It’s all in the details and…
Design decisions: room size, windows, doors, moldings, brick color, stone origin, plumbing fixtures, hardware, tile, appliances, lights and fans, paint and porch stain colors, marble/granite, closet plans, kitchen and pantry cabinet design. Seemingly endless list.
Details, that’s been my job these last two years. Research (shelter magazines, Google, designer blog posts, Pinterest) for affirmation, inspiration and finally decisions recapped in spreadsheets and attachments. Now we see these details in real time.
To quiet the low level anxiety/rising panic caused by leaving the house and community we raised our family in for 30 years, giving up NJ/NY residency after 60 years, shedding so much of the accumulated furniture and stuff that happily filled our home: I steady myself and take a long breath, remember how lucky we have been.
Plan B arrises when original plan doesn’t quite work. Light fixtures that can’t hang on a slanted stairway ceiling, marble sinks arriving chipped, marble double vanity on several month back order, lots of small details to be rethought. And the bigger stuff: realigning our expectation that the house will be complete by July 15 and praying instead that we get the Certificate of Occupancy and can at least move in as the work continues.
On packing and purging. William Morris (19th century designer), “Have nothing in your house that you know not to be useful, or believe to be beautiful.”
Good mantra for packing. Keep it simple: don’t move anything that’s not useful, beautiful or, ideally, both.
500 miles 