On New Laundry Rooms and Old Friends

As I've reviewed my last two posts, I realize I may have come across as a woman with a certain disdain towards her husband. While I will never be a gushy my-husband-is-my-best-friend (even though he is) kind of person who implies that her man is as close to perfection as the male species can come, I will state for the record that Carl is a well-above-average husband and person who is perfect for me. Even though he drives me nuts sometimes. Really nuts.

But I know I make him a little (or a lot) crazy at times too, and he's much better at hiding it.

The following pictorial shows, without a thousand words, some of the many reasons I am grateful to have Carl in my life.

Before you read on, you need to know that we spent the past Thursday through Sunday completing the latest phase of our building project. A 9' x 12' breezeway connects our existing house to the building project. I'm not sure what the original purpose of this room was, but it had three doors and six windows. We've used it as an office, an extended pantry, a junk room and a dirty-laundry-storage room, but none of these purposes seemed quite right. The mess in this room was the first to greet me when I entered the house from the garage. Talk about depressing. After I walked through this room, I passed through the cramped laundry cubby you can see behind Carl in the first picture below. Ick.

We (I) decided the room would best serve me as a laundry room, opening up our existing laundry cubby for pantry space. We closed off the third door and eliminated the bottom part of the two south windows so that the washer and dryer could not be viewed from outside. Because the room had a concrete floor, Carl built a raised wooden floor so that we could run the plumbing underneath and kept the 1' x 5' area above the pipes separate so it could be removed in the event of a water leak. We learned the pipe-breaking lesson the hard way.

I'll allow the pictures to help tell the rest of the story:


I searched high and low for a "before" picture and this is the best I could do. Carl and I had made a vegetable/relish tray for a get-together with friends and he spilled it on the way out. Believe it or not, I just laughed at the time and shot a few pictures. Now I'm thankful it all went that way because now I can point out the blinding yellow walls, the awful orange woodwork and the horrid green and white sticky tile. Also, notice the cramped, messy laundry space behind Carl and the clutter-magnet shelving under the windows on the left.

More veggie mess and a closer look at the old floor....

The mud and tape in the two picture below outline the door and window openings that Carl enclosed.

Below, Katie and Hailey were standing in front of the now-closed-in third doorway back in 1999. Even our exterior brick used to be orange! What is it with orange and the fifties? We have since painted the brick white.

Surely you expected that Wonderworker Extraordinaire (a.k.a. Grandma Janis) was part of this big project. She actually took two vacation days so that she could arrive Thursday and help through Sunday. Mom--you're awesome! Her planned arrival benefited us in two ways. First, we had a deadline to be ready, which kept us (Carl) very busy the past few weeks. Second, her painting abilities and eye for detail are unsurpassed.

Even Hannah got in on the action and painted the corner, and her hair, and her arms...

As I mentioned earlier, Carl made the section above the pipes removable as you can see below.

Voila! New placement of my washer and dryer.

Notice the arched doorway. Carl did a nice job creating that arch, don't you think?

We purchased a new light. That may be boring to you, but if you lived with the flickering round fluorescent light that mounted there before, you'd be as excited as I am!

Look at the gorgeous empty space and beautiful ceramic tile. We will install a sink to the left of the washer and...

...and Carl's next project is building a cupboard unit, outlined by the blue tape below, that will hide all of our dirty laundry, coats, and whatever else. This room will have the ability to always appear neat, clean and tidy. Of course, that requires that I keep it neat, clean and tidy. Anyhow, I'm sure we'll manage to stash and dash whenever company comes.

Weekends like this remind me of how blessed I am. Sometimes I tend to have myself a nice little pity party: look at everything I can't do, I'm so tired, my joint hurt, blah blah blah. But when I take off the blinders created by that pity, I realize I am surrounded by people who make up for my limitations and cause my life to feel full, even overflowing. And I'm not just talking about my mom and husband.

Liz is here every Monday, not just cleaning my house, but doing extras that a maid service would never provide, including listening and visiting and general friending.

Sheri stops in regularly when delivering the mail or even when she isn't.

I talk to my sister, Ashley, several times a week--she even bought me a new stereo for my birthday. Woohoo!

My mother-in-law visits once a month and insists on bringing so much food that some has to be stored in the deep freeze. While she's here she refuses to relax and instead spends her entire visit doing laundry.

My children are constantly assisting me with what should be little things, but have become larger obstacles as the arthritis robs me of mobility. I know I sound proud when I tell you that they have a level of independence I rarely see in preteens. Even Hannah, at age 6, can cook her own eggs from start to finish if someone will turn on the stove for her. I sound proud because I am.

Pop and I talk at least once a week and we even took a trip to Texas over Father's Day weekend. A couple of years ago he came down for an entire week to paint my kitchen cupboards. I should post pictures of THAT project. Whew!

I have blogging friends and facebook friends as well. Some people scoff at "virtual" friendships, or at the least view them with a wary eye. But on the days when getting out of the house is next to impossible for me, these people visit with me in my living room and make life less "alone."

When I am able to get out of the house, I almost always run into someone I know. I can't name everyone, but that doesn't diminish their importance in my life.

And I have to end with a plug for Carl. How many men would stick with a wife who slowly becomes more and more of a responsibility and less and less of an equal partner? In this day and age men frequently leave for much lesser reasons. While they all promise "in sickness and in health," few are challenged beyond a bout with the flu. Carl has a true servant's heart and not only makes our lives spontaneous and fun, but manages to continue to make me feel attractive and desirable in the process.

Yep, he's a keeper. Even though he drives me nuts sometimes. Really nuts.