Home Sweet Home

So! Here I am, all shacked up. Today was the Wait Around For the Phucking Phone Company Day. The guy was supposed to be here to install my phone lines and DSL sometime between 8 am and 5 pm, but of course it was 5:40 when I finally got hooked up. But I guess I'm lucky he came at all: we had a MAJOR deluge this afternoon that washed my rent-a-husband clean over to the next parish. So where my walkway is supposed to go is now a deep pit of water and mud. The phone guy could have taken one look and driven off into the sunset too.

Anyway, he didn't and now I have a phone, and I have the internets back! Of course the very first thing y'all have to do is see the pictures of my new house.

Let me tell you, it was quite a challenge trying to fit my stuff in here. First thing I had to do was get rid of 90% of it. Can you imagine how hard and yet how utterly liberating that is, getting rids of 90% of your stuff? Rummaging through your clothes, your shoes, your books, your CDs, your dishes, your furniture, your miscellaneous detritus, and flinging nine out of ten items over your shoulder? Gah. But I did it.

Next I had to figure out how to arrange the 10% of stuff I had left in a way that didn't feel too cluttered and cramped. Since there are zero closets or cupboards in my shack, I had to figure out ways to stash and store not only day to day stuff, but also unsightly occasional stuff like suitcases, stepladders, garden tools, the vacuum cleaner.

Anyway, yadda yadda, let's just cut to the chase. Bring on the visuals! Here you have it, my cozy new casa. Let's start with the tiny compact living room.


This is looking into the living room from the bedroom. The two rooms are adjoined by French doors that I decided to keep permanently open, to make it almost feel like one big room. This gives each room more light and a nice open feel.


Small sofa with dogs. The coffee table is a clever repository for blankets and quilts.


This corner of the living room is my office. Where I am sitting right now! The drawers of the secretary are full of stuff. Um. Whoa, that was a great sentence.


Ok, moving along. There wasn't enough room for all the chairs, so the green one volunteered to go out on the front porch, an excellent spot for early morning train watching.


Now let's venture into the bedroom, where my bed takes up over half the space. There is an entire tool shed stashed beneath it.


The weed eater, the leaf blower, two suitcases and a pet carrier are hidden beneath the tv. That white curtain on the right is a closet that I built from a kit I bought at Target. It's sort of a cross between Tinker Toys and an erector set, with instructions that have been translated from Urdu into Japanese into Swahili into Norwegian and then finally into something vaguely resembling English. But look, so far it hasn't collapsed under the weight of my hanging jacket and skirt collection. I did something right.


You've already seen the bathroom, but since the last photos my stalwart young frat boys have managed to cram an amazing assortment of furniture in there.


It's sort of like the 800 clowns stuffed into a Volkswagen at the circus. Furniture everywhere!


And finally, what you've all been waiting for...


Ta-da! The kitchen. Gee, can you guess who lives here?


The china hutch earns its keep.


I had my rent-a-husband take the door off between the kitchen and the bedroom, since there's only one air condition unit and the bed would have to block the door closed. This way, the cool air can circulate. Note the classy Three Stooges refrigerator magnets, the hub around which my entire Anti-Pottery Barn decor theme revolves.


The other end of the long narrow kitchen, which I guess we could technically call "the dining room." I need a longer tablecloth so I can hide more items beneath that table.


Decorating on a shoestring: More fun with contact paper! This must be what people did before drawers and cupboards were invented.

Ok, there you have it, all four rooms plus the porch. Sorry if that was a little too much shack overload. But you know, I'm liking it. It's going to be very livable. I've been feeling quite happy here. Now the next step is to complete the sale of the other house. If all goes well, the closing is set for 10:00 Monday morning. Fingers crossed!

And damn, hello, it's nice to be back.