When is an entry hall not an entry hall? When it’s a living room. Or laundry room. Or wait, maybe a library? My husband and I have successul and succinctly embarked on many a renovation- some small, others large- for both ourselves and others. So now why when we need it the most are we at the biggest loss to figure it out? As we circle round our existing floor plan again and again playing the “What If” game, I keep thinking we are trapped in some weird existential parlor game, rather than a basic renovation of our home. It’s major merging of left and right brain sides. The masculine laser focus of “let’s go out and do this thing” merged with the feminine: “But wait! Where do I keep the wrapping paper?” (Not too sound too Candy Spelling but I do have needs.) As soon as we envision one configuraiton, another one shimmers through with a fresh set of pros and cons. Eric frets over roof lines. I over that there isn’t a proper mud room. Five minutes later, we have three mud rooms and no pantry. And on and on it goes. “You keep obsessing about a white round table in the entry way!” he says. “Well you keep talking about where the bartender is going to stand at the Christmas party!” I counter. “And we have’t even had one in five years!”
I know these are pretty problems to have but still…it doesn’t help to think that as soon as they are solved and their finite solutions etched onto detailed drawings, the trucks will roll in and the noise and chaos will begin.