus rock. Forgiveness and eternal joy have never sounded so unappealing.

I also have an attached garage (a cozy home for the Vanbulance), a fireplace, and gorgeous custom-made built-ins created by James Bradbury of Sycamore Woodworking and Building. My books and pets and craft supplies have always felt safe and warm here. If the site on 17th and Donovan hadn’t become available when it did, I would be staying in this condo much longer. But one home is enough, and this one will be perfect for someone else. Throw pillows not included.

Boise Naked Yoga Home Design Consultants, Incorporated, Wanda Teetlebound, CEO

2007-05-07T19:29:00.000-07:00

Approximately 3 decades ago, I was traumatized on the squareball court at Roosevelt Elementary School by a brown-haired fourth grader in round glasses who called me “little girl.” Shortly thereafter, she became my best friend. Besides swallowing the tiny white car from my Game of Life and co-authoring “Grrr…Monster Poems Galore” with me, Amy B. has also been my companion in countless projects and adventures including, but not limited to, home design.

I recently unearthed one of the many floor plans that I designed with Amy during our dream house phase in 5th or 6th grade, a time (c. 1979) when we were weirdly enchanted by the idea of sunken living rooms, indoor hot tubs, and glass grand pianos suspended from the ceiling by chains. We also appear to have been oddly prepared to house entire extended Chinese families, as most of our plans have 5 or 6 bedrooms.

Although the actual floor plan for my new real home is done (and it doesn’t have a hot tub or a hanging grand piano), there are many interior design issues about which I require consultation, things that are more fun to talk about than SIPS and French drains. I needed a few days to luxuriate in the fantasy home inside my head, and to fill it up with warm colors and lots of throw pillows. So I headed to Boise, Idaho, to confer with Amy about the house and its many needs.

Amy just got back from the Great Wall of China (not pictured...that's me, Copan, and Beso at Diversion Dam on the Boise River), so her consultation included tips on channeling the chi in my new house. I’m not really into the whole feng shui business, probably because I’m just too lazy to study up on the best way to arrange my waste paper baskets for ultimate health and good luck. I do wish there was a way to fung-shooey my refrigerator so that I’d be attracted to celery and low-fat cottage cheese instead of leftover pizza. Instead I learned I’m supposed to consult a ba-gua chart to select the harmonious placement of rooms; I should use red paint in places where I want strength, and I should create an altar or sacred space in my home that includes elements of water, earth, wind and fire, and “supports, focuses, and enhances my inner being as well as the dreams I am manifesting in my physical world.” I wonder if a wet bar with a looping, continuous recording of “Shining Star” would count.

Besides her feng shui expertise, Amy also has a solid grasp of the Colorful Me Beautiful principles (we’re both Summers), so we talked about how to choose paints that would complement my complexion and hair color, while at the same time, shaping and toning my thighs and adding definition to my arms. I’m still planning on a lavender bedroom, a livingroom-kitchen-dining room in deep blues, rich reds, and lots of wood; one yellow guest room and one sage green one, and bathrooms with small mirrors, low lighting, and lots of big fluffy towels for my guests.

We’ve got the ambience all put together, me, Amy, and my imagination. Now we just have to build the house that goes with it.

This Land is Their Land

2007-05-01T17:42:00.001-07:00

About my relationship with ants: I mostly don’t like them. When I was six or seven-ish, I stepped in an ants’ nest across the street from our Azalea Place home, ants crawled up my legs and into my sneakers, I wet my pants and the neighbor lady brought me home crying. At WSU, I lived in a scary, porn-studio-esque apartment one summer and poured a bowl of cereal for breakfast AND IT MOVED, crawling with members of the same ant family that had, only days before, feasted on whatever food shred I’d left in my toothbrush. I didn’t wet my pants, but I will say that I haven’t eaten Raisin Bran since 1989.

So I am, understandably, undelighted to lift a concrete block from its station on my empty lot and discover a swarming colony of formicidae Hymenoptera. You can crow all you want about ants and their mind-bending feats of organization and industriousness, but to me they’re still shiny, squirming, crack-penetrating dirt-diggers and they can’t be trusted. Not so millipedes, with their even more pronounced wriggly shininess and the way they look like miniature thousand-legged land-dwelling eels. But millipedes (thankfully) don’t bunch together in teaming armies of ick. They’re lone operators, and you know when you see one, it’s not going to be immediately following by a thousand others that swarm over your half-eaten turkey-and-avocado sandwich while your back is turned and skeletonize it 2.3 seconds.

Wasps, potato bugs, earthworms, and spiders are among the creatures that call my future home their current one. I’d feel guiltier about displacing them if I had more fondness for insects; I’m hopeful that they’ll find other accommodations as the project progresses and their hives, colonies, nests, and holes are molested by the excavator and crushed by the inevitable turquoise construction-site Porta-Potti. The “really big mouse with the long pink tail” witnessed by my ten-year-old helper Miles, however, can go ahead and slither under the next approaching WTA bus.

I feel worse about the eradication of the flora than I do the fauna. Although you’d never know it to look at the withering cacti in my home, I am a plant person. If it were nutritionally feasible, I might actually become a carnivorian, and not just because I hate the taste of cauliflower and cabbage. It pains me that I won’t be able to salvage all of the greenery on my lot. The house has been designed specifically to spare the chestnut and maple trees on the south side, as well as the shrubbery that forms a natural fence along Donovan Ave. and Arlene’s place to the west. What I can’t save, sadly, are the twelve-foot lilac bushes in the northwest corner (future garage), the huge alder in the center of the lot (future kitchen), the holly bushes—dangerous skin-scraping beasts though they are—and the wild raspberry plants scattered around the property (future everything).

Walking away from the property to my for-now home, I step over a beetle on the sidewalk, hesitant to hear the crack of its tiny shell under my dirty foot. I look back at the lot and see both a house, and a home. A 6000 square foot biosphere alive with a million squiggling, tunneling, worming pieces of the universe. The dirt and rocks, the flowers, the trees, the rustling leaves—it’s a wonder that we can build houses or drive cars or eat anything for the beauty of it all.

I’m feeling very Darwin right about now, very Survival Of the Fittest, and not necessarily in a good way. In order for me to build my shelter, I have to disrupt the homes of these ants, millipedes, rats and spiders I claim to have no warmth for. I have to uproot trees that have known no other ground. I have to balance my This Is the Way the World Works sentiments against the reality that once again, the strong overpower the weak just because we’re bigger and we have sharper, noisier tools. Then again, those ants might just be back.

Sarah Circles the Blo(g)ck

2007-04-26T16:00:00.000-07:00

In the space that will eventually be my guest bedroom, Kosha lies stretched out in the sun, his snout barely visible behind the weeds. He looks like a lion hiding in wait on the Serengeti, except without the motivating killer instinct. The most he's done all afternoon is circulate the lot to sniff desiccated piles of dog shit and lick aggressively at the spot where his balls used to be. I know a little about how that feels--the sense that something should be where it isn't. Unlike Kosha, however, I can remedy the situation. It's what I'm doing right now.

It's Saturday at 11 a.m. and I've donned my junkiest jeans--Levis blotched with "Dylan's Grove," the paint I used in the guest room at my previous house--a BE Tiger t-shirt, and new pigskin work gloves. The Vanbulance is parked on 17th Street, top popped, I've cranked the Johnny Cash, chilled the beer, and greeted the nine-year-old neighbor, Sarah, who’s riding her bike up and down the alley. Today begins Phase One of Belben Builds a House: emptying and tearing down the decrepit, Boo Radley-esque wooden shack on the northeast corner of my empty lot on 17th and Donovan.

I open the doors timidly--the shed is dark and filled with a creepy assortment of damp mysteries that suggest a certain CSI excitement--a head in a bucket, maybe, or a partial skeleton or at the very least, an abandoned diary that hints at some long-forgotten misdeed. But what I find fails to deliver on the promise of my morbid imaginings: rotting window frames, mismatched sawhorses, rat crap, and a warped U2 Achtung Baby cassette tape. Even the creepy-crawlies fail to appear, the wasps' nest long abandoned, the spiders dry and curly, the ants and millipedes seeking sustenance outside. A dozen rusty tools sink into the husks of a thousand horse chestnuts littering the floor, all of it suggesting the shed was never the site of anything more interesting than discarded home improvement projects and an abandoned appreciation for Bono.

I spend the day dragging the contents of the shed to the corner, creating an impressive pile of rotten lumber and making myself available for neighborhood viewing. Apparently action on this long-empty lot qualifies as drama for Marvin, who registers his friendly annoyance that my new house will block his view (I invite him to come over once the place is built to join me for a drink on my veranda, where he can enjoy my view); Arlene, the independent retiree next door who welcomes me warmly, and the very aged, bathrobe-clad Lucille—who comes out of her house infrequently enough to have earned the name “Reclucy”—who wants to know which trees will be spared and which sawed down. Most importantly, my friends Noah, Dana, Laural, and Tom offer water, their bathroom, a wheelbarrow, and much companionship as I begin establishing my life just yards away from their home.

Despite my disappointment at the shed’s content, the purging is satisfactory—the hauling, piling, and pounding is cathartic; I’m not just sitting around waiting for the house to be built anymore. But besides that, besides making progress on the physical preparation of the property, I feel like it’s become more than just a vacant lot adjacent to other people’s homes, it’s becoming a part of the neighborhood. And me? I’m becoming a neighbor.