Our Old House

Today was already a good day.  It’s Friday. I have a cocktail date with Mom and Mal.  The kids were really into their projects today… a good day.

Then I got an email from Brandon with a short and sweet message - i got a dumpster for us… the western saloon house of ill repute will be no more. (In case there is any confusion, the saloon of ill repute is like our pet name for the basement).  When I pulled up to the house this afternoon, to find this beauty in the driveway, my day went from good to GREAT!  I could have never imagined that something so huge and ugly would make me so happy… giddy even!  I can NOT wait to fill it up!!! Imagine the possibilities!

One of the first tips that we got when we began the demo was “be good to your garbage men”.  That can mean a lot of things - have your dad slip them ten bucks every couple of weeks.  Or, leave a case of free Old Style (yuck!) with the trash.  If you’re feeling really generous, you can leave Heineken, but you want to be careful not to seem pretentious in your beer choice.  Anyway, we have been “good” to our garbage men.  It’s rough though, because the standard issue City of Chicago trash cans just aren’t sufficient.  

From experience, we have learned a few things about these cans…

• They are hard to roll into the house
• They are gross to roll into the house
• They are even harder to roll out, especially when they are filled with concrete that used to be your walls
• Super heavy mirror shards can be a hazard when these cans are dumped into the garbage truck - and handwritten notes of caution taped to the outside are worthless
• The fake foam rafters don’t fit very well
• Once they are full of debris, you may have run out of space for normal garbage

Anyway, none of that matters now!  

Can’t wait to get busy filling it up this weekend.  There is an infinite list of things that need to go, and I don’t even know where to start.  I know that Brandon is focused on gutting the basement (which is definitely a priority).  But I’m thinking about other projects.  Should I bang out the stupid space wasting closets in “the closet room”, as they leave room for nothing else?  Should I strip the walls of their blue velvet paper?  Do I smash and destroy the fake mirror covered fireplace?  The tacky plastic chandelier?  Do I bust out the two walls of mirror in “The Flashdance Suite”? Maybe I’ll finally toss the sheets of lattice that once encased our sunroom… They’ve been blown all over the backyard this winter.

For those of you who have not seen the house, these are not exaggerations.  I am not making this up.  You guys should come over… bring a hammer (and maybe a mask)… we have a dumpster to fill!

Happy Friday.