Today marks one week since we moved into our new home in
Paradise, CA. I am sitting on my bed,
looking out the window where all I can see are trees. And I am grateful. It was only 4 months ago when my husband and
I made the decision to sell our home in the San Francisco Bay Area and move to
this mountain town. We had contemplated
the idea of a big move for many years but we couldn't bring ourselves to make
that leap. Until now.
I grew up in the Bay Area and never lived more than 25 miles
from the same place since I was 4 years old.
The same goes for my husband. Big
change is hard. We found this property,
with 3 dwellings on it, which could serve as a sort of family compound now and,
later, the retreat property I have always dreamed of. I wish I could say that we are "settling
in", but that is not really true.
What we are doing is trying to make it livable. For this city gal, who doesn't like to get
dirty, this fixer upper property is a challenge. I find myself wishing (often) that we could
hire out a lot of this work and just have it done already.
My husband is a big DIY guy. Thank God! In fact, the endless number of projects this
property presented was probably the biggest reason he agreed to the move. HE LOVES THIS ISH. Me? Yeah, not so much. LORI DOESN'T LIKE TO GET DIRTY. It is not the dirt, per se,
that is bothering me; I think I can get used to getting dirty. It is the evidence
of the other humans and other creatures who have lived here and whose evidence
still remains. Specifically, both the
main house and the mobile home on the property reek of animal urine. I don't know how many times I have wondered over
the last week exactly how anyone could live like that. I swear that mobile home doesn't seem as if
it has ever been cleaned. EVER. I feel like taping a clorox cleaning wipe to
my nose every time I walk into the building. The mobile is much worse than the main house so we began the hard work there.
It's getting better every day. So far, we have pulled out all of the carpet
in the mobile and sprayed every inch of the linoleum with bleach. It seems to be killing the odor. All of the rooms have a coat of primer on the
walls now and we will move onto applying the paint today. I say "we" but I mean my
husband. He is in Handyman Heaven with
his new deluxe edition paint sprayer.
He doesn't
like to tape before he paints, so he just doesn't. He
would rather go back later and scrape paint off of the windows with a razor
blade than protect them in the first place. It drives me nuts.
By the time he was finished yesterday, his clothes and shoes were ruined
and his face and hair were covered in primer.
He looked like he was auditioning for the part of the Abominable Snowman in that Christmas cartoon I can't remember the name of right now. It was pretty hilarious, especially since it was him and not me.
I had a break from the cleaning the stinky yesterday and spent most of the day unpacking boxes and looking for places to put things. This house is much bigger than our last home but it is seriously lacking in closet space. I walked around in circles a lot but I got it done. My intention is to get rid of whatever doesn't fit (eventually). A barn sale in the Spring could be fun.
As for today, I am planning to get the kitchen and
bathroom cleaned in the mobile then get some of my stuff out of the house and
into the barn. For now, can someone bring me a
hazmat suit? I have some serious
cleaning to do. xoxo ~Lori
