… it’s not that I’m obsessed with dwellings so much as I consider them an integral part of what it means to be human. Yes, beaver no doubt strive to build the thickest dam, birds the fluffiest nest - I’m not saying that only humans build personalized habitations. I’m just saying that the strictures that people choose to live in fascinate me more than, say, the clothes they chose to wear. To me there’s something much more personal - in this age of mass-produced clothing and the magazines to tell you how to wear it - than there is in home design and decoration.

Which is why I have my Google webcam set to the Eiffel Tower. (more…)

too much junk? That’s one of the issues I’m grappling with now, no matter whether I stay or I go. If I stay, less junk frees up space, reduces clutter, improves the flow of chi so important for feng shui, makes me less crazy. If I go, so much less expanse and HASSLE in moving. I’ve been watching a neighbor move in, and the amount of stuff she has - for her tiny one bedroom apartment - just boggles my mind. I’ve given her a hand with a few things, and she keeps saying, apologetically, “I’m going to put it on craiglist!” … doesn’t it make sense to do that before you move (and she had a month and a half’s notice), rather than rent to U-Haul, hire two movers, and pack it in to her tiny space? Yowza!

Lee Cataluna wrote a wry column on this in today’s Advertiser. Talked about the bloody fortune people here pay to store stuff they don’t really need … in places that are nicer than their own homes … yeah, that makes sense….

… as I said, I’m thinking about moving away - not right now, but perhaps in a few years. I was afraid to voice this thought, as I believed that then I’d lose all desrie and enthusiams for my home improvement projects. I didn’t like the idea of that sapping my motivation.

Surprisingly, (more…)

… I know this is a weird thought from a blog focused on improving my house, but lately I’ve been giving more thought to leaving the island. Why? Family, of course … if there’s one thing that should be understandable about why someone would ever leave here, it should be family. Oh, usually it’s the other way around - your kids go to the Mainland for college, find an exciting world out there, maybe get a job or an advanced degree there, too … and then Mom or Dad falls ills, needs some help, and the kids are reeled back to Hawaii. Most of them don’t seem to regret it, but quite a few that I’ve met still miss their old home on the ML.

I guess I could hang tough and wait for the kids to boomerang back home, or even lure them back home with tales of ill health, but that would be bogus.If they’re all there, and I’m here without them, except for the obligatory one-week-home-a year visit … then why am I still here?

for a while. As I said, I got a lot done over the past week and a day, and now I am Not In The Mood. The back hallway is still magnificent (although my son, gazing at it in what I thought was appreciative awe, merely commented, “And HOW long is it gonna stay like that?”) Unfortunately, this means that the junk I hauled into the kitchen and dining area to sort through - like old photos - and put on eBay - like books and collectibles … are still sitting where I left ‘em. It sure brings down the tone of the house (I had someone in who saw all the books stacked around my computer, waiting for their niche on eBay, who (more…)

At one time I was a fan of Stephen Covey - the 7 Habits to Highly Effective People, so rather than diddle away my week with little tasks that could be squeezed into other corners of my life, I put First Things First and did the one big thing.

However, as my vacation came to an end, I scrambled to do the little things that I thought I could take care of with ease … but didn’t get around to because I was working on my one big project. These included scrubbing my front steps, patching a few dings in the wall and repainting them, and rehanging a towel hook that had fallen out of the the wall and needed an anchor bolt.

I wasn’t sorry that I had spent most of my time clearing all the junk out of the back hall - I peek around the corner with pride a couple of times a day - but the little things still nagged at me. So on Monday, rather than finish the book that came that day from amazon.com, I hauled my butt up and out the door, and scrubbed the front steps, patched the wall, primed over the errant squares of pink paint on my bedroom walls that I decided won’t do, then painted over the squares and the patching, and damn! They all look good, and give me just as much a sense of accomplishment as my one big job.

Huh.

Take that, Stephen Covey!

There’s something so satisfying about physically organizing your stuff. My back hall is clean and organized - i just need to sort through the things tossed into the kitchen for “later” - but I think most of them are going to the Salvation Army, so that should be it! Hope they’re open on Sunday….

Now that I’m done, I spent some time on craigslist - a GREAT resource - god bless Craig - trying to pick up a bookshelf for the back hall, but rather than make me rush out to buy, it’s actually pretty sobering. (more…)

… so now I’ve got three swatches of pink paint on my yellow walls, and may I add that they all look like hell. My bedroom is a nice light yellow, but with the trade winds gone, the yellow is too hot to live with. Even when the trades are back, it’s still a bit too hot. I thought a nice cool pale pink would match the bedding I have (don’t want to spend $60 on a paint that would clash with the bedding and then have to spend another $300 on my bed linens), but I can’t find a decent shade of cool pinky-coral. Only one store in town seems to sell small paint sample jars –
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… especially when it’s books. I am a book-holder-onto-er. Yes, they’re a pain to pack up and haul around with you. I’ve got books I’ve had sine I was a kid, a teen, in college, in my first place, my second place, before I had kids, etc., etc. etc. Like a turle, I’d probably move a lot faster if I could shed all these books, but like a turtle, I really can’t, as they are a large part of what’s home to me. I shudder when I walk into a home where there is no evidence of books. I do enjoy watching those home decorating shows on HG-TV, but ever notice how so few of them show any books - or even bookshelves? I pretend that the books are just a few steps away, in the next room.

… this is a long way to get around to saying that my backhallway project has slowed down to a crawl as I wipe down, sort, and then greedily plop down and become absorbed in some of my old favorites.

Eric Frank Russell, anyone?

Here’s a link if you haven’t heard of him before:
http://www.abelard.org/e-f-russell.htm

The heat has kept me off my front porch and steps - they still look pretty good from last year. Instead, I’m focusing on the coolest part of the house, the back hall that I use for storage which, as it faces north, doesn’t get the direct sun that bakes the porch. What it does get is the dust, however. The bank of louvered windows I keep open to draw the cool air allows dust to collect and settle over everything stored there, and like most Hawaii homes, which seem to have been built in a time before computer boxes and appliance cartons and even Christmas decoration storage was thought of, it’s jammed full of STUFF that I have no room for in my tiny bedroom closets.
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