C is for Cottage—Where the Past Still Answers the Door

 “Old people talk about the past because they have no futures and young people talk about the future because they have no pasts.” I’ve probably shared that Ann Landers quote before because it’s one of my favorites. The older I get, the more I understand the scary truth in those words. Sure, I’ve got plans that go beyond daily living, but none of them stretch much farther than whether I can recapture any of my lost art skills or lose enough weight to fit into the box of clothes I’ve got squirreled away under my bed. The former is doubtful, but since I’ve lost seven pounds since December’s weigh‑in at the doctor’s office, that second thing on my Bucket List is a tentative “maybe.”

With so many decades in my rear‑view mirror and only one decade in front of me—if I’m lucky—thinking about the future doesn’t come with the same optimism it once did. Yes, I know it’s all in my head. There are people my age doing exciting things: climbing mountains, jumping out of airplanes, running for political office, traveling the world. Developing a passion project and seeking adventures can happen at any age. On the other hand, it’s very First‑World of me to wish I could find my muse and live happily ever after wallowing in paints and canvas while looking better in a slimmed‑down body.

And yes, I am working up to the C Topic. When I think about the future, it feels hazy. But when I think about the past, many of my best memories don’t live in my head—they’re connected to a place and that place is a small, two bedroom cottage on a lake in West Michigan with a screened-in porch and a ton of oak leaves to rake each fall.

Looking back over my time on earth, the cottage stands out larger than life. By “cottage,” I mean the one my dad built when I was two and remodeled more times than I can count. The place where I spent all my summers growing up. The place where my parents retired and hosted countless holiday dinners and picnics. The cottage has always been the go‑to place my mind wanders when I think of home and family and good times.

If it were possible, I’d track Thomas Wolfe down and tell him he was wrong—you can go back home again. Of course, we all know his iconic 1940 book title, You Can’t Go Home Again, has become shorthand for the idea that once we’ve moved into the more sophisticated world of adulthood, with all its ups and downs, heartaches and headaches, joys and disappointments, any attempt to relive our youthful memories will fall flat. Nothing ever stays the same.

But what Thomas Wolfe didn’t know is that my niece bought the cottage when my dad died and presented my brother and me with keys tied with red satin ribbons that matched much of the décor inside the cottage. It was her way of saying we would always be welcome to stop by, even if no one was home. That was a few years back, and the door has since been swapped out, so the key no longer fits—but I know I’m still welcome.

She’s retro‑decorated the place, replacing the 1970s décor with a charming cross between mid‑century modern and a 1940s post‑war style. I love it. My niece didn’t just give it a face-lift and a new coat of lipstick; she gave it a wide smile and flirty eyes. And her "tweaking the place" is so like her grandmother, my mom, liked to do. Every time I go there, my memories meet me at the door and automatically put me in a playful, summertime mood.

I remember the rainy days of painting or putting jigsaw puzzles together, as well as the long days of swimming and boating. I remember every remodel project my dad did—every window and wall he moved. My mom should have had a house built out of Legos because her hobby seemed to be dreaming up changes for my dad to do. Growing up, the cottage was always changing. And it’s taken me until just this moment to see where my unfulfilled dream of becoming an architect was born. At the cottage, watching my parents measure and draw plans. Built and tear down. Paint and polish.

You might not be able to go back home again, but a visit—even in my thoughts—still has the power to teach me who I am and how I got here. ©

Old Houses and Young Dreams

Those who know art will recognize the painting above as done formula-style aka amateurish in the tradition of Bob Ross. I found it down in my basement last week. It was tucked away in one of my printmaking folders and I hadn't seen it for nearly twenty years. I'm keeping it for my new place while better quality, arty-farty paintings I’ve done got sent off with the trash. The colors will go with my future decor and it reminds me of a house my husband and I almost bought and wanted to restore to its former glory. It had a round barn in the backyard---one of the few left in the state---and house was out in the middle of nowhere. It never had indoor plumbing other than a make-shift shower in the basement and a cold water tap in the kitchen. Late 1800s bathroom fixtures sat in their original shipping containers in the basement, never installed. But the person who inherited the house from a great-uncle (who built the house for his run-away bride) got nervous he wasn't asking enough, so the nephew got a realtor involved and he backed out of our deal. A year later he sold the place for $10,000 less than we offered plus he had to pay realtor fees proving that a bird in the hand really is worth two in the bush.

I think about that house from time to time and how different our lives would have been if we'd gotten our dream home. It would have changed the trajectory of our lives. The uncle lived in the kitchen and butler's pantry his entire long, lonely life and the place was so thick with dust you couldn't tell the windows were beveled glass or what kind of wood was on the floors. No furniture had ever been moved into the rest of the house. The exterior was brick with a tin roof and it was structurally as sound as the year it was built. We loved the promise of greatness that house whispered to us. We adored that barn, even the brick outhouse would have been turned into something quaint. We got to see the inside of the house again, at an open house when the restored Victorian was up for sale. It was magnificent! They had installed the copper bathtub and the toilet with its ceiling-high oak water box that were in basement crates and they added a skylight above them. My heart be still, that bathroom still makes we wish I could take a bath under the stars. Touring that house had me wondering if the reluctant bride was sitting on a cloud and saying, "Would you look at that, God, the house finally got finish!"

And then there's another painting of another empty house that needed a lot of tender love and care, this one painted my mom (below). She took up oil painting at the age I am now and she was a true disciple of learning-to-paint via a TV show on PBS. Being a somewhat snub about art back in those days, I wasn't especially fond of her work and if honesty were required here I'd admit to being a tad bit jealous because I'd taken a million and one art classes during my life and she'd had none yet people were handing her compliments right and left. I resisted the temptation to critique her work when I'd see one of her canvases though I wanted to. She had that Grandma Moses-like lack of prospective that drove me crazy.

my mom's work

Background on Mom's painting: First off I hate orange but it was a gift from Mom because she wanted each of her kids to have something she created. It hung in my closet forever---is still there today. It goes with me when I move, and will probably decorate the inside of my 4' x 8' storage unit at the end of my parking space. The old house theme was a family joke of sorts because for several years Don and I was in serious house shopping mode, had notebooks full of newspaper listings. Every Sunday morning when the realtor section came out we poured over it looked for what was new on the market. The family joke was we didn’t like any house if it had electricity, central heat and plumbing and if birds were flying in and out of broken windows, all the better. That wasn’t far from the truth. We had more dreams than common sense and we figured whatever an old house needed we could learn how to do.

We did buy a few old houses…in the form of prints we found at art shows but we never did find our dream house to restore.

And the photo below is one my husband took of an old house that was surrounded by hoarfrost the morning we saw it. It took third place in a photo contest with over 700 entries. I won’t be able to hang any of these in my new place---wall space is limited---but they might find their way onto the walls of my storage unit. I don't plan to keep much in there. No someday maybe projects but a miniature art gallery would be fun. I literally have 49 paintings, prints and silhouettes hanging in my house now that will have to be pared down to seven or eight. Trust me, I'm not looking forward to that downsizing project! ©

 

Everything That was Old is New Again

I’m sitting here waiting for FedEx, UPS and USPS to show up with early birthday gifts to myself. Shopping online is way too easy. Coming today are my iron bed in a gun-metal gray (a new twist on a very old style), a box spring wrap (a new twist on bed skirts) a blanket and another set of sheets. The blanket I bought at Bed Bath and Beyond might go back, if I like the one coming from Amazon better. That store was a disappointment when I shopped it last week. They’ve enlarged a makeup section and cut down on the selection of towels and sheets. I guess makeup qualifies as “beyond” but most people think “bed” and “bath” supplies when they go there.

On my library shelf I have an 1895 Montgomery Ward and a 1905 Sears-Roebuck catalogs left over from an era when I day-dreamed that I was going to write historical romance novels. As much time as I spent studying those catalogs you would have thought I was living back in those times when ordering something took weeks to get delivered. Now you order, and two days later it arrives at your door. How cool is that! Over the years those catalogs have come in handy for identifying stuff we’d find in our travels. If no one could tell us what something was, there was a good chance it would end up in my husband’s collection. Sometimes it would take a few years, but eventually we’d figure it out, although I still have two things in the house that are mysteries. Even today I get a kick out of looking through those catalogs. You never know when it will come in handy to know that in 1895 you could buy a yard of 1¼ inch Irish Point Cambric Embroidery stitched on a three inch cloth for seven cents. Okay, so I’ve never actually been able to work that fact into a conversation, but I’m hopeful that day will come.

Back on topic. Here’s the deal. The bed comes today (Thursday as I'm writing this) and Saturday the guys from the service that Wayfair hooked me up with will come put the bed together. The mattress place only delivers to my area on Tuesdays and Friday so I’ll be in a holding pattern where I’m sleeping on a twin bed in the same room where my new bed will be set up. Tuesday the son-I-wish-I-had will be back to pick up that second twin---he’s already picked one set up to make room for the new bed. He has two sets of twin grandkids and they will put my old bed frames and mattresses to good use. Confused? You’re not the only one.

With the painters then all the other stuff going on poor Levi has been confused and out of sorts. I used those twin beds shoved up sit-by-side and he's been sleeping on Don’s side since a few days after he died. The first night with only one twin in the house Levi tried to claim it as his. I made him a nest on the floor next to the bed but he wouldn’t use it and there is no way I was going to sleep on a crate liner with a cushy blanket on top. It took him a half hour of pouting and pacing before he finally acknowledged me as the alpha member of our pack and went to the living room to sleep on the couch. The second night we agreed to share the foot end of the twin, but I was so afraid I’d fall out of bed that before I fell asleep I woke him up and made him move. He rearranged the nest on the floor, laid in it for two minutes then left to sleep on the couch. By the time he gets used to this temporary arrangement, the new mattress will be delivered and he’ll be confused all over again. 

Fun fact: The iron-look-alike bed I just paid $350.00 for on sale cost $7.50 in 1895 plus 35 cents for extra slats...and that one was solid iron. I had an antique iron bed that I had to sell when my husband had his massive stroke and it went for $800 on eBay. Everything that was old is new again.... ©

Here's all the photos of the finished bathroom redo:

view from the doorway, left side of the room---that linen closet is 22" deep

view from th doorway, right side of the room--the chest was not in the room when Don was alive and we needed the space for his wheelchair after transfers

This chest is one of the first pieces of furniture I refinished when I was in my teens. The 3-D photo on the wall was of one of my husband's gas pump faces. It was taken by a professional photographer who now sells them for big bucks. It speaks to me in ways I can't describe.

of course, we need one of these in a bathroom

This watercolor print was done by a local artist. It's of a channel coming from Lake Michigan and it's one of my favorite places on earth.

Going back out of the bathroom you see the necessary stuff on the counter top, although the linen closet has plenty of room for it if I want to hide it out of the way.

I wanted a pop of color on the floor without a pattern that fought with the shower curtain and I didn't want a solid color the would dominate the space. This 5'x7' rug filled the bill and is meant to look like a worn-out oriental rug. I had 23 rugs on my 'wish list' at Wayfair before I narrowed it down and I'm happy with my final choice.

Last but not least, pulling back the shower curtain to show the safety features in my shower. They are one of the reasons why when I was looking for condos a few years ago I couldn't find one that didn't feel like a downgrade for aging in place. If the portable chair is removed there's enough room for a rolling shower-chair for a disabled person. It might look like over-kill with all the grab bars but trust me, as the caregiver helping with showers I used them all...and still do to practice being safe in the leading place where seniors fall. Anyone remodeling a bathroom needs to plan for their needs down the road, think safety and accessibility BEFORE you actually need it. (Are you listening, N.K.B.?) After Don's stroke our houses sat empty and we were parked in a small apartment while our new house was being built because neither one of our old houses had bathrooms that could be remodeled to suit his needs. Even the apartment bath had to be approved before the hospital would release him to my care. In the stroke community I ran into a lot of people who spent unnecessary time in nursing homes waiting for their home bathrooms to be upgraded for safety and/or accessibility. 

If you think I'm being militant about this issue now, you should have known me a year or two out from Don's stroke, after we'd been through major housing issues. We had too much income to quality for the government subsidized apartment buildings that are set up for the disabled and the required 10% accessible apartments in large privately owned complexes were being rented to people who didn't need them. The apartment we did find had to have the bathroom and bedroom doors removed to accommodate his wheelchair while the apartment next to us had the government's basic ADA requirements---zero steps, wide doorways, grab bars in the bathroom---was rented by a young, healthy girl. Hopefully, the housing accessibility issue is better now than it was in 2000 but I wouldn't bet on it. Some states have since passed laws that large builders must build 10% of their houses accessible but back when I was following stuff like this, there was push back on making that a federal law. And ordinary people like to fool themselves into thinking they will never have a need for commonsense stuff like good grab bars. Drives me crazy! Rant off.