These past few months brought so much shit into our daily news cycle. I wanted to sit here and launch into stories about how I don’t think it is a coincidence that my mom died on the only day that is a command- March Fourth. I wanted to shout it from the blogspot.com (now turned blogger.com) world that my mom would've wanted all of us to March Forth in other people’s shoes- to do what is right for others in all walks of life. I really wanted to. I also wanted to sit here and reflect on my mom, which is why I think many of you click on this antiquated link. I’m choosing to focus on the latter, but please, I beg of you on behalf of my mom, March Forth in someone else’s god damn shoes before supporting anyone who doesn’t take that approach.
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I just like this picture, but clearly she's showing you she raised us to March. Fucking. Forth. |
Now, onto the rest.
I’ve written before about our house in Atlanta on Aberdeen and the house Nick and I bought in Seattle. Our current house is small in stature and square footage, and large in projects and to-do lists. Aside from the size differences, I can’t help but see parallels between the two houses. Both houses required some updating (but were initially very livable), both houses had/have outdated bathrooms with either yellow tile or blue/white patterned tile. Both houses had/have linoleum. Both houses required dehumidifiers in the basement. Both houses featured great neighbors, great locations, and were filled with people willing to use some elbow grease to turn the house into a home.
In our current house, one of our aforementioned bathrooms got updated this year. We did not personally put the elbow grease into the bathroom updating- just on the finishing touches. I wanted to add something unique in an otherwise “standard” bathroom remodel featuring subway tile, black hexagon floors, and Sherwin Williams Alabaster walls…all lovely, but nothing unique. So, now both houses have/had wallpaper. Remember when wallpaper had its moment? Wallpaper came and went just like skinny jeans. But now it’s back!
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Nana's bright wallpaper and proof I should never be surprised there is always a child at my feet. |
While I’ve painted many times, I had not ever hung wallpaper. I read the instructions from the wallpaper company and watched all their tutorial videos multiple times. First mistake was that I didn’t think it would be too hard based on the videos I watched. Second mistake was starting this project on election night. I could go on with the mistakes made, but you get the idea. I prepped the walls with special “wall covering primer,” which you can’t buy at Sherwin Williams because, “nobody uses wallpaper anymore,” according to the man I talked to on the phone (I think he’s wrong). Home Depot was more accepting to DIY wallpaper-ers, in case you were wondering.
Anyways, Nick and I rolled the special glue onto the wallpaper, folded it inward (without creasing it!), and bookended it to let the glue set. I was still feeling confident at this point. We hung it on the wall ok-ish, but confidence was starting to wane. Then all hell broke loose when we tried to get this unwieldy wallpaper around the window trim, a medicine cabinet, sockets for lights, and corners. And don’t even get me started on having to match the repeating patterns. A Type B teacher and a Type A engineer both need each other and don’t need each other for this type of project. I needed Nick’s brain for doing the math to figure out how to use just the right amount of wallpaper so that we didn’t have to open the 2nd roll of wallpaper (reality: we had to open the 2nd roll). Nick needed my brain to overlook the inevitable imperfections (reality: an engineer literally will never be able to overlook imperfections).
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Despite its unhappy beginning, this is the happiest wall in our house. |
I called my dad after our two late nights of wallpapering. I told him that I could not believe how much harder it was than I realized, especially the spots where you’re trimming around something. I should also add that we only wallpapered ONE wall. One wall! He said to me, “you know, your mother did all of the wallpapering in our house by herself.” I truly don’t know how the fuck she pulled that off. The only thing I can think is that she knew better than to hang wallpaper with your spouse (and I say that with gratitude for Nick’s help because I would've cried doing it alone). My mom wallpapered so. many. rooms. in our house on Aberdeen. The downstairs half bathroom had various floral patterns, the kitchen had a striped pattern, and my bedroom once featured a yellow floral Laura Ashley wallpaper border.
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I can't imagine why it's so hard, but please focus on the wallpaper. |
In the house on Aberdeen, my room was 4 different colors in the 13 years it was mine before I went to college. It began as a pale pink, then became yellow (to go with the aforementioned Laura Ashley theme), then became a sky blue color (obviously to match a striped PB Teen comforter), and lastly featured a navy blue accent wall with the rest of the walls being off white. The only color I don’t recall helping paint was pink. Every time I wanted to change the color of my room, it was on me. My mom taught me how to buy a good angled brush, how to cut in around edges/trim, and how these important steps allow you to squeak by without taping because taping is too damn time consuming. My mom painted every piece of trim and every wall in our house that wasn’t covered in wallpaper. She also painted the entire exterior of Camp Howe’s About It in Vermont one summer long before I was born. While Howe’s About It is not close to being a mansion (ha!), it still has a lot of exterior paint for someone to paint largely by themselves.
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Proof of the green paint my mom painted. It's still there today- which should not be surprising to anyone who has been there. |
Now, switch gears to current mom Abby. Anna (5) and Emily (1.5) shared the smallest room in our house until 2 nights ago. One item on the to-do list for our house was to get a window put in the largest bedroom of our house, which was conveniently built without any window. When this change recently happened, we let Anna choose the paint color from a few pre-selected choices. While her initial request was for a rainbow colored room (I compromised with a rainbow pillow), she happily settled on a light shade of pink. I was able to prep, prime, and paint 3 walls of their room when I was off for a week in February and the girls still had school. The 4th wall involved moving furniture, so could not be done until the weekend when both girls were home. I’ll be damned if Anna didn’t want to play a very active role in painting the new room. All I could think about was how I had to learn to paint at some point and how I should instill the same philosophy in her. But dear lord, if my mother went through what I just went through teaching a 5 year old to paint walls, I am forever indebted. Picture this: globs of paint on the roller, paint dripping all over the trim and drop cloth, Anna stepping in the dripped paint and then being mad that she couldn’t just walk off the drop cloth with paint on her feet. I did draw the line at teaching her how to cut into edges.
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This is what refusing to change into painting clothes looks like. |
At the end of the day, she did start to figure out how to get the right amount of paint on the roller and took immense pride in where her own elbow grease led her.
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This scene looks idyllic. Don't let them fool you. |
One final completely random story, but because it happened last night, it feels like it’s meant to be heard. I lost the diamond in my engagement ring almost a year ago. I noticed it after taking Anna to a swim lesson and I frantically asked another mom waiting for her kid’s swim lesson to help look for it- just the diamond was missing, not the ring, so this was futile. I searched our house high and low and we went back to a restaurant we ate at earlier in the day. No luck. I filed a claim with insurance, reported it lost, and got a replacement stone for my original setting. Last night, when we were moving Anna’s bottom bunk mattress to the new room, we found the original diamond sitting nicely on the floor directly under the mattress. Abso-fucking-lutely crazy. I am telling you this for a reason though…Nancy reminded me that my mom lost her ring at one time and found it many months later in a gardening glove! Parallels, anyone?
Anyways, if you’re still here, thanks for reading, reminiscing, and finding parallels with me. It’s been 14 years since my mom died and it is mind boggling to me that I can sit here and continue to write about ways she still impacts my life. I just sure wish I could have had a wallpapering lesson.