So, this is what happens when all the stops are pulled to get your house ready to be moved into and your hardwood floors still need stained. Yes, your couch gets hung from the ceiling! While we were living in our home, prior to renovations, Jim and I bought a pull-out sofa for our den. When it was delivered, much to our dismay, the doorways of our 1857 home were too narrow to get it into the den. With a little door frame removal, the couch was stuffed through the opening and found its new home. Fast forward to renovation season and the only door that the couch could fit through was removed and replaced with a wall. We knew that if we took the couch out, it was never going back in. Our contractor told us to just leave it there, he wrapped it up and has been working around it for the last 14 months. Two weeks ago, we were meeting with the gentleman that was to stain our floor, Jake, and he asked us about what we were going to do with the couch. I relayed the reason it was in there and told him we had 2 options, to work around it or cut it up into pieces and take it out. The second was not a real option. Jim, jokingly said, we could hang it from the ceiling. We all laughed and decided to work around it and although not ideal and adding more time to an already tight timeline, it was the only real option. Two days later Jim was working on restoring the front porch and looked in through our den window and there it was, in all its glory, our couch hanging from the ceiling. Apparently, our contractor didn’t think that option was a joke. Truth be told it worked well and the floor staining adhered to its timeline. Who knew that would prove to be the viable option?
This past weekend I was lucky enough to meet the woman that was the inspiration to so many rooms in my home. On Friday and Saturday, the Madison Home Holiday Home Tour in Grand Rapids took place, opening the home, that Jean Stoffer (@stofferhome) renovated, to the public. Jean Stoffer is a Grand Rapids based, independent interior designer who renovated her own home, The Madison, in the historic district of Grand Rapids, MI. Recently, she was highlighted in a segment of Point of View: A Designer Profile on the Magnolia Network. She will introduce her own show The Established Home, also on the Magnolia Network, Dec. 31, 2021. The Madison is beautiful, absolutely beautiful. Each room was so tastefully and comfortably decorated. It was a thrill to go through it. The highlight, however, occurred at the end of the tour when I was able to meet and talk with Jean.
What a wonderful person she is, taking time to speak with her guests in an unhurried manner. I was able to speak with her about the inspiration that she had provided and the ideas that I stole:) She was thrilled that I had borrowed her ideas and was eager to learn and understand how I had used them in my own home. What a refreshingly sweet and interested person she is. It was both an honor and a pleasure to not only meet her but talk with her as well.
It has been a busy few weeks at 58 N Main St. as we prepare for the move back in this weekend. The past few days have not been without issues. There are always issues. There are moments when tears are close, and I must remind myself that my problems are all first world problems. Bumps in the road, certainly, but everything broken can be fixed and everything that must be fixed doesn’t have to be so by this holiday season. With the Thanksgiving coming next week I began to think about the things I am thankful for. For all the people who have been there for me throughout this project. My family, who listens to me whine and complain weekly when things aren’t going the way I want them to, my best friend who drops everything to help me German smear a fireplace and hunt for rugs and furnishings, a friend that finds me an incredible person to wallpaper my mudroom when everyone else is booked until April,
my coworkers who share my excitement and commiserate with my miseries, my carpenters who have spent nearly every evening this week putting in knobs, pulls, shoe moldings and all things wood that needed to be finished, my plumbers who found leak after leak in my old untouched upstairs bathroom when pressurizing the system for the new plumbing, preventing nearly every disaster, my painters who were still there tonight when I left, my contractor who, really is a good guy and will be a friend for years to come, my husband, who is the calm to my storm and the patient one when I come unglued. Put into perspective I am blessed to have had so many along for the ride on this adventure. I cannot wait to share this little piece of heaven with everyone.
And so, the next time I write we will be back in our house once again! It won’t be finished, not completely, not yet, it is still a work in progress and will be for quite some time, but we will be back. Some have asked me what I look forward to most about being back in the house. It is very simple for me, after sleeping on a mattress on the floor for the last 14 months I look forward most to my bed… with a headboard…. and a reading light. It’s always the simplest things that makes a soul happy.
Happy Thanksgiving Everyone,
Stay well,
Laura
Some sneak peaks:
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