The Willimers in America

Welcome to Mr. Fuzzy

We know that we have a lot of re-modelling and other work to do this summer, so very sensibly and with great maturity, as a family we resolved to put off the purchase of our new dog until things (and building dust) had settled a bit. So last Saturday we visited Petsmart, our local pet 'superstore', to simply gather information about adopting and caring for a Golden Retriever puppy. And again, showing amazing maturity and self-control, minutes later we managed to leave the store without the most adorable black kitten called Mr. Fuzzy in tow. However by the following Friday, after several considered family conferences, we made our way to the Mercerville Animal Hospital to finally bring him home.

Mr. Fuzzy is about 8 weeks old, is jet black with green-yellow eyes, and has legs like a wild hare. He is full of energy, very nosy, playful (in fact very kitten-ish) but also loves company. Thomas spends hours playing with him, and while he is good at the teasing, jumping, running around-type playing, he still has some way to go on the quiet, gentle stroking-type interaction. Thomas also hasn't quite worked out that 8 week old kittens can't climb cabin bed ladders - but I expect they can be taught.

One of the serious family conferences took place over dinner at Uno's, where a variety of sensible (and not so sensible) name suggestions were put forward. The staff at the shelter had named him Mr. Fuzzy - lord only knows why, he has short, black fur - but we wanted something which meant something to us. After dismissing names like Gary (as in Spongebob's pet snail), Midnight (the waitress's suggestion was too sensible) and Nathan (why, Thomas ?) our three way vote came down to a choice between Keane - named after Robbie, according to Tom, and the band, according to Linda (and both according to me) - Basil as in Basil Fawlty - Linda and I love the nasal whine of Sybil Fawlty calling "Basil !" while Thomas has developed a great impersonation of Manual bending at the knees and rubbing his hands calling "Basil !" to his pet rat - and Figo which Tom and I thought was about the best footballer name we could find and might be turn into an omen of his impending move to Spurs. Despite the most tortuous democratic voting method - I can't even remember which name won - we found out that none of us can stop calling him Mr. Fuzzy, so Fuzzy it is !!

UPDATE: I guess instead of Figo, we should have considered calling him Edgar instead !

A Guided Tour

So what is this new house like then ? I realise all we've said so far is that we have a pool (did I mention that yet ?)

The first thing to realise is that the property is huge. We own just under 3 acres of land, on the corner of the main back road to Pennington, and the old road we used to live on (Darrow Drive). The NW side of the property borders Darrow Drive, and is marked by about a dozen giant fir trees, like 60 feet high Christmas trees. The whole property is bounded by very old rustic pole fences, which have definitely seen better days, but add a certain country charm.

The picture that the realtor used (right) doesn't do justice - the house looks much nearer the road than it really is, and of course you can't see that there is probably half as much land again at the back. On Saturday, our friend Ryan walked around 'our estate' subdividing it - soccer pitch here, croquet lawn there, horse-shoe pit down the back. Of course, we'll have to be careful not to disturb the resident rabbits, blue jays, cardinals and groundhog, and leave room for the deer who use our garden as a freeway.

The front door opens directly into the lounge, which is one of the few rooms we don't need to decorate immediately. It has a comfortable (but grubby) carpet, and neutral walls. Plenty of room for our bookshelves and my desk. The Lounge runs into the Dining Room on one side, which needs some work. Our furniture fits nicely, but the horrific flowery wallpaper above the dado rail will need replacing.

Both the dining room and the lounge lead into the kitchen. Linda cleaned the cupboards three times, but still kept wiping away grease. So she determined that if the cupboards were that bad, the equally horrific wallpaper would be just as bad and would need to come down. Along with the styrofoam fake beams glued to the ceiling. All of this decoration, the new cabinets, and appliances to replace the 30-year old oven and stove will have to wait for now.

Off the kitchen is what American's call a 'Florida Room' but in England would be known as a conservatory. It's modest-sized, square, and would be a lovely space - except for the astroturf carpet and the nicotine-stained walls and ceilings (and accompanying smell). High up the list of projects, because we can do it ourselves and it shouldn't take too long. Also leading off the kitchen is a large, open space which we call the Family Room. This has a fireplace with a brick chimney breast, french doors which lead out to the patio, and no lights. When we arrived, it was covered with dark mustard wallpaper (also nicotine stained) which made the room both dark and smelly. So all this wallpaper has gone too. We plan to make this one of the first rooms to do, largely because we use it so much.

There's a very large laundry room 'space' (basically a long corridor with shelves) which we will easily make better use of in due course, but the last room major room downstairs is Linda's workshop. We think it used to be the Den, and it is perfect for Linda to have as a room for her stamping and scrapbooking classes. It's spacious, big enough to have a couple of tables stretched out, but has a couple of major shortcomings - it has a dreadful ceiling and (again) no lights, which is a bit of a drawback for a craft room. Our contractor will be here in a couple of weeks to replace the ceiling and install lights - then we can paint the walls and lay a floor and Linda will be back in business.

Upstairs there are three bedrooms. Ours needs little work, and is quite cottage-y, in pale blue with a slightly sloping ceiling. We do have a small en-suite toilet and shower with the most amazing flowery wallpaper and almost art-deco fittings. Just kitschy enough to be quaint, rather than grotesque. We've set up the spare room as a store room at the moment, but at some point in the future there's another set of unpleasant wallpaper to come down. To make sure that Thomas felt at home when we moved in, we had his room professionally decorated in two-tone green before we moved in, and bought him all new industrial-chic bedroom furniture, including a cool cabin bed.

We're currently at that in-between stage: still breathing out from our hectic moving-in exercise, but girding our loins for the coming assault with paintbrush and spackle. We'll put lots of pictures and description up here once we get started.

Settling in

Now I remember exactly how exhausting moving house can be, and why it is included in the top 5 stress-inducing events, along with divorce, changing jobs and family bereavements.

Last week, after closing, I found myself settling into a routine of box moving - from upstairs (or downstairs or the basement, wherever those boxes might be) to the kitchen, from the kitchen to my car, from Darrow Drive to the new house (a mere 300 yards) and then from my car to either the garage or the nearest empty room. I had convinced myself that there was a natural flow to this, twelve or so boxes at a time, which was better than filling an entire moving van with hundreds of boxes in one go - once my car was full, I had to have a break of sorts. And that was true - just hard to remember after the 327th trip.

Anyway, by Saturday morning I had moved almost all of the packed boxes, leaving just the furniture to be moved by the hardy band of volunteers who showed up to give us physical and moral support, and save us the cost of hiring professional movers. Unsurprisingly I had been to busy to watch the weather forecast during the week, so the fact that all day long it was 94 degrees and very VERY humid took me by surprise. But by 2pm we had everything in place at the new house, and could concentrate on trying to get the door back on its hinges, and somehow cover up the tyre tracks on the front lawn of the old house.

However we soon discovered that there is always just one more box to be filled, and the Saturday afternoon dragged itself on and on as Linda found odd item after odd item that needed transporting. By the time we left Darrow Drive that evening, somewhat satisfied with what we had achieved, I had never felt quite as physically drained in my life ever before as I did then. Too drained to feel a sense of accomplishment, almost too knackered to sink a beer (but not completely), and with the swimming pool still too green to swim in safely, no chance of relief there either.

Oh, did I say swimming pool ? Yes, we DO have a swimming pool in our new house. I do hope people don't think I'm gloating - I'm just very very excited, like a child !!