room

i wasn't going to test my balancing abilities today so i took the burley with me to the grocery store.  usually i just fit it all in the bike basket.  occasionally it's a precarious ride home trying not to tip over.  but i knew that today being monday, and so the largest grocery shopping day of the week, and that i would be stocking up on vinegar and baking soda and rags to clean the new place, i would never be able to get it all home without losing a liter of milk here and a liter of milk there, without the burley.

i set about cleaning the largest room today.  it's the room with the most potential.  the one i expect we will enjoy the most, given all the windows.  our living room, but also, i imagine, where we'll place our 'kitchen' table.  i'm used to living and eating in one big room and i can't see why it should be any different here.  if only we could fit the kitchen into it too.  the last tenant, and presumably anyone who's lived there before us, used an adjoining room off the kitchen for meals, but there's not good natural light in that room, and the bedrooms open up right onto it.  i see wooden train tracks winding their way through that room... matchbox cars lined up for a race.  toys for us to step on in the middle of the night as we make our way to the bathroom.  easier to have a few toys in your path than an entire dining room set.

i wiped down the walls, then the baseboards, then washed the floor.  i went through four liters of vinegar, two rags, one apple, one banana, and three 'this american life' podcasts before i was done.  my hope is that when i walk in tomorrow, that room, at least, will smell clean.  right now, the entire house smells old.  'like a summer house,' my friend sarah said when i brought her over.  yes, maybe, but someone else's summer house.  that's been closed up since the 1970's.  it conjures up no memories of the cottage or the lake house i spent time in as a child.

the floor desperately needed to be washed.  despite the fact that when i compare before and after photos there is no noticeable difference...

the before, taken a couple of weeks ago...

and this, after today's labors...

what we will do with those cords sticking out of the wall, i have no idea.  i tried pushing them back into the wall today with no success.  i can't imagine us buying speakers and a large flat screen tv to utilize them.  this was certainly a high-tech room at one point and we are, unfortunately, left with guts.     but, we'll figure something out!  i still have high hopes for this space.