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Tessa Cheek

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Preliminary House Poetics — a week out

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

Follow DAY BED's board l-shaped kitchen on Pinterest.

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 

Follow DAY BED's board original house dining on Pinterest.

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

Follow DAY BED's board asleep at ground level on Pinterest.

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

Follow DAY BED's board original house living on Pinterest.

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

Follow DAY BED's board original house entry on Pinterest.

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 

Follow DAY BED's board understair water closet on Pinterest.

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

Follow DAY BED's board dormer bedrooms on Pinterest.

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

Follow DAY BED's board l-shaped kitchen on Pinterest.

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

Follow DAY BED's board l-shaped kitchen on Pinterest.

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

Follow DAY BED's board l-shaped kitchen on Pinterest.

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

Tuesday 06.24.14
Posted by Tessa Cheek
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