(Not as bad as it looks; the red stuff is glue)Eeeeeeee!!! And not in the good way! I thought all the old backsplash shit had moved to 21 Dump Street. Apparently, Adam found it in the garage while he was cleaning. So I marched into the office and asked him if he thought himself cute.
"Yeah, actually, I thought it was pretty cute. Did you take a picture?" Well, no, of course I hadn't taken a picture. He makes fun of me for taking pictures of everything in the house. I was not going to take a picture. But, well, I never got a close-up of it before we tore it out. And we're about to have NEW backsplash, and then I'd have no comparison. So.
I took a picture.
***
Last night at dinner, Adam told me that he still kind of can't believe this is our house, sometimes finding himself on the front porch realizing all over again that we own this; it's ours. A realization despite having had his hands on every piece of wood in the house. This is a frequent topic of conversation when we take a walk around a neighborhood so much lovelier than our old one.
***
This morning, I was looking for my shoes. I looked under the bed, on the porch, under the couch. And then I remembered, that they were right where they belong-- on the built-in shoe racks in our closets. Builder had brains.
(No, I did not take this picture just for this post-- trust. That carpet is loooong gone.)There's a common thread, I swear it. In fact, you probably already know where most of this is going. I take pictures for the blog, for posterity, and so I can see how far we've come and how we got there. And I'm always surprised. It's a slow process and easy to forget what the starting point looked like. I'm surprised by the distance we've come, that this is our house, surprised at all the new things I've yet to learn to live with-- good and bad (though there's not a lot of bad). It's so easy to learn to live with anything. But this process of settling in, of being constantly surprised by the place is wonderful. Don't get me wrong-- I long for the days when I'm not living out of boxes. But this process is a nice one too, for now at least.
Today, I like surprises.
Today, I like surprises.
5 comments:
I have thousands of pictures of the house, yet I find myself almost daily wishing I had a picture of this or that before we started working on it.
Yep, it's something that all house people seem to do... taking tons of before and afters! It sure is fun though when you finish a project and can look back and see where you started from.
We are keeping samples of each layer of wallpaper and all of the before & after shots in scrap books (history books) in each room. I too take pictures of everything, every detail is a detail worth keeping. Unfortinately I also do a lot of the work here and Stan doesn't take pictures so only half of the details are in print. I keep waiting for the day when I look at the pictures imported from the camera and I don't see quite as many boxes stacked in each room - I suppose we're a long way from there!
oh, and I don't think that backsplash is too bad...maybe it's because my Grandma had something similar and it sparks a warm memory
We're all photo junkies when it comes to our houses. I'm always directing shots and will occasionally recreate something: "Hey, put that back! I need to take a picture!"
I get frustrated if someone starts a project without my knowledge: "What do you mean you changed the light bulb/swept the stairs/went to Home Depot? Why didn't you call me?"
But in the end, everyone seems to love the before and after pictures--it really makes us feel like we're accomplishing something special.
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