John and I have finally gotten our asses in gear with regard to doing house stuff. It’s about time, too, for a number of reasons, the most pressing of which is the imminent arrival of 10 ladies he’s never met and I barely know who live in big, beautifully-decorated houses. (I’m not sure about my deployment of commas in that sentence, but I can’t look at it any more.) I’ve had lots of conversations with lots of people about what food to serve, and John and I are using this opportunity to do a few things around the house that have been on our minds for a long time.
1. Do something about the hole in the door to the basement.
Why was there a hole in the door to the basement? Because it used to be a cat door. Did we ever own a cat? No, but the previous owners did. Why didn’t you just call it a cat door? Because Riley stuck his head through it, broke the door flap off, and left the hole. And how long ago was that? About seven years. yes, we’ve had a hole in our basement door for SEVEN YEARS. Long overdue. John considered just covering it with a kick plate, but apparently doors only cost about $30, so while I was at the bridal shower last weekend, he hung and painted the new door. It looks very nice. No hole! So exciting. You know what’s more exciting? Riley can’t reach through the door to knock the trash can down the basement steps any more when he’s angry with us for not getting up early enough on weekend mornings.
2. Replace the drip pans on the stove.
Again, something John did while I was gone. He bought beautiful new brushed metal drip pans and threw out the disgusting, crusty, rusty, drip-covered drip pans that have been on that stove since before we moved in. It’s lovely.
3. Take the blinds down from all of the downstairs windows and replace the curtains.
We did it! There are officially no more blinds on any of our downstairs windows, including the sliding glass doors. It’s amazing how much more light there is, even compared to when all the blinds were up or open. We went to Target yesterday, found curtains and rods we liked (simple black rods, simple white cotton curtains – yes, they’ll get dirty fast. I’m on top of it. So fresh and crisp!), and then ran into our problem. We needed two sets of long curtains for the front window. No problem. We needed one set of short curtains for the kitchen window (which looks fantastic) – no problem. We needed twelve mid-length curtains for all of the other windows on the first floor (these don’t come in sets of two). Problem. They only had two. Well, okay. We’ll buy those two, put them up on one window, make sure we like it, and then order the rest. We still have two weeks before the book club ladies come over. That’s how we spent the rest of Saturday, and we’re really happy with how the curtains came out. Unfortunately, when I went to Target.com to order the rest on Sunday, I found that they do not exist. Not that they’re on the website but only available in stores, no. They don’t exist on the website at all. Not by description, not by item number. So I called one of the other nearby Target stores and asked them if they had any (by item number). One store said they might have some in the clearance section, but they couldn’t check for me. I’ll called another Target. They had three. I need ten. They put those three on hold for me, but only for 24 hours. Can they order the rest? Nope. Okay… I called another Target. They had one. I put it on hold. Can they order the rest? No. Okay. I called another Target. They didn’t have any, but they could tell me that another store had three, another one had five, and the one in Falls Church had ten. Magic number! I needed ten. So I called them, made sure they had them (they did), and I drove all the way to Falls Church (about 45 minutes away). I bought my ten mid-length curtains and two long ones (for the sliding glass doors), and then looked for rods. None. No matching rods. I gave up. I’m fairly certain those won’t be as hard to find, and there’s a Target near my office (that’s the one that told me they might have some curtains in the clearance section), so I’ll check that one for rods tomorrow at lunch. Wish me luck.
The part about this that bugs me the most is that I couldn’t order these curtains. Not even from the store. And they don’t ship between stores, so if the Falls Church location hadn’t had all ten, I would have made several stops all over the region yesterday to track down the right number. Did I just choose the wrong curtains? Or is Target just being difficult? Regardless, the rest of the curtains will get done by the weekend. Assuming I can find rods.
