Longtime readers may recall that we made an offer on this house almost exactly three years ago. The sale went through in November 2020, and we finally moved in on January 4, 2022.
But just because we moved in did not mean all the projects were done! This week, though we made some progress on a few lingering things.
One — the living room rug. I purchased a Pottery Barn Reeva rug in Chambray multi — it’s a light blue-gray number. That got delivered Wednesday and it is now set up with the furniture in place on top of it. It really does make the room feel more inviting. Now the room just needs lighting as…there is no overhead lighting in there. Really pondering that one. There is currently a mismatched collection of lamps that didn’t find a home elsewhere. Once that is done I think most of the furniture/decor will feel done.
We also now, after 18 months, have a centered dining room table! I think this would have driven some people absolutely crazy but I will submit this as evidence that I am way more relaxed than some might assume given my line of work. The kids’ computer is in the dining room, and we’d put it on this glass table left from the previous owner. However, the table was too big to then have our regular dining room table be in the center of the room. So the dining room table was over to the side with the chandelier hanging over one of the chairs. We hadn’t thrown a formal dinner party (all our big parties have been outside) so I hadn’t done anything about this but… Eventually we bought a new, much smaller computer table. And then had a non-profit that takes furniture donations come pick up the glass table on Wednesday. Now the dining room table is in the center of the room. It does look much nicer. And like maybe some grown-ups live in this house.
It’s been a fairly low-key week — just tackling a lot of life administration stuff as I’ve not needed to go anywhere. I’ve taken the 16-year-old out driving a few times and he’s definitely getting the hang of it. The 13-year-old has not been reporting much from camp, which I think means he’s having a good time. I did get to speak to him Thursday morning — not because he chose to call but because he got stung by a wasp and was in the nurse’s office and they passed the phone over to him. Other than the sting, things seem to be going well. The 11-year-old has been in culinary camp. She and I went to a stationery store earlier this week to shop for a friend’s birthday and that was fun. The 8-year-old enjoyed a week of Pokemon camp and has his Daddy Day coming up. There will be biking and fishing — I think they are going to have a really good time!
I’d say the un-centered table would drive me crazy…but our dining room table is also slightly off-center from our chandelier because of our dining room configuration and I barely notice it at this point.
There is something immensely satisfying about finally crossing items off a to-do list like this. When we moved into our home, we had to tear up hardscaping to deal with a drainage issue, and that resulted in a huge pile of gorgeous slate pavers…stacked at the end of our driveway for FIVE years. Only in the last month have those finally been re-laid. I hated that pile, but couldn’t do anything about it until we completed another series of projects. It took a lot longer than I would have liked, but eventually it got done!
@Elisabeth – five years!! Oh my goodness. How amazing to finally have that done.
Yes. FIVE years. It was…a long time .