Old House Gripe

I don't have alot of complaints about this house, but I have one.  It is one that is shared by anyone who lives in a house built before, oh, I'd say the 80's...there is not enough closet space!  AAAAhhhh it drives me crazy.  I have only had adequate closet space for one year of my life, and that was when I lived in an overpriced one-bedroom apartment during my first year of law school.  It had a walk in closet and I lived alone so didn't have to share any closet or cabinet with anyone.  I know that in past decades there wasn't Old Navy and TJ Maxx and other places to buy very cheap, mass produced shoes and clothes.  For example, I probably have 20 pairs of brighty colored flat slip on shoes and I don't think I paid for than $20 for any of them.  Most of them were under $10.  Because I don't wear any one pair every day, they don't wear out and so they stay with me for years.  And keep building.  The same is true for clothing.  (I'm not saying all of my clothes and shoes are cheap...I have some good quality items as well).  This means that every closet, every shelf, every drawer is overflowing.  And I get rid of items all the time.  I never hesitate to give things to thrift stores or charity, or to throw worn out things away.  There is just never enough room and it drives me crazy!  It's not about the size of the house, either.  The house I lived in from the time I was 7 until I moved away from home as an adult (I shouldn't say I have moved away because alot of my crap is still there!) is a cavernous 6 bedroom farmhouse with bedrooms much larger than those built in new houses.  Storage remains a problem, however.  Every closet is tiny.  One of the rooms doesn't even have it's own closet!  My dad added a door that allows it to share with another room's closet when we moved in there.   My dad grew up in that house, and after he and his siblings were gone in the 80's my grandparents resorted to turning two of the unused bedrooms into huge storage closets.  It's a battle to prevent that from happening again. 

I greatly reduced my childhood belongings a over Christmas break a few years ago and brought four huge black garbage bags of old clothes and random crap to a thrift store.  Another two bags went in the trash.  The excess closet space in my old room was immediately filled with gift wrapping supplies and coats by my mom.  In the two little bathrooms there are no cabinets to speak of besides the ones under the sinks.  In the bathroom belonging to us (the kids) there is a little decorative gardening table that is covered with the items that would be in a cupboard, such as my brother's 5 cans of shaving cream that are all half used and cans of hair product that date back to 2002.  Cleaning is infuriating because every time you do so, you have to move all of that crap around and if one thing gets knocked over it is like a domino effect. 

One might say that it would be nice to have a large attic and a large basement to be filled with excess crap.  However, both the basement and attic environments are not suitable for storing anything you really care about.  The basement is cool and damp like a cellar and that attic has no climate conrol and turns into a sauna during summer and gets so cold during winter that everything has a layer of frost over it.  It's a good thing rubbermaid tubs were invented to protect all of our Christmas decorations and old toys!  (Oh, the toys...they are everywhere!  (Just waiting for grandchildren, right Mother?!)  Everywhere you look there are toy tractors and cars that belong to my brother.  There are boxes of old children's books and barbies.  There is a huge tub of legos somewhere and bags of stuffed animals.   My nephew visited the farm one night and thought the attic was the most magical, fascinating place he had ever seen!  At least someone appreciates it and doesn't see it as a filthy, dusty, freezing/steaming room full of crap. 

What I am trying to say is that I get really frustrated with not having enough space and I know many other people feel the same frustrations with their not-so-new houses.  Not living space, of course, but storage space.  I hate  that my clothes are always mashed together and when all of our hanging shirts are clean there is not room for one more hanger in the closet.  I hate that my jeans and sweatshirts and sweaters are piled so high on the little shelves that I can't reach the ones at the top and if I try to grab one in the middle the whole tower falls over and I have to refold.  I hate that my shoes are piled up and get scuffed by other shoes when I dig for the pair I want. 

I had to face this issue a few days ago when I decided to address a problem in our coat closet.  This closet is also where we keep shoes and it is a disaster.  We had a cheap, pressed wood shoe shelf on the floor in there that had mountains of shoes piled on top of it.  It buckled under the weight and the wood cracked.  It was a sliver waiting to happen and also the screws were poking out.  I decided I couldn't take it anymore so I went to Target and bought this new metal one...

Ahhh..it looks so pristine...with most of the shoes gone and half of the coats removed.  I have a photo of the mountain of shoes but it was kind of gross looking so I will spare you.  It's must better...for now. 

This Is It

This is what EVERYONE has been waiting for...riiiiight...


Here are some pictures of the house. They came from the listing on the internet, so the furnishings are those of the previous owner.






This is the house from the front. It is on 16th Street. I am only slightly dissapointed that our address will not be something interesting and exotic sounding, like our old address on campus, which was "Tulane Drive". The avenues in this new neigborhood are called interesting names such as "LaForest" and "Braman" and "Harmon". (I wonder who LaForest, Braman and Harmon are?) If I ever play that game where you jokingly give yourself an exotic dancer name, race car driver name, etc. based on the name of your street, childhood pet, or some other silly thing, I will use LaForest instead of 16th! Hello, my name is Rascal LaForest and I am a race car driver!






This is the living room. It is the first room you see when you walk in the front door. I think it looks pretty generic at the moment. Under the carpet are wood floors. The first thing we will be doing next Wednesday is ripping that carpet out and throwing it away! It's actually not the worst carpet I've ever seen (not even close!), but it is 20 years old. The owner is moving out due to her advancing age, and she told us that she covered the wood floor after her husband died because she didn't want to worry about the maintenance. Hmmm...maintenance...I don't know about this wood floor business... Hopefully a swiffer cloth will be adequate!






This is one of the "non-conforming" basement bedrooms. It is the biggest bedroom in the house. All of this conformity business was news to me, and I never really thought about it before based on the fact that many of my friends grew up having their bedrooms in their basements. I thought basement living was great! You could sleep alot later because no light would disturb you after a late night of playing "Truth , Dare, Double Dare, Promise or Repeat". I guess if there is a fire, you are more likely to get trapped though...who knew? Don't worry, if any of you visit us and sleep down there, I will give you a ladder so you can escape, OK?






This is the kitchen. I love that canopy thing over the oven. When were were touring the house, I noticed that inside the oven, the owner had stashed some excess clutter from the kitchen. She and I seem to have more in common that I originally thought!



This is a beautiful shot of the second non-conforming basement bedroom. It is the only room in the house with panelled walls. What was the deal with that, anyway? Every house we saw had some sort of panelling somewhere. Who came up with the idea, years ago, that covering the walls with some immitation wood was a good idea? I'm glad it's only in one room