Why We’re Planning on Running Away (aka The Project List Expands)

 There is nothing more miserable than feeling like you have no control over your home or your clutter.  Martin and I put a lot of things in boxes just to get them out of the way until the kitchen remodel is done.  We can never find anything because nothing has a designated spot except our tools.  Half of our stuff is in boxes; the other half is trying to find a designated space.  None of our furniture can even rest in it’s designated space because a tarp divides our living space.  Only the chop saw and screwdrivers have assigned homes, and I’m hoping they’re not permanent fixtures around here.

My husband and I have worked on a number of projects together… we’ve just never had to live in them.  There’s a reason I don’t talk to you about our renovation every day.  You can imagine that we’re progressing, but I just can’t handle thinking about it any more.  Right now, our home doesn’t serve as a relaxing place where we can get away from things.  It’s often the last place we want to be.  And when we want to run away, we can’t decide if we want to do it together or just be absolutely totally alone, which is impossible in a city of 3.5 million people.

We left Berlin one weekend before we started varnishing.  We loved escaping.  But when we came back, I’m sorry to report that we weren’t relaxed when we put the key in the door.  We were stressed and cranky with the state of our entire home.

The worst part is realizing how well I have blocked out many of the things that would normally frustrate me.  Like the fact that my husband hangs his coat on a bike… which actually makes me happy because it’s not on a chair or the table, which are the only other places he could put it.  It also means that I get to hang mine on the bedroom door.

Now we have two choices as we finish up the major projects in the kitchen:

  1. wrap up the kitchen remodel with the rest of the house undone and start all over with a new tarp next year, or
  2. keep on truckin’ and get it all done with already

covered-couch

The lucky winner is number one.  I know you saw that coming.  We’ve decided to leave our tarp up a little bit longer than planned, which the live-for-the-moment bit of us isn’t too happy about.  It’s the smaller part of us and probably loses every time like our coin has two heads and no tails.  So here’s a little of what we’ve got planned for more marriage testing… err remodeling:

  1. Our very German, very irritating bathroom (you just have to see it for yourself so we can be confused together)
  2. A bench for taking our shoes on and off and storing them in the hallway
  3. Martin’s desk (that’s a post in itself because the two of us have very different preferences… like the fact that I don’t want to see his soldering iron in my living room on Christmas morning)
  4. A system for hanging our bikes where I will not be smacking into them every time I walk to the bathroom
  5. A coatrack since the bikes will no longer be an option

In the meantime, I’m going to keep varnishing and being as sweet and patient as I can like a good Valentine should be.  I hope you can wait out the storm with us.  I hope Martin can with his little wifey, too!

I promise some beautiful pictures soon.