The other day Mom came over. We went through our house, room by room, and flagged the things of ours that will be taken with us and incorporated into her space to make it "our space", collectively. We also designed the kids' bedrooms and the "man lair" that will occupy the to-be-finished portion of the basement.
Daughter's room will be a pale lilac color with one wall accent-painted a (slightly!) bolder shade of purple. With her own furnishings, a couple throw rugs, and some new curtains, it will be "hers" very quickly and easily for just the price of some paint and fabric.
Son's room will be Pittsburgh Penguin/hockey themed, with a bit of Nascar and Star Wars thrown in. His walls will be a pale gold and he'll have some black wall shelving for his cooler display-worthy stuff, plus a pegboard kinda deal to hold/display his goalie gear. "That's not scuffed pads, that's...Functional 3D Wall Art!" :D
Our current living room furniture, most of it at least, will go in the man lair - a big comfy couch, equally comfy big chair, TV & stand, and a coffee table, plus some lamps and shelving. The entertainment center will go upstairs and replace a smaller tower-type thing that Mom currently uses as...well...an entertainment center. We will be finishing the basement "man lair" in stages. At first, we're going minimal: white paint on the concrete walls, Sunday School Classroom style; carpet squares for the floor, a couple of outlets, something to dress up the bare-bulb lighting, a space heater to help the furnace out a bit down there, and folding doors to block off the man lair from the storage/laundry area. In time, we might do a bit more in terms of wall work, but the idea is to create livable space quickly and cheaply...and for Penguins fans, the "igloo effect" of white-painted cinderblock is actually a draw, so no worries!
Mom always wanted pictures for her stairway wall, and now she'll have 'em. Our family photos will go there. We've also got some things we really like - a framed Last Supper portrait, a hand-carved wooden cross and other very special gifts from a very talented woodworker in the old church, other artwork and knicknacks, kitchen things. A beat-up old mug with a broken handle that's precious beyond all reckoning to husband, because his mom (rest her soul) used to make tea in it for him every morning. I make it now, but I use the same mug.
It's the little things like that, that really make a home. Furniture? Clothes? Household junk? feh, it comes and goes. But all our little "things" - those are tough to sort through. I can just see myself at the monster yard sale: "To YOU it's an ugly plantstand growing out of a gnome's head; but to ME, it's love, baby, pure love!"
Showing posts with label household. Show all posts
Showing posts with label household. Show all posts
Monday, March 2, 2009
Sunday, February 15, 2009
Setting the Timeline
Game plan is to make the move around late June - four months hence. There are roughly eight gazillion jillion details to be navigated. Not a moment to lose; but if we work steadily, it shouldn't be overwhelming.
Gotta get our house prepped and listed. And downsize like 90 percent of our stuff. Good thing our neighborhood has a H-U-G-E standing yard sale every early-June!
Gotta get Mom's house configured for the new arrivals. Besides a little downsizing/cleaning/painting, the biggest job will be finishing part of her basement into a "fully functional man lair" - someplace Husband and/or Grandson can sprawl about on old comfy furniture and play video games, watch hockey, sort sports cards obsessively, and have all their sports memorabilia. Won't take much to finish the basement; it's clean, dry, and squared-up, just needs a little cosmetic work, a couple of outlets and some cable. Boys get their space, Mom gets value added to her house, win-win.
Gotta do a lot of things. I started, this past week, with closets. A few dedicated hours, a big payoff in terms of work done that you can see and that actually helps with the rest.
Trash guys are gonna love us. Got like seven bags of garbage outta those closets. Where's it all come from?!?
Gotta get our house prepped and listed. And downsize like 90 percent of our stuff. Good thing our neighborhood has a H-U-G-E standing yard sale every early-June!
Gotta get Mom's house configured for the new arrivals. Besides a little downsizing/cleaning/painting, the biggest job will be finishing part of her basement into a "fully functional man lair" - someplace Husband and/or Grandson can sprawl about on old comfy furniture and play video games, watch hockey, sort sports cards obsessively, and have all their sports memorabilia. Won't take much to finish the basement; it's clean, dry, and squared-up, just needs a little cosmetic work, a couple of outlets and some cable. Boys get their space, Mom gets value added to her house, win-win.
Gotta do a lot of things. I started, this past week, with closets. A few dedicated hours, a big payoff in terms of work done that you can see and that actually helps with the rest.
Trash guys are gonna love us. Got like seven bags of garbage outta those closets. Where's it all come from?!?
Saturday, February 14, 2009
The Decision Is The First Adventure
It's all in the wording. "Combining households" vs. "Moving in with Mom."
"Moving in with Mom" carries a stigma, an air of regression and defeat. Couldn't make it out in the big bad world, had to turn tail and run home to Mommy and be a big overgrown kid again. It invites, to the overly-fertile (and overly-critical) imagination, a horde of imaginary yuppies with Seussian-distorted faces who circle around you in your dreams, dancing and chanting: "LOSER! Loserloserloser! Loooooo-zerrrrrr!" It also invites trouble, setting up all kinds of grounds for an unhealthy situation and dynamic from the word Go.
"Combining households," on the other hand, sounds both more challenging and more inviting. It acknowledges the realities of problem sets and families working together to solve them. In our case, the problem sets are both economic and familial. Recession's bit us and Mom both in the pocketbooks. Managing TWO four-bedroom houses between us is doable, so far, but increasingly unwieldy (that is, if we ever want to do anything "more", like rebuild nest eggs or send kids to college). Meanwhile, we're scrambling to balance between providing adequately for the children and being around to actually care for them, while Mom spends too much time "home alone" and lonely. Combining households invites Husband and Daughter and Mom and Grandchildren to all sacrifice something in hopes and faith of gaining something better.
The decision took months to come to and most of it was semiconscious, tracks we'd all followed separately and at the right time, boom, there it was, out in the open.
Could we do this?
Financial arrangements were easy enough to come to. Everyone'll come out significantly to the good. But the real questions were more subtle. Could Mom stand having us around all the time? Could we ever feel "at home" in the house that was once Daughter's home, but hadn't been for twenty years? Could we function as a three-generation household, navigating the questions of authority and undercurrents of family dynamic? Could the kids adjust to new schools, even if they are just moving 30 minutes away and could still see their current friends? What about Brother-And-Family, would they feel "pushed-out" or "second-best" or otherwise out in the cold?
It came down in the end to a cost-benefit analysis of the non-financial aspects. Could the social and familial benefits of combining households outweigh the costs? Was it worth it to Mom to have people around, to have grandchildren, a little life and noise and color back in her very quiet life again? Was it worth it to the grandkids to have Grammy around along with Mom and Dad? And what of the benefits to Mom and Dad?
We knew right well that it's countercultural and even considered weird to voluntarily combine households. To trip and fall backwards into it because of a sudden home loss or catastrophic illness is one thing; but to choose it, when Mom's still in good health and doesn't "need" people around to take care of her, when the sheriff isn't banging on the door and we don't "have to" move, when it's a good but not necessarily only option...
Yeah, it's weird. And some people will probably wag their tongues and shake their heads and say, "They're crazy!" or "What losers!" or "It'll never work!" Well, guess what. Speaking only for myself, as Daughter, I say: I am so over worrying about what other people think. It may not work - and if it doesn't, well, there's other housing out there and we can always move back out again.
The others involved can post their own seeings, but here's what I see: I see a chance to take better control of our own financial future while helping Mom out a little at the same time. Moreover, I see a chance to better know, love, and appreciate our only remaining living parent/grandparent. I see a chance even to help the environment by not spreading out five people across TWO big 4BR houses with all that carbon footprint. I see a chance to shed a lot of physical and psychic baggage and, in a sense, "start fresh".
I see a challenge and an adventure and an unforeseen, yet interesting and potentially even God-blessed, bend in the river. Decision made, let the work begin.
"Moving in with Mom" carries a stigma, an air of regression and defeat. Couldn't make it out in the big bad world, had to turn tail and run home to Mommy and be a big overgrown kid again. It invites, to the overly-fertile (and overly-critical) imagination, a horde of imaginary yuppies with Seussian-distorted faces who circle around you in your dreams, dancing and chanting: "LOSER! Loserloserloser! Loooooo-zerrrrrr!" It also invites trouble, setting up all kinds of grounds for an unhealthy situation and dynamic from the word Go.
"Combining households," on the other hand, sounds both more challenging and more inviting. It acknowledges the realities of problem sets and families working together to solve them. In our case, the problem sets are both economic and familial. Recession's bit us and Mom both in the pocketbooks. Managing TWO four-bedroom houses between us is doable, so far, but increasingly unwieldy (that is, if we ever want to do anything "more", like rebuild nest eggs or send kids to college). Meanwhile, we're scrambling to balance between providing adequately for the children and being around to actually care for them, while Mom spends too much time "home alone" and lonely. Combining households invites Husband and Daughter and Mom and Grandchildren to all sacrifice something in hopes and faith of gaining something better.
The decision took months to come to and most of it was semiconscious, tracks we'd all followed separately and at the right time, boom, there it was, out in the open.
Could we do this?
Financial arrangements were easy enough to come to. Everyone'll come out significantly to the good. But the real questions were more subtle. Could Mom stand having us around all the time? Could we ever feel "at home" in the house that was once Daughter's home, but hadn't been for twenty years? Could we function as a three-generation household, navigating the questions of authority and undercurrents of family dynamic? Could the kids adjust to new schools, even if they are just moving 30 minutes away and could still see their current friends? What about Brother-And-Family, would they feel "pushed-out" or "second-best" or otherwise out in the cold?
It came down in the end to a cost-benefit analysis of the non-financial aspects. Could the social and familial benefits of combining households outweigh the costs? Was it worth it to Mom to have people around, to have grandchildren, a little life and noise and color back in her very quiet life again? Was it worth it to the grandkids to have Grammy around along with Mom and Dad? And what of the benefits to Mom and Dad?
We knew right well that it's countercultural and even considered weird to voluntarily combine households. To trip and fall backwards into it because of a sudden home loss or catastrophic illness is one thing; but to choose it, when Mom's still in good health and doesn't "need" people around to take care of her, when the sheriff isn't banging on the door and we don't "have to" move, when it's a good but not necessarily only option...
Yeah, it's weird. And some people will probably wag their tongues and shake their heads and say, "They're crazy!" or "What losers!" or "It'll never work!" Well, guess what. Speaking only for myself, as Daughter, I say: I am so over worrying about what other people think. It may not work - and if it doesn't, well, there's other housing out there and we can always move back out again.
The others involved can post their own seeings, but here's what I see: I see a chance to take better control of our own financial future while helping Mom out a little at the same time. Moreover, I see a chance to better know, love, and appreciate our only remaining living parent/grandparent. I see a chance even to help the environment by not spreading out five people across TWO big 4BR houses with all that carbon footprint. I see a chance to shed a lot of physical and psychic baggage and, in a sense, "start fresh".
I see a challenge and an adventure and an unforeseen, yet interesting and potentially even God-blessed, bend in the river. Decision made, let the work begin.
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