Perspective

Each day I am finding more perspective. This is especially helpful when I look around and do not see much hope. My father-in-law came to help us clean, and we were talking yesterday. I explained that it had taken me about three hours to clean a very small area in the kitchen, and yes, the kitchen is just that nasty that none of my dishes are yet in cabinets even though my mother-in-law came Sunday and helped clean out the cabinets. Anyway, I digress. As I explained how long it took to clean such a small area, I commented, "And just think how many surfaces of that size there are in this entire house." My f-i-l said, "I try not to think about that," and I explained that it really helps me. He said, "Oh, you check 'em off?" My response was, "Of course!"

That is perspective worth keeping when trying to renovate or fix up an old home. As I reflected on this, I was reminded of my six year old daughter's perspective on the first night here. As I said in my last post, I wanted to cry that night because it was so disgusting. Instead of seeing the nastiness, my little bit was running around looking at all the curtains and features of the home saying, "Oh, the curtains in the living room are so beautiful," and "I love this shower curtain. I'm so glad we bought this house," and "Thank you, Daddy, for getting us this great house. I love the pretty door knobs," and other such comments. Now, this sounds so cute, but let's get true perspective on the cute little comments she was making. The curtains in the living room were white lace that had been stained by cigarette smoke and did not reach all the way across the window. The rod they were hanging on was half bent in the middle and looked like it was in the house in 1972 when I was born. The shower curtain in the main floor bathroom was black with a ruffled split up the middle and a ruffle across the top. Where the split went up, the dirty, opaque liner was visible, and there were many, large spots where the curtain had been stained by paint. To top off these items, the doorknobs are the old, clear doorknobs meant to look like crystal, but they are loose and only half-way work. It's amazing how a six-year-old perceives features in a home, even when they are worn out, or in this case, nasty! So my hubby and I really enjoyed a good laugh over that because this has continued since we got here. She keep seeing things around the house and talks about how great these things are in spite of the fact that this house is really gross. She just can't see it. But perspective is everything when it comes to our attitudes.

The challenge at this point is keeping a good perspective in the midst of the nastiness. As I was finishing the deep cleaning last night, I kept thinking, this is starting to look better. Sure, it may only be a 5-foot wide section that is looking (and smelling) better, but 5 feet done at a time is 5 feet less I have to finish!

A common element in home renovation is thinking some existing element can be reused only to discover it is not in good enough shape to reuse. As I was cleaning I was finding more things that need to be fixed or replaced because they would not be able to be reused. I am planning to reuse the kitchen cabinets, but as I was cleaning I noticed that the top of the cabinets had been boxed in. Now I never understood boxing in the top of the cabinets, but it seemed to be common back in the 50s, 60s and even the 70s. While cleaning the cabinet above the refrigerator, I discovered that while there was an apparent boxing above the cabinets, that area is hollow and accessible from inside the top shelf of the cabinets. So now I'm faced with a dilemma: how do I reuse the cabinets and maximize the existing space? I suppose I will figure it out, but it seems that the boxed in area needs to be removed, meaning I will need to remove the crown molding by the ceiling, put up new cabinets, repair the ceiling (which has a popcorn texture), and ..... I was beginning to feel overwhelmed and then it hit me. Instead of worrying about taking on another project within the house now, I can clean everything and use the existing infrastructure of the house, get all of our stuff out of boxes and into cabinets, repaint the interior and exterior of the home, and then I can slowly begin to tackle the kitchen cabinets amongst other cabinets and closets. My hubby and I were talking this morning about our closets and he came to the same conclusion: get our closets clean, our clothes hung in there (so we do not have boxes in the middle of the room), move all the furniture away from the walls, paint, move everything back and then pull out all of the clothes from one closet at a time and paint the interior of the closet. The perspective we both gained is: One thing at a time!

Remember to keep a good perspective and you'll be able to accomplish your goals!
Happy Home Improvement!!! :-)