The Calm During the Storm

Tuesday night, it poured dramatically. We got 130 mm of rain in 2 hours and my basement (situated on an underground creek) remained dry, unlike practically everyone else's in this entire town. Here's to spending hundreds of thousands of dollars on a refinished basement! Scott and I decamped to the sewga room, lay over bolsters with the lights off, and (with amazement and awe) watched a vast sky show us a lightning storm of impressive proportions. The sound was enjoyably tinny and dense, an auditory representation of security. After 90 minutes of communing with the deluge from the inside, while conspiring about all of the house changes we've made and will continue to make, I suggested that our time there was the home-reno equivalent of staring, love-drunk, over one's perfect baby in a crib. Full disclosure: I don't remember ever doing that with the kid but we sure are high on ourselves for creating this home.

The sewga room is, on balance, a cathedral. Strange for a girl who doesn't much believe in organized religion. The windows are crosses within crosses, dare I say "crucifixesque". Patterns repeat in 3s and 4s. Four scalene triangles (or are they obtuse?) bound by 3 linear rectangular beams, each dropping from the structure's 18 foot apex at different angles. Three spherical pendants. Four panes of windows with sub-panes - square or rectangular depending on how you view them. It's a love letter to geometry - much like sewing or yoga.

This place is still so much a work in progress. We've got to get the kitchen insufficiencies sorted. There's nothing in the living and dining rooms but furniture destined for the basement and furniture in the basement destined for the upper floors. My bedroom has yet to cohere. Ditto with the bathrooms which are now looking more lived in since we hung some pics and added some plants. The back yard, which was really coming along, amazingly, has stalled this week. (Note: I don't much care at this point as long as it's done by mid-September. It's not like I was ever gonna have a vista by the fall...) Don't get me started on the front-basement demo that slated for early October.

But last night, when we looked out that window - an arguably unlovely urban view, now so redeemed by an endless expanse of sky - it was brilliant. Scott disclosed that he has "really enjoyed" the process of designing and decorating with me which, if you know either him or me, is absurd. Lest you think this was a romantic gesture (and, in its own strange way, it was), what he actually said was that he anticipated the experience of working with me would be horrifyingly miserable and, to his great surprise, it was vaguely fun. So take from that what you will :-)

Secret note to reader, there are 2 tricks to that: 1. It finally clicked, all in a rush, that it doesn't matter what Scott doesn't like or what I don't like - only what we can agree on. And it seems, given all of the options in the universe, we're likely to find, whenever required, design that we can both appreciate equally. 2. I'm an awesome online shopper and Scott HATES to shop. So I've found all kinds of items (from numerous sources) that I knew I liked and let him decide which of those he liked best. If he didn't like anything, I probed about what wasn't working and what he was looking for, within the spectrum of my own interests, natch. And then I found it. And ordered it. And then it was delivered. So far, so good.

I'll have you know, this isn't my natural sweet spot. I prefer to get exactly what I want, with no negotiation, and I'd rather search in real shops (when it suits me). But I also like to be married.

To live in this place is a kind of ridiculous fortune. I am sandwiched between 4 desirable food zones. I walk to work in 35 minutes (or take one of 4 types of readily available, affordable transport). I have 4 "real-sized" bedrooms, 2.5 baths with radiant heat, a spectacular kitchen layout which - while compact - is impressively functional. There are 2 terraces, two gardens. The front of my house is an elegant testimony to the past while the back is a modern rendition of our needs and desires. It's cozy. It's delineated. Imagine watching movies and knitting, while snow falls quietly, with the two-sided fireplace lit, food cooking on the (sexy) stove. No question, this is a winter house. Which is cool, cuz I live in a winter culture.

But more than that, it's finally cohesively well-made. Sure, most of it was remade a few times over the last few months before it became well-made, but now this house is SOLID. Noise is vastly reduced due to a) new triple-glazed windows, b) acoustic sound insulation pretty well everywhere (including ceilings) and c) a newly-brick wall. The HVAC is good (if not stellar). No floors creak or bow and they won't for the next hundred years. The newel post and railing are stability itself - and beautifully wide, taking advantage of breadth created by removing the wall between the stairs and the dining room. It's tiny grandeur. The dining room and living room have been restored (wherever possible) and renewed with an eye toward restoration (when necessary). Old and new collaborate. To my eye, it is a feast.

Though I may be fussy, this house is not; it's awesomely pragmatic. It will be enhanced by its next phase of habitation. It will follow our lead but, in truth, the house knows that it's a vital functionary, that it has been for 130 years. We may be the elusive party in power but it is the bureaucrat that will outpace our tenure.

I'm not all here yet, but I'm more here than I was - and I'm game.