Packing, Dancing, and the Case of the Missing Chairs
"In summer, the song sings itself." -- William Carlos Williams
Video moment: Valerie packing and dancing to "Valerie," or, how to pack a lamp!
My stay at the vintage fixer rental house I've deemed my Summer Serenity Cottage is almost at an end, and I'll soon return to my regular place -- where I had never really decorated with intention even though I have always loved decorating. I remember as a very young child thinking that drawing with red pencil on my pink bedroom walls would look wonderful, and it did! My dear mother wasn't too happy about my choice of location for artistic expression or decor experimentation at that time : )
Before decamping to the cottage, instead of truly decorating my regular place -- where I've lived for two and a half years -- I was using items that came with the space, including someone's old pots and pans. That seems so strange as I write it, yet it's true. I was also using and living with items I'd had for years or even decades that had either lost relevance or carried many old memories, such as a German drawing in a Biedermeier frame that my then husband, who was German, took from his parents' wall in Germany in the '90s, when we were in our 20s. Nice people, nice things, but what did any of it have to do with me anymore? Or with my preppy-fresh pearl-glamorous Great Lakes nautical style? : )
I was also living with items that I didn't use that came with the space (e.g. a set of black dishes, taking up space in a cabinet that could have held more blue-and-white dishes which I love), and with my own items from storage that I wasn't using but hadn't taken the time to sort or cull (e.g. files and now outdated electronics from my old Chocolate Tours business, and clothes clothes clothes that I haven't worn in years).
I was surrounded by old things. And, I can hardly remember the last time I'd bought new things, including basics like towels, before the cottage.
So as I was decorating the cottage, I was really decorating my regular place too! High time!
This week I gave away for free the furniture my regular place came with -- I didn't pay for these items, and I passed that free aspect along by not charging for these items. The people who took the various pieces were so happy to receive them! Now I will be moving furniture of my choosing into the space, along with art and decor that are relevant to me now. I'll get rid of other items I don't need or use, and I feel energized to do this.
For example, this leather chair that was in my regular place when I moved in was a nice piece, but it wasn't "me," so I posted it and other items to Nextdoor, and the new owner -- who received it for free and came and picked it up for free -- is thrilled with it. You can see it here on the loading dock behind my regular place, and the new owner sent me a photo of it in her place, where it fits right in!
I am concerned because the problems that drove me from my regular place for the summer have not been fixed, namely unbearable roof noise and vibration from a faulty and flimsy new non-soundproofed roof that allows in the raging sounds of nearby trains, the creak and squeak of the building's parking garage door, plus the intense growling and shaking of neighbors' ac condenser lines that were improperly and inappropriately placed into my roof and that physically rumble my ceiling relentlessly every time someone runs their air conditioner or fan (which is pretty much 24/7 during this extremely hot and humid summer). The problems have not been fixed! Will I be searching for yet another place soon?
While I'm sad to leave the cottage, because it's sad to leave people or things we love, I'm excited to extend the decorating project to my regular space! (Or new regular space if I move again? Oh my.) I am not sad to leave the creeper landlord behind!
As for packing and dancing, I have some tips below -- on packing, though would be glad to share dance techniques too haha! -- but first, here's how the above video came about:
A friend came over to help me pack one day during what I have designated as Moving Week (less stressful to me than having just one moving day, because I can spread tasks out over a week and also keep them contained within one week), and my friend came back the next day to check in. Instead of ringing the doorbell -- we both happen to dislike doorbells -- she played the song Valerie by Steve Winwood on her tablet, to alert me she was outside! I'd been planning to ask her to take a quick video of me packing a lamp, which sounds weird when I write it but made sense in the context of thinking about this decorating blog filled with my (eccentric?) how-tos : ) She put the song in as a soundtrack, I added a little shimmy, and voila!
Making moving house as gentle as possible is something I have tried to do in recent years, because in the past it was almost debilitatingly stressful to me. In more recent moves, I have devised and deployed successful tactics -- at last! -- and will share key steps with you below that work for me.
While I wouldn't say that with this move, the house packed itself up -- and packing is almost but not yet quite done as I write this -- I would say that this is my number one tip for a short-term move or double-decorating project:
~ Saving all of the boxes and materials I moved in with, right down to the paper sleeves on the vintage Spode dishes I ordered from Etsy for the cottage, made packing simple and straightforward. Everything will go out of the cottage in the box or wrap in which it came into the cottage, more or less.
Also helpful for any move:
~ I number each box, and in my "moving notebook" I notate what is inside each box. I also put a sticker with a letter of the alphabet onto each piece of furniture to be moved, and notate that in my notebook too.
This way, when Golan's Moving comes back, they'll know at a glance what goes and what stays, and when everything arrives at my regular place I'll know what's inside each box and can decide what to unpack first as I organize my regular place in a way it hasn't been organized before!
And yes, updating my moving notebook is even more fun while drinking craft hot chocolate made with just 2 ingredients: cacao and sugar -- all you need!
Here, I've paired Crow & Moss Chocolate of Michigan's deeply delicious drinking chocolate made from Dominican cacao, with a cardamom bun from Lost Larson and some organic blackberries. Scrumptious serenity!
Sweet Jorji the cat's restful companionship is a joy during packing and always.
This summer had some spills, thrills, and chills, by any measure, and was so hot and humid the word "chills" seems out of place even in a metaphoric way, yet I also achieved what I wanted: contemplation, relaxation, and decoration. Serenity.
I think the house is happy with our summer too, and with her phase as a Great Lakes-themed retreat.
And I think the house is happy to be clean! I was going to tell you how many bottles of Mrs. Meyer's all-purpose cleaner I used this summer: 12. That's an average of 1 per week, most of them in the early weeks of renting here, when I scrubbed, scrubbed, scrubbed away at what seemed like 5 years of grime. Sometimes it seemed like 115 years of grime, as the house was built in 1906.
The old regime washes away, and the Golden Age shines forth, singing and dancing.
[Update: Giving away items has been a lot of fun, and feels very Golden Age -- just giving as we humans give and share, as part of the flow of life. I gave some items to friends, and some to strangers.
And what about the 4 dining chairs I bought for a grand total of $25 at the start of the summer, at the Bowmanville Street Sale; did they just walk away? Let's break it down:
I promised my bed -- new Tuft & Needle queen mattress, and new Simple Living frame from Overstock -- to a dear friend, the friend who put the frame together for me, in fact. The bed was in pristine condition, having been used only for this summer. I offered it to my friend since I knew he needed furniture after recently buying a place, and he accepted; he also accepted the clothing rack I offered him from the fun walk-in closet I set up. But I learned the day before the lease was up that he couldn't pick anything up before my lease was up; I knew this would be trouble, and it was. Let's come back to that....
I promised the dining table, chairs, and other items to another friend -- the one who took the video at the top of this post! -- whom I'd known years ago and whom I ran into in the prairie restoration area near the cottage earlier this summer! (And later she said she might not be able to use the chairs and so I said I would take them back and use them at my regular place or give them away from there. But it never came to this, as the chairs went missing.) She has been incredibly wonderful to get to know again, and has also been incredibly helpful in taking down the cottage at the end of the summer. She couldn't pick up some of the items until after the lease ended....
I posted some items to Ravenswood Free Box on Facebook and they went fast!
I posted some other items to Nextdoor, such as Jorji's new cat tree (she prefers the old one), and it went to a friendly lady with 3 cats and 2 dogs. The furniture and dishes I posted to Nextdoor from my regular place also went quickly to delightful people. Posting these items to Fb attracted scammers and issues; posting to Nextdoor attracted nice people. My tip: post to Nextdoor!
What about the "Case of the Missing Chairs?" Here we go:
Two friends and I returned to the cottage on August 30 after my move-out day which I'd chosen as August 26, and before the lease was up the next day on August 31 -- so the sweet house was still mine -- for a pizza party to celebrate one friend's birthday, and the other friend's belated birthday, and to enjoy one more evening at the Summer Serenity Cottage.
One of the friends is the one I'd promised the bed to; I'd thought he'd be able to get the bed that night, but due to a busy work schedule he was not. We had a nice time over pizza from a favorite spot downtown, Victory Tap, that we brought with us, along with carrot cake from that same restaurant, plus pie that the friend getting the bed brought with him. We sat in the chairs, at the table. Afterward, I cleaned up, and we left. A few days later, the table was still there, and so was the bed, but not the chairs.
Here are items as I left them -- pristine bed, and the dining set (3 chairs shown; the 4th was upstairs until I moved it back downstairs), plus the pizza!
Some clues and context:
The peeper creeper landlord was outside the house when I pulled up with one of my friends for our pizza party. Outside the house! How can this be? How is it that whenever I was at the cottage, there he was, even after a few days of being back at my regular place??
Our other friend arrived, the one to whom I'd promised the bed, and the landlord chatted with him outside, nicey-nicey, preventing him from coming inside. The other friend, already inside with me, had long before pegged the landlord as a creeper, because the landlord reminded him of his sisters' landlord years ago when his sisters shared a place in California that was rented out by a man who rented only to women, came to and inside their apartment constantly, and tried to take advantage of them.
The friend getting the bed made a side deal with the landlord to get it within the week, after my lease was over. Sounds simple, right? If you've been reading this blog and know the dual personality of the landlord, who says one thing nice and then does another not nice, you are not surprised that there was nothing simple about this!
Similarly, my friend taking the table and chairs (who was not at the pizza party), who also agreed to give the keys back to the landlord for me so that frankly I wouldn't have to deal with him, made a side deal with him as well, to get the table, chairs, and other items. They'd seen only the nice side of the landlord so far, unlike so many other friends who were more personally familiar with the peeping and the creeping, being at the cottage with me when he barged in. The landlord seemed willing to act nice to my friends (for a while!) while acting not-nice toward me; such a middle school move, right?
The night I was back at the cottage -- and again the landlord knew I was there because he'd been hanging around -- the landlord left some handpicked garden flowers in a plastic grocery store bag on the doorknob of the front door, with a note wishing me all the best. Sweet? Guilty? Manipulative? Trespassing? I'd seen all these sides of him and more this summer, and honestly, I'd seen more than enough. I gave the flowers to one of my friends that night as we left, the one who made the side deal to pick up the bed. You can think I'm cold-hearted for that if you want to, or you can think I'm wise to keep my boundaries and keep my warm heart for those who respect it, and not fall for old tricks again in which the landlord acted nicey-nicey only to turn meany-meany. A standard arm's-length landlord-tenant relationship was what I expected, and not what I got.
The next day, on the final day of the lease, my friend who was returning the keys asked me what to do with the "dirty girl lamps" as she called them. I asked her what she was talking about. She said there were two filthy lamps upstairs where my walk-in closet used to be. I asked her to send me a photo please, which she did:
They are not mine, I told her; I own nothing filthy (nor kitschy. My theme for the cottage was Great Lakes nautical, not mid-century tacky). She said she was indeed surprised to see these lamps. Who but the landlord could have put them there? Technically he was trespassing because the house was still mine, and when he came in -- broke in, again! -- what if I had been there, or my friend? When the landlord placed dirty lamps into the house, my house, is that when he took the chairs, my chairs?
Later that week, she texted me that the landlord hung up on her when she called. She called him again, and he said, crankily, that he didn't want to be friends with my friends and why wasn't the other friend coming to get the bed. My friend taking the bed was surprised that the landlord hadn't reached out to him if he was upset. I connected these two friends so they could finally move out the last of the items. They did so, and the chairs were not there.
So, that's what happened; thank you for letting me vent this out.
What do you make of this strange ending to a summer that had enough strangeness? Is the landlord guilty of trespassing and theft, plus everything else he is guilty of? What would you do about it? For example:
- Talk with the landlord's adult children -- I know the son, and my friend who didn't get the chairs knows one of the daughters?
- Have my male friend who got the bed talk with the landlord, as the landlord seems generally to treat men with somewhat more respect than women?
- Post to a landlord rating site?
- Call the police?
- Buy 4 more chairs and send the landlord the bill?
Just dance away?]
Onward and upward -- "greatest hits" post and more still to come!
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