Another Home Project I Should've Done Years Ago

We have two fairly low front windows that I've always liked because they're the perfect height for both Desmond and our dog to be able to entertain themselves by watching the action on our busy street. 

The problem is that our dog is, um, a little over-anxious when we leave sometimes. He jumps up on our window sill with his two front paws and barks like a madman at both us ("Come back!") and anyone else he sees ("Stay away!"). This destroyed the paint on our sill, and a year or so ago I stupidly thought that if we just sanded down and repainted the area and then always remembered to leave our blinds down when we left, we would be able to keep the sill nice-looking.

Our longtime handyman tried to warn us against this. But we didn't listen. So we got the sill repainted and then within about three days the paint was getting scratched by our dog. Then Des would roll all of his toy cars and trucks over those scratches and they'd break open and the paint would start flaking off. I kicked myself.

Here's a picture I took a few weeks ago. It got significantly worse after that.

So finally I determined that I needed to just follow our handyman's advice and have them install a wooden plank over the sill. We finally had it done today.

Just like the sprucing up of my home office, this is another project I should've done years ago! Ah, well. Better late than never, I guess.

- e

Getting Things Done

I survived the weekend!

In preparation for Saturday's party, I was on my feet Friday from the second I woke up until close to midnight. I got a FitBit the week prior and it's kind of sad to know that I've already likely hit my lifetime high: nearly 17,000 steps on Friday thanks to running between floors and cleaning like a maniac.

But it was all worth it, and I'll post some party pics on Baba G and Me later this week.

As I mentioned, one of the biggest pre-party/pre-vistor stressors was the painting project I decided to have done in the two days before my relatives arrived, like a genius. But that, too, worked out beautifully.

Here's what my office cubby looked like before:

And here it is now:

I am beyond ecstatic about the upgrade. I mean, I spend the majority of my day, every weekday, sitting here. And while I've always been a big believer in the power of your surroundings to affect your mood and productivity, I let myself wallow in that complete mess for three years.

Which led me to wonder this weekend, "Why? WHY DID I WAIT SO LONG TO DO THIS?!?!"

I think it's like anything else I put off (which is a lot). There will always be a better, more convenient time. We're planning to rehab our entire house in the future, so I always figured it was stupid to spend money on anything that would eventually be totally redone. And even though we have a lot of visitors, no one really is ever staring at this little corner of the floor—except me.

But the reality is that we're not going to do any construction on our place for at least five years, possibly more. And between now and then I would have still been here every day, sulking about how crappy everything around me looks. Now I'm excited about it and proud of it and look forward to coming up here each morning.

Granted, by the time it hit somewhere around 10 p.m. on Friday night and there were still stacks and stacks of papers everywhere I kicked into "Just Hide It!" mode and now I have no idea where bills, tax documents and other important files are... but hey, it LOOKS nice and clean right now. My new project is to go through each drawer and cabinet and closet and find all of the stuff I hid and then actually take care of it right then and there and create a new filing-cabinet system in the process.

Because if there's anything this experience taught me—or reminded me, rather—it's that it just makes everything worse when you put things off. If I had simply kept this place clean on a daily basis by taking five minutes to straighten up at the end of each day or by doing things like washing guest towels and sheets immediately after people left, I wouldn't have been miserable on Friday by trying to cram and get everything ready before the latest round of visitors showed up.

So I'm taking my own advice for once and have loads of laundry in right now and will get our guest rooms ready TODAY for the five people we have coming to stay in less than a month.

Now wish me luck in finding all of my bills before they're due...

- e

If It Weren't for Visitors, My Condo Would be in Ruins

I love having people come and stay with us. It is one of my main motivators for keeping our place halfway livable. If we never had any visitors, we'd have probably been featured on some sort of "Have you no shame?!?" reality show by now. Thankfully, we host a steady stream of family members and friends who come through Chicago on a very regular basis.

After Desmond was born and at my husband's insistence (let's just say neither of us would be what you call "domestic"), we hired a cleaning lady who comes every other week to keep our main two levels in check. The place we moved into after we were married in 2003 is what city folk call a "duplex down," meaning that one of the two levels is half-underground. I fought this cleaning-lady arrangement for years before we had Des. I thought it was ridiculous to pay someone to do things that seemed so simple (yet we never seemed to have time for). I was also worried that my great-grandmother's piano would get ruined—that the wrong cleaning solution would be used on it or something. Then I talked to a friend who is equally as neurotic as me (but has been using a cleaning lady for me) and he was like, "Oh, just tell her to leave the piano alone." DUH.

So once I got pregnant in 2011, I caved and we hired the same cleaning lady my friend uses. This is one of the best decisions I've ever made.

However, at the end of that same year we bought the condo unit above us, and in 2013 we bought the final condo unit on the top floor, with the intention of eventually converting everything into a single family home, aka "a real house." But we don't foresee having either the money or the mental fortitude to go embark upon that level of construction and life disruption for at least five years. So in the meantime, it means we have two separate two-bedroom/two-bathroom condo units above us to play around with however we'd like. The cleaning lady doesn't come to those floors at all.

A cubby area on the second floor has served as my home office since Desmond was born. (Before that, my KITCHEN TABLE doubled as my home office from mid-2007 to December 2011. See picture on the right.) And the third floor has morphed into my husband's music studio/our "movie room." We bought beds and nightstands for all four of the guest rooms, but other than there there's not much furniture.

And while the third floor movie room looks pretty cool with all of the framed film posters and stills we transferred from our lower level (which has now turned into kiddieland, thanks to Desmond's three trillion toys), the second floor hasn't gotten much love in the ol' decor department.

I'm going to try and change that very soon. After learning that Jo would be coming for Walker Stalker Con in late February (and—since that post—also confirming that our Scottish friend and fellow LOST/Star Wars mega-fan Paul will also be staying here with us), I realized that I really needed to finally decorate my home office with all of the nerdy pop culture stuff I've been collecting over the years. I mean, if Jo and Paul don't appreciate it, no one ever will. This was just the excuse I needed to kick my butt into gear.

As I type this, I'm waiting for our trusty handyman to come over and spec out the costs of painting the main living areas on the second floor. Also as I type this, the signed Walking Dead poster I won in the latest Cancer Gets LOST charity auction, as well as the picture of Richard Alpert (Nestor Carbonell) I got signed at last year's Walker Stalker Con, are both at the framing shop. Before Jo and Paul arrive, I should have a good-as-new home office that displays all of my beloved "stuff."

AND I will probably have to ask our cleaning lady if I can pay her to give the guest levels some love before the big weekend arrives. Because we all know I'm not going to end up doing it myself.

Here is the "before" picture of my office cubby. Yes, I'm embarrassed.

I'll post the "after" when it's done!

- e