I can see clearly now…

Cynthia — Sun, 09 Sep 2007 14:01:00 +0000

View from upstairs bedroom looking onto our HUGE ;D backyard
Whew… the West Wash Park Home Tour ended at 4:00 pm yesterday and after a couple of much needed beers, I promptly fell blissfully asleep by 8pm. Saturday is normally movie night in our household, and I didn’t even pretend to try to keep my eyes open. Could it be because I have basically been cleaning, landscaping, painting, sewing, staining, etc. etc. projects around the house up until 9 am the morning of the event?

I’m very glad we participated in the tour for a number of reasons – some selfish and some community oriented. We can now sit back and really enjoy our house because it feels finished, or at least until I decide that I no longer like orange paint or some other benign decorating nuance. Weekends will no longer find us deciding which home project to tackle; rather now I can decide to spend hours in my studio guilt-free or maybe take a family hike or museum visit. The home tour also benefited our community; it rasied money for the West Wash Park Neighborhood Association, Lincoln Elementary School and the Wash Park Community Center.

On a side note, I can’t keep my mouth shut and may have found myself on the planning committee for next year’s home tour. Count on me to be full of ideas – 1st meeting is in October! Fund raising seems to be something I’m good at, however, and it’s for a good cause….

Living room
When I began planning for the home tour in earnest, I thought maybe I should edit our belongings to make them more “friendly”. I opted against doing the self edit, because truth be told, our family photos and objects d’art are what make our home ours. Who wants a sterile living environment, and isn’t being a bit of a voyeur part of the fun when going on home tours? So, if you look closely, you’ll see Larry sitting on the mantel. People are either inherently repulsed or attracted to him – there seems to be no middle ground.

Dining room with Zuzu
We opted to leave the house to the volunteers and left around 10 am with our dog for calmer pastures. After dropping our dog off at my SIL’s house, we went on the tour ourselves and decided – WOW 8 beautiful homes, but we loved our home best! Speaking of sterile, there was an incredible home on the tour with super high end finishes that looked like it belonged in a decorating magazine, but alas there was no personality – nary a hint of color, photographs or interesting art. The couple is still working on their home, so in their defense, it might not be finished yet. Although, I suppose some people do like a calm home devoid of color and noise if their lives are otherwise busy or stressful.

I do wish we could have been a fly on the wall in our home; because good, bad or neutral, I would have liked to hear people’s comments when they toured our home. Although, at 4pm, we relieved the volunteers and we let a few stragglers view our home even though the tour was officially over. One of the people asked if either my husband or I was an artist – or were we just avid collectors. This thrilled me to no end to hear that! I explained that some of the art in our home was indeed mine, but I do buy art and trade with other artists. She asked if I was represented in Denver at any galleries and if I had a business card available. Doh, why didn’t I leave some cards available for people to take??? Missed opportunity.

Looking into the kitchen
See my laptop sitting on the counter? This is my office area – where all blog posts, images and other computer related business takes place. I only venture into the real office when I need to print or scan something. Actually, with wireless, you can find me anywhere in and around the house, even the backyard. I don’t think I’ll ever buy a desk top computer again.

Kitchen
I love our orange kitchen! Actually I like every room in our home. It’s a small home and I’ve decided I like it that way – we use every single room in the house including the dining room and living room, rooms that often go unused in many American homes. I’m a big fan of architect Sarah Susanka and her Not So Big House projects. She advocates building and designing homes that use good quality construction and materials but on a smaller scale for how people actually live. Do we really need a living room and a family room? Eat in kitchen and dining room that only gets used for holidays? Yes, you’ll notice in the above photographs that we have an eat in kitchen and dining room…. I tried to convince my husband to convert the dining room to a library area – with 2 overstuffed chairs and floor to ceiling book shelves, but he isn’t keen on the idea.

Meanwhile, I can see clearly now the home tour preparations have passed and I feel like I can get back to my regularly scheduled life. I’m planning on a few hours in my clay studio this afternoon (what else do I have to do?), followed by studio time on Monday and Tuesday. I agreed to substitute teach on Wednesday – Friday of this week, but told the school no for Mon. and Tues. I need to get some clay work in! Saying no is hard for me to do, but I had to let the administrators know that I only want to sub occasionally – that I actually have another life and business to attend to.

I was tagged with a meme last week which I hope to get to this week. I also hope to share fresh clay work with you in my next post – it will be about time, don’t you think?

~Cynthia

Blog
Website

Colorado Art Studio » west wash park home tour

I can see clearly now…