Seriously, my marriage does not do well during stressful DIY projects that aren't going well. It all started when our marriage was about 3 or 4 days old (and we had been living together the same amount of time - 3 or 4 days). We bought a nice entertainment unit to hold the 50 inch TV we got as a wedding present. It was frustrating. The instructions were only so helpful, and a lot of things were put together incorrectly, but not for lack of following directions.
I am Type A. Thankfully, the husband is Type B, or we might actually be divorced by now. I don't believe in divorce, though, so instead I would be stuck in the world's most unhappy marriage (which my marriage definitely is not). I get so frustrated at him that he cannot read my mind. Especially in stressful situations. I will snap so quickly.
Anyway, my new "home improvement" project is to get rid of our stupid dining room, and make the living room larger. For some perspective, this is a view into the living room/dining room from the kitchen. The shadowy figure is our crazy realtor, who we nicknamed Conan (since he looks just like Conan O'Brien, and is equally funny), talking on his cell phone:
Obviously these pictures were taken before we moved in. Here is a view from the front windows, facing the kitchen:
It's bigger than it looks in these pictures.
Anyway, this was the layout we had going on ever since we have lived here:
The room was intended to be half living room, half dining room. Except, you may have noticed from the second picture that the kitchen has a dining nook (in front of the sliding doors), which is the only place we ever eat. Therefore, we had two dining tables about 15-20 feet from each other. And we never ever ate in the 'dining room.'
Did you see how beautifully bare the table is in that picture? IT NEVER LOOKS LIKE THAT. I took this picture last winter when we were thinking about listing our house. Usually the table serves to collect clutter. Bring something into the house that you don't want to put away? Put it on the dining room table! Something you want out of reach from Noah? Put it on the dining room table!
That dining room table was the bane of my existence.
I'd be thinking for awhile that I would love to be rid of that table. It was never functional, except as a junk collector. And it was taking up so much valuable space that we could be using to play!
The problem is that I did like the look of the table when it was bare. So I didn't want to get rid of it completely. Not yet, anyway. Not until I was absolutely sure I'd never want to put it back there. But we have very little storage space in this house - definitely not any space to store a table and 4 chairs. So what would I do with it?
Plus, take another look at the lovely chandelier that hangs over top of the dining area:
It hangs too low for my 5'9" self to walk under, never mind my 6'5" husband. When Noah was 7 months old and pulling up on everything, we shoved the table into the corner for about a month so he would be less likely to pull himself up on the pub height chairs. He was inclined to do that, but the chairs were the same height as the top of his head at this point, so he'd somehow get standing up with his arms stretched above his head, holding onto the seat of the chair, and he'd start freaking out: "Holy crap, I don't even know how I did this, and I don't know how to get down again! SOMEBODY HELP ME!!!"
This is Noah at exactly 7 months old. I'm dying right now. I forgot how CUTE he was!
At barely 7 months old, this child was not ready for the responsibility of pulling up to stand. But he did it anyway.
It took him about a week to figure out how to sit back down on his own, but the pub height chairs were still risky because they were just way too tall for his admittedly tall-for-seven-months frame.
I digress.
While the table was pushed in the corner, we had to put the jolly jumper under the lovely chandelier, because we both smacked our heads on it several times. Ouch.
I need to stop rambling.
This week I decided I was DEFINITELY getting rid of the 'dining room.' On Friday I moved the dining table and chairs out of the dining room and put a coffee table under the chandelier so we wouldn't smack ourselves on it. We needed a new light for the old dining room in order to allow us to walk freely through the enlarged living room.
I can't find a light that matched the ceiling light by the closet:
So I bought a different one on sale. It's almost the exact same as the ones we have in the upstairs hallway, which is off to the right in the above picture (right by my bag on the ground).
I liked the dining room chandelier, so I wanted to put it in the dining nook and get rid of the less attractive light that was already hanging there. There was nothing wrong with the dining nook light, it just wasn't as pretty as the chandelier.
We took the chandelier down. Justin was all "Are you sure you know what you're doing?" I was all "Pfft! Are you kidding me? I am my father's daughter. I can change a tire. I can change oil. I'm the one who taught you how the fuse box works and how to refill the washer fluid in your car. I can take down and hang up a dang light fixture!"
Which I could have. If the screws were long enough.
Oh heavens, on a scale of 1 to 10, my frustration level was a 13. We worked on that new stupid fixture for like 45 minutes before we got to the step that revealed that THE SCREWS WEREN'T LONG ENOUGH. The outlet box in the ceiling is just a little bit too high up. We needed it to be half a centimeter lower, and we would have been fine. Stupid house builders.
So now we have a hole in the ceiling, with wires dangling out of it (don't worry, I capped them).
Well, at least we can move the pretty chandelier into the kitchen. That should be much easier. I mean, we know it'll fit. And I just took it down, so I know how to put it back up.
Yeah, not as simple as that. It took another 45 minutes. 45 minutes where Justin was not reading my mind, and Noah was whining like crazy from his high chair where we had trapped him. Holy Hannah, my blood pressure is rising just thinking about it.
At least we got that one installed.
10 minutes after all was said and done, Justin left me alone with a cranky 19 month old to go to the stupid girls high school basketball finals. It was only 5, and Noah goes to bed at like 9, so I was not happy about Justin abandoning us for such a stupid reason. And of course, he went anyway.
I was seriously at the end of my rope and pretty much wanted to kill Justin. And I had no patience with cranky Noah, who I'm pretty sure was feeding off of my bad mood.
Thankfully my Mom called, and I complained to her about everything while playing with Noah on the floor (of my newly enlarged living room!), and got off the phone an hour later feeling much better. And Noah was over his crankies.
That is the end of my story for now. I bought a new couch for the enlarged living area, but it won't be delivered for awhile. I'm excited, though.
Now I need to go to bed. This took way too long to write.
