The Stuff Behind the Staging

Being in the midst of remodeling feels a little like being a character in a performance. It feels like I'm playing a role, ...or pretending.

Pretending to be clean. Pretending to be organized. Pretending to strive for a more simple, aligned life and inviting others to share that with me. The common spaces of the house we share, and their own suites and storage areas have open spaces on the shelves, have little organized boxes for utensils, has all the herbal teas together on one shelf, and the Assam teas on another.

But my bedroom (where they cannot see) is like the prop shop of a theatre with its working disarray. Thermometers and band-aids, the boric acid eye wash, arm and knee supports, and ace bandages spill over their containers into piles of design magazines I still have to sort through. Extra vacuum bags are thrown on shelves that are already full of emergency earthquake food storage, with that box you grab as your most important papers.

My new studio has all the furniture in its right place, and my art and reference books are in the shelves, but placed haphazardly, so I cannot find what I need. For much of my storage, I have not yet made the decisions about what goes where, so they sit in bags on the floor in front of where they might live.

But this is what's in the place where the new shelves will go that will hold all that disorder:

 This is my new master bathroom: the deep soaking tub, my vanity and one wardrobe, the linen cabinet, and the flooring....plus some boxes of books that might actually get to stay here.

Here's my tub sliding doors, and the tile and grout for the tub and backsplash, the shower head, the vanity sink, another wardrobe, still to be assembled.... 

.....you get the picture.

It's hard to live with and in. But then I remember that during phase1, I lived with this for weeks to give the crew the space to work efficiently,...





so I can have this now:

I will look at this picture of my new wonderful studio and seating area, and remember that the fuss and clutter are so worth it. And when I finally get to use my deep soaker tub and master bath, that new wonderful transparent wall will have the space to hold my backless bookshelves that let light tease through.And when THAT happens, I will sort through my overspill...and simplify, at least to some degree, down to what I really want to keep. It will be real movement towards what's important to me.