Queen of Chaos and Her Realm

I laughed yesterday as I looked around our house - chaos everywhere!  I told the story of my studio in the basement and how it's all torn up due to water seeping in and how we're evaluating waterproofing companies.  Finally met with the last one last night.  Let me just say, hahahahahahahahahaha...yeah, right... um, no.  At least now we can move forward on the project.  BUT, that's just one room.  Oh, honey, I've got it goin' on everywhere! 

Okay, I finished my brick project for the Scarab Club's Garden Party auction last Saturday, so I was able to remove all the gilding supplies and paint from the dining room table and take them back to the abyss in the basement.  I quickly replaced the detritus with a lamp, the TV, and other assorted knick-knack nonsense from the TV room WHICH is being recarpeted BUT the installer could only lay the tack strip yesterday and the padding (long story, never mind...) so he's coming back today to complete the install.  So therefore, ALL the furniture is in the living room from the TV room. Yeah, it looks like a warehouse, pretty much.  Oh, and of course, I decided to change the wall color and treatment in that room as well, once he's done with the install.  I managed to get the base color on the walls and ceiling yesterday.  Today the "pretty" happens.  Just sittin' here in my "happy pants", waitin' to get in there.

But that's not all, folks.  If you step out of the back door, you'll be amidst the restoration of the breezeway, which consists of burning all the old paint off (house is c.1926 so it's has many layers of paint that have now "alligatored" down to the original wood.)  In order to have a new and proper paint job, we have to remove the old paint. We had hired it out for the exterior portion of the house.  It was a two year job and way expensive because it intailed restoration of the orignal wood windows and wood storm windows and glazing of over 500 panes of glass.  I got to help out as much as I could because the painter is a dear friend of mine.  He taught me to glaze windows and restore the frames when needed.  I then did faux touch-ups on the brick where painters over 84 years had dripped and where the English ivy had left "footprints" on the brick.  The exterior looks like a million bucks!  And I loved working on it. But then again, I'm "twisted" that way.  We're about 2/3 done with the burning and then I get to repair the old clapboard where needed, sand, caulk and paint.  Steve (my husband) isn't a painter, but he has proven to be pretty darn good with a heat gun! Okay, so anything that we keep in the breezeway is piled into the screened-in porch (which also has to have the paint burned off...) on one side so I can still sit on the wicker settee on Sunday mornings and plan my attack on the gardens after breakfast.  Normally, the cushions for the patio chairs aren't on my settee...

The second floor is pretty "safe".  The only chaos up there is in my old studio, which I have to "set up shop" in while I wait for the basement to be fixed.  But that should be pretty easy to organize quickly.  The third floor is fine.  That's Lizzy's old room and I haven't been up there.  So I guess what I'm saying here is "chaos" follows me?  Haha!  No, not really.  I just like to stay busy and this house certainly provides the oppotunity to do so!  Just call  me the Queen of Chaos!  My sceptors are a paint brush in one hand and a heat gun in the other.  My crown is my respirator.

And poor Steve... not Mr. Handyman, is glad when the weekends are over so he can escape the clutches of the Queen! Haha!