Place Mark

Unwrapping to Wrapping

I just this morning unpacked my last box, and I'm expecting Tommy the Junkman this afternoon, to haul away the last of the moving debris. I am totally beat; I could not have imagined what a huge job this would be. Yay.  Yet, sigh. I am so far from finished, for although everything is more or less put away, it all needs to be reorganized properly, and I have only hung a few pictures. I am starting to be able to think a bit about what I'd like to do...but first, I've got to start wrapping the Christmas presents.

My 24X50 stainless cooks worktable arrived, and this thing, which weighs 90lbs., was put together by me, unaided, despite complete lack of written instructions. It may detract, slightly , from the glory surrounding this accomplishment, when I tell you that I put it together twice. First, I carefully assembled it top-down on the living room rug, to keep it's surfaces unscratched. Then, when I realized that it was too wide, by 1/2", for the kitchen door (stove, etc. came in through fire-escape), I took it apart and reassembled it in the kitchen. It is every bit as I had hoped, providing a ton of counter space, plus under-shelf storage, and I think it looks cool , too- photo to follow.

In the meantime, you can tell me if I'm living in a Christmas card, or a Japanese print? Yes, that is a giant holly tree, covered with red berries. It's right outside my living room window- built in seasonal decoration.

Happy Winter Holidays.

The Space Below/ New Oilcloth

Upstairs, it's still all about the boxes, and plugging away at unpacking. Downstairs, is the basement, where the washing, trash, and storage solutions are not very pretty, but seem to work well. After finding my washer hookup with defunct washer, and dryer (just fine), as well as my storage room (nice and big), I am considerably less weirded out by the long corridors, bare bulbs hanging, Night-of-the-Living-Dead ambiance.

I knew the washer was a goner, but haven't replaced it yet, because there are coin operated machines you can use for 50 cents a load, in the room right next to my dryer. It would take a long time to make having my own washer start saving me money-like 10 years. And a lot of appliances these days don't last a lot longer than that.

Contributing to my improved attitude to the area are the nice rocking chairs and folding tables in the various washing rooms, the shelves and cupboards left in my storage area, and the pleasant people I keep bumping into, who welcome me with kind words, as if I had come to be their personal house guest. This is really a nice place.

What you see pictures above is the oilcloth I ordered to make an everyday tablecloth for my dining room table. I have had a nice marrimekko oilcloth one for about 15 years, and when I was folding it for packing, I noticed it was a bit shabby. So it will be demoted to covering the table for messy projects.

The new one looks very bright in the photo, and it is....but somehow the combination of being on the table, and covered with plates, subdues it quite a lot. I've got lots of plain white dishes, as well as a bunch of matte green Frankoma stoneware, and a set of some Royal Worchester- a retired pattern my parents bought, with a red and gold border. I haven't used the last bunch much, though they are pretty, because you are not supposed to put them in the dishwasher-supposedly it will do bad things to the gold bits. But now that I won't be having a working dishwasher for some time, I might start. the two white based things look okay together, while the Frankoma goes solo. 

Obviously, I have way too many dishes. I even have some more- a few Russel Wright dishes in  the Nutmeg and Lettuce colors. They can kind of work with the Frankoma. I sometimes think so, but maybe not so much. 

As I unpack, I'm paying the price for an inability to discard anything nice. In my (feeble) defense, the Frankoma ones are cheap as chips, and are pleasant to collect for that reason. There are so many around, they will probably never get prohibitively expensive. I love the matte green (a/k/a "prairie green), which looks similar to that of (much more pricey) arts and crafts pottery. And that fancy bone china came from the parents.

Hope this all turns out to look okay in the "Stuart Gold" dining room. I show you when the oilcloth gets here. I do have a couple of old solid color linen-y cloths in case this is all a big mistake.