July 23, 2014 at 2:10 p.m.
Map needed for wall (1/14/04)
Dear Reader
Like my new cologne? It's called Murphy's Oil Soap.
That's because I've been fastidiously washing down kitchen walls and woodwork to prep them for painting later this month.
In other words, there's another home improvement project going on at our house.
When you own an old house, there's always another project on the horizon, sometimes distantly and sometimes bearing down on you rapidly like the ever-closer headlight of a speeding freight train.
In this case, the kitchen was a project we'd put months, maybe years, of planning into. And most of the work has been done by professionals.
Two tasks remain: Painting the walls and woodwork, and re-hanging the pictures.
Of the two, the first is the easier.
I have no clear idea how many pictures — photographs, prints, maps, certificates, posters — actually hang on the walls of our kitchen. I lost count a long time ago.
I know that's not normal. This is a genetic problem, an errant gene from the Ronald side of the family compounded by similarities in the Frank side (my wife's).
But it is a problem.
As exhibit one in evidence, I would submit our Christmas card from the nearest Framemakers, complete with a personal note from the manager.
When we started preparing the room for the kitchen project, all of the pictures had to come down. And well aware that putting them up again could be a disaster, I started making rough charts in my reporter's notebook as to what went where.
Did the geological survey map of our favorite part of New Hampshire hang above or below a gorgeous black and white of the steps in the Jay County Courthouse rotunda?
Did the old photo of the Haynes brothers, including my grandfather, hang to the left or the right of the one of me going into the dunk tank at the Fourth of July many years back?
And where did the marvelous photo of my mother being hugged by a patient as a Gold Lady volunteer at Richmond State Hospital go? Or the one of the twins as infants being held by Centerville art collector John Nixon? And how to keep track of the silhouettes in black of each of our daughters in childhood?
That's what the charts were for.
I just hope they're accurate.
For now, with all of the nails still in place and plenty of walls still to prep for painting, I'm keeping my fingers crossed.[[In-content Ad]]
That's because I've been fastidiously washing down kitchen walls and woodwork to prep them for painting later this month.
In other words, there's another home improvement project going on at our house.
When you own an old house, there's always another project on the horizon, sometimes distantly and sometimes bearing down on you rapidly like the ever-closer headlight of a speeding freight train.
In this case, the kitchen was a project we'd put months, maybe years, of planning into. And most of the work has been done by professionals.
Two tasks remain: Painting the walls and woodwork, and re-hanging the pictures.
Of the two, the first is the easier.
I have no clear idea how many pictures — photographs, prints, maps, certificates, posters — actually hang on the walls of our kitchen. I lost count a long time ago.
I know that's not normal. This is a genetic problem, an errant gene from the Ronald side of the family compounded by similarities in the Frank side (my wife's).
But it is a problem.
As exhibit one in evidence, I would submit our Christmas card from the nearest Framemakers, complete with a personal note from the manager.
When we started preparing the room for the kitchen project, all of the pictures had to come down. And well aware that putting them up again could be a disaster, I started making rough charts in my reporter's notebook as to what went where.
Did the geological survey map of our favorite part of New Hampshire hang above or below a gorgeous black and white of the steps in the Jay County Courthouse rotunda?
Did the old photo of the Haynes brothers, including my grandfather, hang to the left or the right of the one of me going into the dunk tank at the Fourth of July many years back?
And where did the marvelous photo of my mother being hugged by a patient as a Gold Lady volunteer at Richmond State Hospital go? Or the one of the twins as infants being held by Centerville art collector John Nixon? And how to keep track of the silhouettes in black of each of our daughters in childhood?
That's what the charts were for.
I just hope they're accurate.
For now, with all of the nails still in place and plenty of walls still to prep for painting, I'm keeping my fingers crossed.[[In-content Ad]]
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