Welcome to THIS IS DAY BED, where I write about inhabiting and renovating an old house in Denver. I do this crazy thing alongside my moms and most excellent friends.
We are using our imaginations
The house, great ship for the happiness we picture late behind lids, series of rooms moving elliptically through time in the light, will be ours in a week. We will take occupancy of the Original House, est. 1896. We will nice the Back House, a 2004 attached apartment, for someone else to live in for a while. But before heavy planning we get to have fantasy planning i.e. poetics of the easy, sweet, nascent-concrete.
current foundations first
Drinking
water with cut ginger, rosemary + sage out an old Casal Garcia Vinho Verde bottle. Drunk from a paper bag while sitting on the locked-up patio furniture outside the first-ever Quiznos at intersection of 13th and Grant. Good, cheap wine — $9.99. Lovely blue glass.
Waiting on
steaks w/ cubed squash, sliced carrot (very orange). Poured over: olive oil, cumin, salt, pepper, ginger, garlic.
~hoping for the best in half hour or so~
Update: half an hour was too long for the meat and too short for the carrots.
Light outside
graying teal. It’s June & almost 9 pm. Finally it has cooled way down.
Listening to
original house poems
Now is a good time to mention that I've succumb to the bright, bright hoardy aspirational image machine (pinterest). It triggers something manic and doggedly comprehensive in me to sort by taste, feels like battle against the hydra-headed in a game of go fish. Anyway the fishing was good and embed-able. Here are sketches of current house layouts followed by plans for renovation so vague they're more like daydream odes.
L-shaped kitchen
Paint-out floors in big black and white diamonds, four tiles a block
Salvage some more cabinets for the place, arrange along the north wall, breaking for windows
Paint all cabinets white, add silver handles
concrete skim coat Formica counters and up backsplash
If possible, engrave concrete coat backsplash with herringbone pattern and dry-paint white
Hang long open shelves out of whatever fucking wood, whitewashed
Add large, counter-height butcher-block island w/ shelves below and metal stools along side opposite counters
Paint 10-yr old fridge entirely in black chalkboard paint
lil round table and chairs in short part of L, bc breakfast is queen of meals
dining w/ backdoor
Knock the plaster from the north wall, exposing the brick
Replace back door with salvaged French, build little set of stairs down to patio
Pull up carpets, sand and lightly stain existing floors in whatever condition
Prime and paint walls white or very light dove gray/ lavender/ green/ teal
Trim and ceiling, painted white
Glass bell hanging light fixture over large wooden table, at least four mismatched chairs a side
Julia’s china cabinet, now used to store our liquor supply, in the corner kitty the kitchen entranceway
asleep at ground level
Strip carpets, floors as are
Prime and paint-out walls and trim white, built in shelving wall included
Hang ceiling-high linens across shelves or else partial barn door
Seal off under-stair closet
living
Pull gross 80s mantel and plaster off the north wall. bricks out.
Barter gross 80s mantel for nice little wood model at restore, if possible
If not, donate and acquire quiet alternative by means necessary
Or else there's a black iron grate capable of holding its own
If mantel, paint white; primed walls and trim, same
Or else walls light teal-green when afternoon sun on
Denude wood floors of carpet
Smash terrible ocean tile from hearth
Replace hearth with: ornate salvaged tiles or hunk slate or soapstone
dye the furniture that's around
double opening doorway
keep front doors as are, peeling
Pry up composite wood floors, retain, sand and stain planks
Remove welcome mat area of plank, use for patching elsewhere necessary
Lay salvage tile, brick or slate in invisible foyer
Rip carpet runner from stairs
Strip paint from treads, stain wood
Paint risers white, walls and trim too
Replace finial on banister (with what?)
Cut asymmetrical door under the stairs
water under the stairs
Acquire skilled assistance for the plumbing
Frame that room up
Toilet on tall wall - possibly with silly little sink built in?
Or else small sink on widest wall, with equally small mirror above
diminutive cabinet built in down left
brief open shelf up right of sink
complex floor tiling
White diamond starburst-pattern tile up wide and long walls
Exposed strut ceiling, or that is frightening?
dormers, twin poems
Pull carpets and paint floors white or whitewash
White walls or else brightly colored
install shelves in dormers
We climb out the window onto the flat roof to look over the mountains, the city
upstairs bathroom
A poem of leaving well enough alone for now
Back house poems
The back house was added in 2004 and it has carpets that smell like smoking inside for a long time. It also has good vaulted ceilings, skylights, french doors.
Utl. back kitchen
Grey coin vinyl on the narrow floor
White cabinets with butcher-block top, washer/dryer underneath- front opening
White walls
Pot hanger above the stove
Track lighting down the middle
Route a pipe for kitchen skin
Back bath poem
Locate plumber to add a shower to the wall above the large bathtub
Or else acquire a shower head with a very long hose
Concrete skim coat bathtub surround and floor, seal it up tight
Replace vanity with the dark wood one mother already has
White walls
Pane of glass to catch shower spray
Back living poem
Plywood wide plank floors, whitewashed, throughout
White walls
Garden planted in the narrow yard outside south-opening french doors
Far west bedroom poem
Same as the living room poem plus bed