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Cleaning house
Feb. 15th, 2016 11:39 pmWhen Denise and I bought our house, back in 2000, one of the things that clinched the deal was the family room.
It was a newer attachment on a 1930's farmhouse, with skylight, concrete floor (under a horrific shag rug), doors to both the driveway and back yard, and potential access to water--the laundry room was on the far end. This will be my studio, I declared.
Well, sorta.
We had all these boxes, see. Stuff we'd brought from the old place, stuff we'd brought from Denise's place in Wisconsin, stuff we didn't know what to do with, but couldn't quite part with. Not to mention a whole bunch of metal utility shelves that'd filled the back bedroom in our old duplex. So the entire south wall of my studio-to-be became deep storage.
We had all the best plans to unpack and sort. At one point, we even inventoried the contents of all those boxes, put numbered stickers on them corresponding to a list on Denise's laptop.
Fifteen years later…
Half of the carpet is torn up. I've built a rack of ware boards, created a canvas topped work table, moved in a wheel and kiln and slab roller, bought a pug mill and found a place for it.
All those boxes are still there. Joined by bamboo plywood crate panels that were too cool to throw out. Catfood and litter bags that should be recyclable but aren't. Scraps of foam core, styrofoam slab molds I might use one day. And layers of clay dust.
Denise and I just spent two weeks at her mother's house in Wisconsin, clearing fifty years of detritus. Well, making a start. There's a full basement, and a sewing/storage room, multiple closets. Right now, we're working on the easy stuff. Fifty years of old magazines. Multiple bags of worn and torn clothes, fabric scraps. Boxes on boxes of travel maps, tourist information, work notes and employee flyers, empty boxes and blister packs, saved correspondence, and saved stuff.
I made nearly a dozen trips to Goodwill, got to know the attendants by name. Filled half a large dumpster at the local recycling center with magazines, and again the following weekend with cardboard boxes and paper. There's still more to clear, including a lifetime of photographic equipment and photos, but at least we made a dent.
And likewise, at home. We cleared the ground clutter and two shelves of boxes from the studio warming up for this trip, plan on doing more now we've returned. Don't know when I'll be able to pull up the rest of the rug, but it's on my list. We've seen the future, and we don't want to go there.
It was a newer attachment on a 1930's farmhouse, with skylight, concrete floor (under a horrific shag rug), doors to both the driveway and back yard, and potential access to water--the laundry room was on the far end. This will be my studio, I declared.
Well, sorta.
We had all these boxes, see. Stuff we'd brought from the old place, stuff we'd brought from Denise's place in Wisconsin, stuff we didn't know what to do with, but couldn't quite part with. Not to mention a whole bunch of metal utility shelves that'd filled the back bedroom in our old duplex. So the entire south wall of my studio-to-be became deep storage.
We had all the best plans to unpack and sort. At one point, we even inventoried the contents of all those boxes, put numbered stickers on them corresponding to a list on Denise's laptop.
Fifteen years later…
Half of the carpet is torn up. I've built a rack of ware boards, created a canvas topped work table, moved in a wheel and kiln and slab roller, bought a pug mill and found a place for it.
All those boxes are still there. Joined by bamboo plywood crate panels that were too cool to throw out. Catfood and litter bags that should be recyclable but aren't. Scraps of foam core, styrofoam slab molds I might use one day. And layers of clay dust.
Denise and I just spent two weeks at her mother's house in Wisconsin, clearing fifty years of detritus. Well, making a start. There's a full basement, and a sewing/storage room, multiple closets. Right now, we're working on the easy stuff. Fifty years of old magazines. Multiple bags of worn and torn clothes, fabric scraps. Boxes on boxes of travel maps, tourist information, work notes and employee flyers, empty boxes and blister packs, saved correspondence, and saved stuff.
I made nearly a dozen trips to Goodwill, got to know the attendants by name. Filled half a large dumpster at the local recycling center with magazines, and again the following weekend with cardboard boxes and paper. There's still more to clear, including a lifetime of photographic equipment and photos, but at least we made a dent.
And likewise, at home. We cleared the ground clutter and two shelves of boxes from the studio warming up for this trip, plan on doing more now we've returned. Don't know when I'll be able to pull up the rest of the rug, but it's on my list. We've seen the future, and we don't want to go there.