So Blake and I would like to start doing some major home renovations this summer. We live together in a beautiful early 1900s home in the countryside, on 100+ acres of land. The man who owns the whole shindig (along with his sister's house and plot, about 50ish acres on the other side of the road) is a wonderful, caring preacher that we live with. (Random tidbit, but we plan on naming our firstborn son Arthur Miller, after our dear Arthur Miller Adams. Not for the playwright, although he's cool, too.)
A.M. is like Blake's grandfather. Although he was married once, he never had children. His sister, Fay, is 92 and now lives with us as well, as her three daughters do little to nothing to help her in her currently deteriorating state. So it's just us three, braving the world alone. Blake's father lived with A.M. for a short time after being divorced from Blake's mother, and Blake essentially half grew up on A.M.'s land. There's baby pictures of him (I need to remind myself to snap some pictures of some particularly adorable and incriminating ones!) everywhere, and lots of old toys. Blake is A.M.'s person.
Blake's always wanted the house after A.M.'s gone. We wouldn't live in it for quite some time, as we still want to go off to school and see the world and whatnot, but when it comes time to settle down, it's the perfect place for us to live off the land and raise our children.
Lately, A.M.'s been thinking about doing a few home renovations here and there. We started our garden quite some time ago, and now have plenty of healthy growing vegetables, and beautiful flowers everywhere. We've also bought some tile for the kitchen and bathrooms. This is where I come in. Not many people know this about me, but I apprenticed as a carpenter for a year (and did a lot of roofing work, too!). I can build kitchen cabinets from scratch, and I can rip up carpet and neatly lay tile like nobody's business. We're also considering breaking down two walls that lead into the dining room / library to open up the small kitchen. That and/or extend the kitchen outward onto where the back (unused) porch is.
There's a whole boatload of things that I'd like to fix up in A.M.'s house. Currently, Blake and I don't have a bedroom (or bed), as Fay's temporarily (read: permanently - but I'm not mad, really) moved in with us. And our backs are growing tired of the couch. So we have a few options:
1) The spare bedroom. The bedroom next to A.M.'s room used to be Keith's (Blake's dad) room, and is now just the...junk room, I guess you could put it. Easily clean-outable, but we'd need to put insulation in the walls, as they left that out. Not to mention it's right next to A.M.'s room, and we...well, you know what sometimes goes on at night in bed. Unless we could move Fay into that room, and reclaim ours. Hmm...
2) The attic. Although incredibly small, I could really see potential in this room. It's the room that A.M. claimed for his own when he was a kid (cute, right?). Really, the only things that really need to be fixed in this room, other than cleaning it out, of course, would be replacing the drywall, as it appears to be a bit moldy. Whether or not we move upstairs, we probably still need to get new sheetrock (but that's extremely cheap and easy to do). It's quaint and very cute, and with a new paintjob and better lighting, I honestly think it could be quite perfect for us.
OR
3) (Which is kind of what both of us are starting to lean toward) Move into the radio station. Now now, I know what you're thinking. What the fuck? Blake and I run a radio station that A.M. owns. Anywho, there's plenty of rooms (and a full kitchen, although we'd need to invest in a better bathroom), high speed internet, heating & air conditioning, yada yada. Free rent, essentially (although if we needed to, we'd be happy paying rent), and we'd be living at our own place, which would be nice.
So I'll be playing the little carpenter pretty soon, I'm assuming, which pleases me.
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