~and as we learn to make do~

1955 was a good year for cars, birthing little babies, and building the house that we now live in here in Burkburnett, Texas.  I saw a really sweet looking '55 Chevy the other day at a car show in Wichita Falls.  Its owner obviously loved it and the polished gleam to its turquoise body bore testament to that fact.  My 60-year old body is a little on the worn out and rusty side of life but I'm still going pretty strong myself.  When my 61st birthday rolls around come this October 26th, I will celebrate another year of living with deep gratitude in my heart.  As for our house here upon the plains of Texas, it is sturdy and built like a rock.  For that we are grateful as well.

When we moved here in mid-January, this house was basically "move in ready" and other than a little cleaning here and there, there wasn't a whole lot that we needed to do at first.  The fact that it was constructed in 1955 was very appealing to me.  It's not every day that you can buy a house that shares your birthdate.  This one does.

It reminds me so much of the house where I spent my first 8 years of life back in Kansas.  My early childhood home in the sand hills of Harvey County was built in 1955 as well by my father.  For $10,000 he was able to build a 4-bedroom, 2-bathroom home for his family of 7 children in the spring that year and when I was born late in the fall, it would become my home too.  One of the features of our new house here in Texas that put me in mind of that place from long ago were the kitchen cupboards.  Both houses had similar ones, seemingly sturdy enough to live through an F5 tornado, Great Plains style.  That might be a bit of an exaggeration, but you know what I'm saying?

One of the things that Mike and I had talked about doing from the beginning, was to somehow or another change up the appearance of the kitchen cupboards.  We didn't want to put in new ones because these are extremely well built, even though they are now 60 years old.  The hardware that was used on them is in good shape as well.  Their stain is a medium shade of brown and it was something that we could learn to live with for a while also.  But we wondered what they would look like if some fresh paint was put upon them to liven up their appearance.

Yesterday we began to find out.

We started at the hardware store here in town that Mike manages.  They have a great supply of anything you need for fixer-upper projects such as these.  We weren't exactly sure what color of paint we wanted but were open to many different ideas.  The paint sample palette was full to overflowing with choices.  Both of us wanted to stay in the greens and blues section where there ended up being a gazillion shades to choose from.  We brought a few color samples home and put them up against the current colors we had in the kitchen and ended up with one choice called "Garden District".  

By Saturday afternoon, the painting began in earnest.  It's a slow process because anytime a ladder is involved, I kind of like to err on the side of being careful.  I found that it would definitely be a two coat process and in some parts, even a three coat one.  I'd have to stop and let everything dry, which in this summertime heat doesn't take very long, and then check to see what spots I ended up missing.  For a couple of hours, I was at it and at the end of the day only the first one was completed.  I was happy with the appearance and couldn't believe just how much it changed the way everything would begin to look.

Mike will be able to help me today as we work our way across the west side of the kitchen wall. It's too much of a job to finish in a couple days time.  I think it's more like about a couple of weeks worth of time myself.  That's ok.  We are not in a race with anyone else to see who finishes first.  We just want to complete it sometime and we will.

I learned some lessons as I was painting yesterday, like how important it is to sand down the rough edges and why it's important to clean up the paintbrushes right away instead of leaving them for later.  I figured out that when the ceiling starts spinning while on a ladder, it's probably best to get off the ladder.  Yet even in all of those things, I believe I learned the most important lesson of all and that is this.

It's a good thing to learn to "make do" with what you have.

Even though it would have been nice to have brand new cupboards with all the available updates that are offered, it would have cost a lot of money.  It's money that we don't even have to spend right now.  For less than $50 in the cost of paint/supplies and several hours of that good old thing called "sweat equity", we can have cupboards that look different and new. It's all in how you look at things.  

It's called "perspective".  

The older I have become, the more I have adopted this idea of "make do".  It's fun and sometimes a challenge but at an age when I'm trying to downsize what I have in the first place, using what I already have makes the most sense.

It seems to work, at least for me.