BANG BANG!

No, I am not talking about a gun. The bang… bang is accompanied by other sounds outside my “work space,” such as buzzzzzzzz and eeeeeeeeeeeuuuuuu. Yes my friends, once again my world is overrun by hammers, drills and the saw. You might wonder where I have been lately, now you know. I am stuck under a pile of sawdust and uncompleted writing projects.

View of an unfinished garage

Home renovations and additions have been going on here for several years now. Of course the end result will be worth the wait but in the meantime it is costing me the concentration I need to get work done. You are probably thinking I should move to another room and I would if there was another one unoccupied by a member of the family. As you might recall, my son has moved in again and what was to be my atelier-office has turned into his room. No, I am not complaining.  I am just a bit frustrated because my headphones are broken, and the blinds we ordered for the room I spend most of my days in are missing. 

Amongst all the toil and trouble there is a ray of sunshine. Finally I have found a wonderful and talented writer through this community, and a post through Alex Cavanaugh’s Insecure Writers Support Group, to critique and help me get the first draft of my book finished. I couldn’t be more pleased! 

So you see now what I have been up to, what about you? Do you have any major distractions that get in the way of your writing? I bet you do, tell me about it and where ever in the world you find yourself I hope distractions will not get in the way of you having a fantastic Week-end!

Happy Days

 How fun is it to get out of bed and face another paintbrush? Please join me as I travel yet into another dimension, the dimension of the “Never Ending Saga of Home Renovations”. My husband was looking forward to me coming home all renovated myself and ready to grab that paintbrush with a new vengeance. Ha? I can get dressed and take out the garbage, I can even go to the store and buy something for dinner, then make it. Expectations wait for me like dirty dishes in the sink. Do you ever feel like you are so busy running around trying to make everyone else happy that you have missed the point? All I ever really wanted was a closet to hang my clothes in, a toilet that I could use without waiting in line for and a little bit of privacy. Guess I should be grateful for all these spotlights and new technology that I have no idea how to use. Guess what? I can turn the power off and on from my telephone. Well not really, but my husband can. I am having trouble just using my phone. Guess I should get dressed and put on my painting clothes. Oh wait, where do I find those? They are certainly not in the sink with the dirty dishes, or are they?   

Winter Garden, we need shades.

Future bathroom

More walls to paint in future living room

 Room with a view that someday might be my atelier.

TTT............Things take time.................

Feeling at Home

The art of a craftsman can be debated. The pride of a craftsman and his integrity is a lost art form. It is all about saving time and money now.  This is something we have discovered during the building process of our house. 

Tools are important, here is saw-man with his latest 

We have contracted out a lot of the building but saw- man has been busy redoing most of their work. The roof tiles need to be replaced. There are many that are broken, bad quality and workmanship. Then we have the windows that have been installed improperly causing broken window panes. The terrace doors have been installed improperly and are impossible to close enough so that they can be properly locked.  The list goes on. There has to be something said for doing everything yourself, but who has the time? That is the conclusion that the saw-man and I have come to lately. It may have taken a long time to get things done, but at least what we have done has been getting done properly. 

Enough is enough and finally we have decided to get more builders in here and get this house done. We will probably have to go pick up a few pieces afterwards, but this living in a closet has got to end. Check out here if you want to know more about this crazy house. The actual building process has been going on now for over a year, we still have so much left to finish, and with winter closing in once again, time is even more important. It gets darker here every day, the rains come and goes more often, but I have to believe that through all this darkness we will eventually see light. Someday we will move out of this closet and have instead a closet to hang our clothes in. The saw dust and building materials will not be a constant floor obstacle and I will no longer have to search through boxes to find my things. Someday I will know where I am and finally feel at home. 

Tell me, how long has it taken you to feel at home?

IT'S RAINING MEN !!!

It's raining men, hallelujah....NOT! They are jumping around like fleas and I have gone into hiding in my bedroom. Headsets on, not helping! Saw-Man has his father here, Chainsaw-Man and his brother, "pull the plug" works to LOUD country music. 

The front door is gone. Just a big hole in the wall. Hope it does not start to rain! There are alot of cats in this neighborhood and they are not shy. But hey! Give me a break, do I have to feed them all? As long as that mean Blackbird does not try to sneak in here. He is always fighting with the cats.  I mean it! That is one big bird! He comes in here and I swear I will put him in a pie! I wish I had a camera so you guys could see this. Well you know what I am wishing for now!

I know, I know...I have no right to complain and really I do not. These men are so cute and hard-working and I really love them. I just come in here and vent to you guys, you don't mind do you? Ok time for some self medication:

 

Have a great week-end  everyone!

 

He kissed me!

He kissed me on my cheek and said, "Everything is going to be alright." I do not know why I choose to believe him, but I  did. For some strange reason this boy man who I have known for half of my life made me feel safe when others had failed. Suddenly I felt just maybe I could indure a little longer.

The House That Spoke

This is our house. The "house that spoke", the house before we started remodeling it into a house divided in two. There have been many facelifts over the years, even the main door has been moved to the other side of the house. The "house that spoke" is over 2 centuries old and in the beginning it was a little store that catered goods to the local "Sotinger" of Langestrand. Sotinger was a nick name for the people that lived in this area because they were covered in industrial ash most of the time. At one time there was a lot of industry here, now the industry has turned into culture and lucky for me, "ash free".

Sometimes I am 100% sure that this house is haunted. Even my daughter as a little girl was convinced that there lived a witch under the stairs who would grab her legs and try to make her fall. Not surprising really when you think of all the times someone actually has fallen down these stairs. Our plan was to get rid of these stairs and build a staircase in the new addition. Once again the "house that spoke" had other plans and for many reasons we have to keep the stairs where they are. Strange things have always happened in this house. Since we started building on to it even more strange things keep happening. Sometimes I just wonder if this house is cursed. I can't help but wonder what is going to happen next. Skeptics would say "Nonsense", my husband being one of them, but I can't help but feel that the "house that spoke" is making it pretty clear how it wants things done around here.

Have you ever had one of those "Aha" moments? I did this morning when everything seemed to make sense. I needed firewood so I had to go up the creaky stairs to get some. I scratched my hand trying to move a heavy box that stood in the way of the wood, "OUCH!" Carrying the heavy basket full of firewood (which is actually old paneling from our ceiling) I lost my, "should have been wearing slippers," footing and tumbled down the stairs, wood and all. Damn that witch, I thought to myself while rubbing my surely to be bruised rear-end. While I was gathering once again the firewood I heard my mother screaming from her room. "SIV, THE TV WENT OUT AGAIN!" As you probably can guess, this is something that happens quite frequently, especially when we turn on a TV. Off to the fuse box I go to flip the switches for what has to be the 1000th time. "Mother," I said in a slightly angry voice, "The house has spoken again."

Somewhere behind all these creaky floors and doors, behind these crooked walls of old timber is the spirit of this house. "The house that spoke", keeps changing and delaying our plans until it gets what it wants. I just hope that we don't end up in a Stephen King novel and kill each other first.

Follow other stories on "The house that Spoke":

The Crooked House

“There was a crooked man and he walked a crooked mile,

He found a crooked sixpence upon a crooked stile.

He bought a crooked cat, which caught a crooked mouse.

And they all lived together in a little crooked house”—Nursery rhyme

The sounds of power tools echo in my head 24 hours a day. Building an addition on to a house that was originally built two centuries ago and added on to during the 1980’s is not an easy task.