A few nights ago when I was hunting online for light fixtures, Pete insisted I take a break to watch TV and look what happened:
socks!
I'd forgotten how much I love knitting, not having had time for any of that for a while, and before that, only getting knitting time on Sundays, because I was too busy hunting online for taps. No wonder I've been getting all tired and frantic and crabby and sugar obsessed.
Truly, knitting is a magical fix for what ails ya.
Especially if what ails ya is cold feet - both literal and figurative. It is so, so scary to think of ripping the innards out of a house you've loved and lived in for 18 years - way longer than I've ever lived anywhere else, and close to it for Pete.
Fortunately I got onto a different train of thought after talking my friend Doe who, coincidentally, was born a few hours before me in a hospital a few miles from mine. I hadn't caught up with her in a while and I didn't realize she was renovating her kitchen and bathrooms too! Pretty much identically to the style I had in mind, naturally, because that always seems to happen for us, which will not surprise you if you follow astrology.
Case in point: we were on the phone together as I was hunting online for doorknobs, and she said "So, have you given any thought to doorknobs yet?"
Doorknob digression:
We had to get new doorknobs for the condo, because after I mentioned to Ray I thought we should probably update the original tiny brushed bronze ones, he removed them, at which point we remembered why it's nice to have a doorknob on the bathroom. After doing a lot of research and then debating styles and prices and colours with Doe (oiled bronze) and with Ray (whatever matches the light fixtures) and Pete (they cost how much??), we went with Pete's favourite, satin chrome.
This is a first for us because after the really cool and super expensive antique-looking black ones I liked, these were my favourites too and they were the absolute rock bottom cheapest - as in, we got all the doorknobs we needed for the price of one antique-looking black one. I asked Doe whether she thought I should get them for the house too and she said they were perfect for the condo which didn't really answer my question.
Or did it?
ANYway, after all that doorknob angst I started the light fixture hunt and ended up on an antique shop website where I saw what they were charging for vintage doorknobs. Which made me take a second look at the house's existing vintage doorknobs, mismatched onto the wrong doors after the last time we painted them.
Why let somebody else profit from and enjoy them when we can fix them and keep them?
Once I thought of that and confirmed with Ray that they can indeed function well again, I started looking anew at our ceiling lights and realized we can re-use most of those as well. Also the custom shelf I had built for what replaced the original kitchen so it would still look nostalgic, and maybe even our front hall closet door with its fancy 1942 mirror... even though the only doorway it could work for is the basement bathroom and it seems unlikely that anybody on the team will get behind that crazy idea.
Even if they don't, though: keeping the other things is a great way to bring the familiar old house we love to the new house we can actually live the rest of our lives in.
And knit in, of course.
Because as long as I keep on getting new yarn from the Vesper Club, I will be knitting these socks for years, and years, and years.
ahhhhh, socks.
And how was your week?
No comments:
Post a Comment