History. It happened. Here.

We've been searching, trying to "put a face" to the house.  We knew it was old, we knew other people had lived, danced, cried, cooked, loved, and probably died in this house.  We knew we had about 100 years of history to trace, give or take, and that it might take a little while to uncover some of the secrets hidden in the crevices of the past.   Of course, as with every question I ask, there is a complicated, convoluted answer.  "Where is the county seat/county courthouse for Burnett County?"  seemed to get some dirty looks and shaking of heads.  I was a little confused, it seemed like an easy enough question.  I was wrong.  Apparently, at one time, there was a big 2 story courthouse about a block from my house.  Built in 1888 smack dab in the center of town, it was a point of pride in the townspeople.   With sidewalks, manicured flowers and a gazebo, Courthouse Square was the meeting place for bands and celebrations in the often difficult years in the early 1900's.   

So, upon hearing these stories, I asked "So, Grantsburg is the county seat?"  I was so happy to hear that- it would make my records searching much more convenient.  More throat clearing and shuffling of feet indicated that it might not be the case.  Grantsburg was a busy little village, and they took true pride in their towns image.  Situated within Burnett counties 880 square miles, it was the first welcoming wink to Wisconsin's rolling green hills and hidden lakes when visitors arrived from Minnesota on highway 70.  At some point in the 1980's, the city council knew some updating would have to happen on court house square. It had happened a few times before, but it was time for modernization.  Then they discovered the courthouse was loaded to the gills with asbestos, and no one was loaded enough to find a way to pay for the expensive hazardous waste handling in addition to the general updates and maintenance.  The issue was put on hold, and the courthouse was closed, and operations were temporarily moved elsewhere.    

"Ah, so where do I need to go?  City Hall?  The Library?"  I really thought we were done with this long and convoluted discussion about the history of a building I hadn't even known existed.  I wanted to move on to researching MY house.  More shuffling of feet and furrowed brows implied that our conversation was not over.  

Yes, Grantsburg was the gateway to Wisconsin's wonders.  According to local legend, other cities in Burnett County were a bit envious of this distinction.  During the whole asbestos debacle, and Grantsburg's attempt to receive some funding for restoration of the county wide building left it focused on one thing when it should have been focused on another.  Namely, the city of Siren.  Somehow, the City of Siren filed to become the county seat.  They went through all of the proper process according to state regulations, but the old timers I've spoken to said they came in like a thief in the night and stole away their pride and joy.  Taxpayers in the county had to vote on the change, but notifications were only sent to the residents of Siren.  It was taken to court, but upheld, and a new fancy brick monstrosity stands characterless at the edge of Siren.  Of course, my immediate thought was  the irony of Siren's greek namesake, those sneaky little devils that sang ships into the rocky shores, and then realized I'd have to make the 17 mile trek each way to get my research done.  At least there is a dairy queen.

Frustration

I'm giving myself a timeout.  I woke up this morning, made a cup of coffee in the Keurig (thank the gods of java for that little sucker!) and poured a generous dollop of ceiling paint into the roller tray.  I was on a mission to finish my bedroom.  I got it primed yesterday, covering over the 1980's hyacinth blue and purple with a sleek swipe of white.  I wondered a little about the woman who used to live here.  I think she was about 10 years older then me, and had two teenage sons at the time they lived here.  Her husband passed away, and from what I hear she decided to "let the house go" because it was too much house for her after her children moved away.   I don't know much beyond that, and the fact that her husband loved her enough to build little projects to make her life easier, everywhere.  He didn't own a level as far as I can tell, but boy-oh-boy did that man love to build little crooked projects.  Two wooden trays, a couple of L brackets, and a cut in half dowel became beside tables.  A thousand pieces of bits of scrap lumber became the pantry shelves, one stacked larger then the next with bars of wood screwed to hold them towering together.  I'm also assuming he was the one who put in the parquet floor with it's 2 inch thick adhesive and random screws to hold it tight.  I wondered what she thought when she opened her eyes each morning to the purple blue hyacinth and it's floral border, with the crookedly hung ceiling fan threatening life and limb as it teetered overhead.  Did she love this house and it's nooks and crannies the way I've come to love it?  Was she happy to finally walk away from the little annoying quirks  that come with living in a century old house?  I wonder if she drives by sometimes, stopping across the street and seeing us through the windows, painting over the choices she made, and starting our life anew.
I had hoped to sleep in the bedroom last night.  I had hoped we would drive out to the storage unit, pick up the king sized bed, and sleep "for real" in our room, on a bed.  I had to drive to the other house to pick up kids and drag another load of misc. stuff back with me, and planned to paint the ceiling as soon as I got back yesterday afternoon.  Apparently, Jeremy had other plans because when I got back, pieces of the ceiling were pulled off and laying around the floor, scattered like some tornadic  activity had possessed the room and spewed out my ceiling.  That led immediately to my own feelings of possession as I asked Jeremy what the heck (hell) he was doing.  Apparently, the spot on the ceiling had been bothering him, so rather then just using spackle to cover it (as I had planned because I HAVE learned my lesson about old houses and opening cans of worms) he decided to pick at it.  Then pick some more, then peel back a 4x3 foot section of  multiple layers of old wall paper and paint, all in varying degrees of depth.  Fortunately, he stopped before the lathe and plaster because I think that would have involved pulling off the entire ceiling sheet rocking.  So this morning, coffee cup in hand, I climbed the rickety ladder and sanded off the plaster we'd tried to fix the ceiling with, and started painting, again.  I am so sick of painting ceilings.   So, for now, I am waiting for the paint to dry and my frustration to simmer down.  Maybe I will spend some time working on the house genealogy/history....do I know how to have a good time or what?

The Hard Way

I have a terrible habit of thinking that I can do everything.  I have proven to myself again and again over the course of the last month that this is true, and also proven that it is only true to a certain degree, like the degree where you are laying on the freshly sanded 5 times over hardwood floors, groaning, certain that your life will end looking at that very ceiling.  With dogs licking your feet.  Everything around here seems to involve dogs licking your feet.  Ew.
So, I have learned some valuable lessons in the last month.
    Lesson 1- Rent the expensive, multi-rotational pad sander, not the cheap drum sander.  If you think you need it for 1 day, rent it for 2.
    Lesson 2-  Perfection is something for weak minded people who can't handle knowing an old house had a history that didn't involve them.  Embrace the scars, they mean someone else once loved it before you, and probably wondered about you as much as you wonder about them.
    Lesson 3- Do not (ever) call your husband when it is 100 degrees outside and you are driving an old 5 speed pick up with no air conditioning down the interstate with 2 mattresses and box springs bouncing around in the back, just waiting to fly out and kill some innocent little old lady driving to bingo.  Just go and buy the damn bungee's you want and don't ask for advice.
    Lesson 4- You will not have time to blog about working on the house when you are working on the house.  Get over it.
So, with about a month left to go in my hope to move in time frame, we still have absolutely no kitchen.  We have almost completed the dining room- and even got the chandelier up.

We've finished sanding the main level floors, and they look pretty darn good for how much they would have cost had we paid someone else to do it!

We installed a larger, and hopefully more centered over the sink, kitchen window, and that project was one interesting mess!

Garage Sale Prep(AKA Hell)

I spent most of the day in the garage.  And most of yesterday.  I hate the garage.  It smells like oil and cat pee and everything is covered with the residue of something I don't want to touch (don't get me wrong, I've touched a lot of disgusting things, sometimes willingly, and not complained too much- so it isn't a wussiness issue).
Jeremy and I spent quality time in the garage today.  He, whistling and sorting through 25 pounds of accumulated screw drivers, and me trying not to complain about the screwdriver collection or the whistling.  I am spiteful regarding the screw drivers because we can never find one when we need it.  Apparently they are only visible to the naked eye when no one needs them, so we go to the store and buy more screw drivers to intermingle with the lost screwdrivers and then the kids throw them all over the garage and the cats pee on them and I get angry.  Or maybe bitter?  As for the whistling, I'm pretty sure he only does it when he knows I'm on the edge of a hormonal abyss (otherwise known as middle aged motherhood) and trying not to throw things covered in cat pee at him.  Sigh.  Deep breath.
Today, we managed to clean out most of the garage in preparation to have a garage sale.  I've stated for the last 5 years that I never want to have a garage sale again, and in the last 5 years have managed to have about 5 sales.  It is the only way I ever get the garage cleaned out, and I use it as an opportunity to count the screwdrivers which disappear in between garage cleanings.  The kids use it as an opportunity to count cash and argue about who should get the money for the family gifts I bought last year at Christmas.
After we almost finished cleaning out the garage, we drove to Jeremy's dad's house to help him clean up his garage.  We had a lot of practice at that point and his garage didn't smell like cat pee, so it went quickly and we loaded up the couple of things (van full) he wanted to get rid of.  Tomorrow my mom is coming to help price things and get them set out in some sort of friendly marketing display so that the dozen or so people that show up bright and early Thursday morning can peruse items and make low ball offers.
I won't get a chance to go to the new old house until Saturday, and I'm already feeling the tug of missing it.  I think that is a good sign.  I feel like I belong there instead of here.  I can think of nothing I'd rather be doing then listening to the 1920's playlist I made for the house and painting the slightly tilted walls a second coat of happy colored paint.  Well, nothing I'd rather do except maybe throw things in the garage.  There is always tomorrow....

The Middle Place

The rain against my window confirms my decision that I would take a break from the new house today.  I need to focus a little energy on my existing home and the laundry, dishes, and clutter that have taken a foothold in the chaos that seems to grip this living in-between place.
I think I have lived much of my adult life in a state of in-between, counting days not in hash marks on the calendar or in memories created, but checking off hours according to some internal clock that is only focused on the next step.  Due dates, move in days, birthdays, paydays, there always seems to be something tugging at that place of calm and dragging me into a sense of frenzied anticipation.  I've know it for a long time, and attempted to live in the moment, savor the laughter and the simplicity of just being, but deep down inside I feel the constant tug of just finishing the latest project, or packing for the trip, or arriving at that much anticipated event.  The let down never ends, because in this way of living, you are never finished.  I don't want to live like this anymore.
I planted a garden after I moved here, and over the course of many years it has become a huge masterful statement of how the beauty of nature and the love of a human can combine into something magnificent.  I will be leaving it behind, but plan to haul up cuttings and bucket-full's of perennials to the new house where the ground is just waiting to be violated by my itchy green thumbs.  The garden is my place of zen.  I visually reap in the bounty of my efforts, watching the plants struggle to take hold and then burst from the earth.  I can sit in the garden for hours, blissfully weeding the bad from the good, knowing exactly how much I have completed and how much I have left to do.  It cycles with me, soaking up the cavern of gray rainwater on days of rest, then using that store of exuberance when the sun blinds as you open your eyes to the miracle of light and life.

My garden, Summer 2011

  It is in those garden minutes that I am not hurried, I am not haunted by the frantic pace that I have set for myself and the never ending to-do list that ticks away the moments that should be spent living.  I am hoping to find more of the garden zen place in my day to day life.  It isn't just about stopping to smell the roses, because I do that. It is about living in the moment and being grateful for the time that I have to stop and appreciate the world around me.  I need to let the internal clock go.  I need to quit judging my days by what tasks I have completed, and assess them instead by how much laughter I've shared and how many memories I will be a part of.  No one would want their epitaph to read "She got a lot done."  Today, I am going to live in the middle place rather then focus on the goal, because the middle place is where we spend most of our lives, and if we can be content there- I think the joy will follow.  More then anything, I want to the new house to be a place of calm, of laughter, and a guardian of joy for our family and all who visit there. I guess that is what will make it our home.

Week-end Catch Up

Once again I'm covered in paint.  I'm not sure if that is a sign of my lack of painting skills, or my die hard dedication to the task at hand.  We've managed to rip everything out of the kitchen, down to the (newly discovered) tri-colored wood floor.  We've Spackled the walls and primed them, and now are just waiting for the tell all bid from the contractor so we know if we will be installing the window- or he will.  Once the window is in (easy peasy-righto?), we can install the cabinets that are nicely lined up in my current homes garage- sucking up much needed space.  Sigh.  Seems as though every task from here on out involves a multitude of other tasks that are somehow attached to it.  So, tonight, I will focus on all of the wonderful things we've already managed to do- while taking a bubble bath and scrubbing off my paint covered body.  I may even push the limits and have a glass of wine.
The entire front room of the house is primed, ceiling looks perfect, crown molding is amazing.  Love it.  I started in with the lovely spicy color I'd decided would make it feel warm and cozy on a cold winters night.  It looked like baby poo mixed with clay.  I promptly re-primed it, and am now at a loss.  White is nice?

Front Room Ceiling 

Zoe finished priming her room.  She then started to paint her walk in closet with the ultimate pinkest paint I've ever seen.  The guy at Sherwin Williams knew it was super pink but still gasped in surprise when he popped open the lid.  I tried and tried to talk her out of it, and was terrified by how hard it was going to be to cover over the hideous pink of it.  Of course, in the end, I love it.  It is amazing happy pink and looks pretty gorgeous in the walk in- I can't wait to get better lighting and a couple of mirrors in there!

Zoe's Walk in Closet Pink (with Spackle down the middle)

My mom is still busy painting in the boys room.  It's such a huge space.  I had to stop Ty ("mom- why are you so grumpy?") from dragging his BMX bike up the stairs to his room last night.   My dad has a hard time with the paint fumes, or with any odd smells for that matter, since his cancer treatment.   I think the paint fumes get to him really quickly....or maybe it's the kids?  *grin*
I'm heading off for some rubber ducky time, and will be painting again on Tuesday.  (and I'm excited to get up there and see how the dining room is looking, once the paint has dried.)

Seriously?! Why do these things happen to me.

I found a couch on Craigslist the other day, and yesterday saw that they had dropped the price from $300 to $100, so I was forced to email asking where it was located and if it was still available.  I got a quick response from a nice woman who said that her home was being foreclosed on Friday (today) and the Sheriff would be there to put a lock on the doors first thing Friday morning, but if I wanted to meet her at the house Thursday between 3:30 and 5:00pm, the couch was mine.  Of course she lived all the way down in St. Paul, but I figured the 45 mile trip was worth it for a really nice couch I could put in the kids tv room at the new house.
Ty was kind enough to offer to help me, so we hopped in the van with a little time to spare and heading down to the "big city" to pick up our treasure.  The power steering line in the van has been leaking, and apparently an executive decision (which did involve me) was made that since it was on it's last leg at 267,865 miles, we would not put the $700 dollars into it to get it fixed.  That decision made the drive slightly more interesting since we had to pull off the highway twice to put power steering fluid in.  It was nice having Ty along, he was happy to hop out and pop open the hood, and even knew where to put the fluid in.  I also realized he is a tad bit of a worry wart, cautiously telling me to shut off the engine before popping the hood, and mentioning that we should pull off the highway at the earliest sign of any steering noise.  Traffic was heavy already at that point in the afternoon, but we managed to pull into the house around 4pm.
I was surprised, and saddened, to find an adorable little brick cottage up on a cliff surrounded by flower beds and old growth trees.  It was a heavenly little piece of real estate and my heart went out to the couch woman who was losing this place to foreclosure.  She walked out the door, wiping sweat from her brow and said "Hi, I'm Rochelle."  Her long dark hair was perfectly coiffed, and she looked to be a perfect size 2. I didn't feel quite as much pity as I had before.  Woman are really bitchy that way sometimes.  She let us into the house, which was about 80% emptied, with random large furniture items and framed wedding portraits laying around.  She said that she had gotten a divorce and was now losing the house.  I offered my condolences about losing such an adorable little place, she shrugged and said she had found a nice new place.  She seemed to be looking forward to making some new memories somewhere else, without the silver framed fairy tale wedding portraits that were scattered throughout the house.
She pointed to the couch, which looked even better then I'd imagined.  "You might have to take the bottom off, I think we did when we brought it into the house, but I just haven't had time to mess with it.  I was thinking if you twisted it around, it would probably fit through the slider though."  There was a 3 inch carved wooden piece that went around the bottom of the couch, and had each of the wooden legs attached. She also mentioned that if I was interested, I could have the little table next to it, and the rug.  How could I pass that up?  I gave her the cash I had in a wad in my pocket.  She took it, grabbed her purse, looked at her watch, seeming a little frenzied.  "I am really sorry, but I can't help you.  My son who is twelve" she then gestured to a height just above her own petite head, "has a school concert tonight and he has outgrown his shoes and I need to pick him up and take him shopping."  She was walking towards the door, and I was finding the whole situation a little odd.  "Feel free to take as long as you like, just shut the door when you leave."
She knew.  She had to know.  Ah, but I get ahead of myself.   Ty and I stood looking at each other after the door closed.  "We could do anything we wanted right now.  We could take anything. Why would she just leave us here?" he looked around uncomfortably.  I shrugged my response, "I guess she has lost enough that losing more doesn't really matter anymore."  I hoped it would make him feel more empathetic then opportunistic.  I started to flip the couch, pushing to towards the sliding glass door she had indicated we should use.  He grabbed it on the other side, and we pushed it to the door frame, rotating it left, then right, up then down.  Nothing.  There was no way in hell that this couch was gonna fit out that door.  I walked to a different door in the next room, it looked about the same width, but maybe?  I turned the handle and the dead bolt was locked, with a key.   By that point Ty had flipped the couch upside down and was wandering through the house, looking for a screw driver.   I helped him search, pulling open kitchen drawers, looking in the cabinet above the fridge, finding only twist ties and legos.   He ran out to the van and came in with a little socket set I had just purchased for myself.

 Duh, I can't belive I'd forgotten it was in there.  It was locked shut with zip ties and there wasn't a knife in the house.  We managed MacGyver it open with a bit of wire that we twisted until the plastic snapped.  We quickly got to work on the 4 inch long screws under the couch, and I was quite proud of how inventive we were.  I yanked on the wooden bottom, and it didn't budge, Ty walked over and yanked with me.  Nothing.  I'd removed the wrong screws.  We looked a little closer, and realized the screws we needed to take out were down deep dark holes that I didn't have a long enough socket to reach.  So I sent Rochelle a text message that said we had to leave to find a store and a screw driver, but would be returning, just in case she returned home while we were gone.  We hopped into the van, and drove down the residential street, having no idea of where some sort of hardware store was.  I stopped and asked someone walking their dog, and 4 miles later we had 2 screwdrivers and a van that needed more power steering fluid.  We got busy and spent the next 10 minutes unscrewing another 12 long screws and finally pulled the frame free.

Ty, busy unscrewing the frame

Over an hour later, finally!

View from the drivers seat though the van.

The couch was a beast to squeeze through the door, but we managed it, then got to the van and realized that the only ones who knew the secret to opening the broken hatch door were my hubby and Zoe.  We leaned the couch against the van so it wouldn't have to sit on the ground, then took turns trying to get the back to open.  Finally, after a frantically frustrated call to Jeremy, we managed to do it, and precariously jam the couch in.  The hatch wouldn't shut, so we rigged it up with a couple of tie downs (which I later realized Ty pulled all the way through to the front of the van and attached to my seat adjuster bar??!!?).


The trip home was in hot, muggy traffic.  It took almost and hour and a half to make the 45 mile jaunt.  We were both dripping in sweat and Ty's only comment other then mentioning dire thirst was "You're paying me for this, right?"