Weights and Measures.

I feel like I'm crawling out of a hole. 

Three weeks ago, the last time I posted on this blog, I was staring down a whirlwind schedule, starting with three days of travel to High Point Market to scout décor trends for Joss & Main. I’d return home, see my husband for a day, then launch into four days of single working parenting while he trekked to Seattle and San Francisco for big client meetings. We’d then miss each other by one hour in the airport as he flew in and I departed for a bachelorette-party weekend in Philadelphia. In the meantime, contractors were scaling the back of our house with hammers and stone grinders, continuing our long-anticipated exterior renovations. Back in the office, I had two celebrity collaborations to plan and a sponsored sale to produce. Private decorating clients were waiting in the wings. My literary agent was reviewing a book contract for me, and I had my first book-related shoot to shop for and plan. I had a spring charity gala to design and decorate for my daughter’s school. And then, in a complex jigsaw puzzle of a travel itinerary, this Thursday my husband and I were going to drop the kids off at their grandparents’ house in Ohio, where they would scamper around the barn and feed the chickens while the two of us escaped for four blissful days to South Beach. 

For two weeks, with that sunny reward in sight, I ran. I ran. And I ran some more… Until everything came screeching to a frightening halt. Upon my return from Philly last Sunday, my husband and I began to compare notes and realize that our son, who had spent the last week wetting his bed far more frequently than a 2.5 year old toddler in the midst of potty-training reasonably should, might actually be sick.

We didn't know the half of it. As a few home blood tests and an ER visit quickly confirmed, my son has Type 1 (formerly called juvenile) diabetes. The bedwetting, the insatiable thirst, and the mood swings were all tied to his rapidly failing pancreas. While we’d had our eyes on the symptoms for days, and the ER doctors praised us for catching it early, it was still a complete shock to the system.

We spent two exhausting nights and days at Boston Children’s Hospital, where we got a crash course in finger pricks, blood glucose testing, ketone monitoring, and insulin calculations. I practiced injecting my husband with saline solution. Goodbye, massages in Miami. Goodbye, egg-gathering excursions for the kids. Goodbye, spaghetti Sundays and impromptu stops at the ice cream truck on summer days. Hello to a lifetime of vigilance, emergency Glucagon sticks, and nighttime insulin injections (at least until the doctors tell us we can stop). That scene from Steel Magnolias kept flashing before my eyes.

I was torn about how to share this life-changing diagnosis on this blog, which was conceived as a site about decorating in real life. I suppose one easy connection is that I've never felt life to be any more “real” than it is now.

At the same time, this new reality—measuring every meal, counting units of medication, juggling a career, parenting, marriage, and renovation--doesn't make subject of decoration any more or less frivolous than before. On the contrary, I crave a home that speaks to my need for calm, normalcy, beauty, and serenity now more tha  ever. It would have been easy to come home from the hospital and unload the syringes, prep pads, and lancets on all of our kitchen counters.  It would be easy to succumb to the depressing pile of medical must-haves and left it strewn about on every surface. Easy to say, this new life sucks, and we’re just going to endure it; what was important before isn't important now. We could just accept it.

I’m quickly realizing that finding our new “normal” is not about changing our life to accommodate J’s treatment. It’s about folding his careful treatment into our daily routine in order to own it and address it in full. The fabric of my being isn’t going to change because our circumstances have. Which is a long-winded way of saying I’m not going to stop being a busy mom, a working writer, or an aesthete because my son has diabetes. And home is still a haven. For me, for him, for all of us.  

So, without further ado… What’s a gal who likes a calm, tidy kitchen to do when she suddenly needs to measure, weigh, and calculate every ounce of every meal? Shop for new gadgets, of course. Here are some of the pretty and functional pieces I’ve found that can help track those carbs and portion sizes. As with my toiletries, I’m partial to neutral, minimal items that I can keep in plain view without adding a lot of visual clutter to my countertops. Every one of these picks makes me smile, and these days, that’s worth 100 grams of gold.

1. Typhoon Novo mechanical kitchen scale, $64, Amazon. 2. Copper measuring cups, $50, Brook Farm General Store. 3. Portmeiron Sophie Conran white measuring jug, $24, Wayfair. 4. Portmeiron Sophie Conran white measuring cups (set of 4), $19, Wayfair. 5. Milk bottle stacking measuring cups, $24, Anthropologie. 6. Cinco stainless-steel bento box, $40, LunchBots.

Our House: In the Beginning

Browsing the MLS real estate listings on my way to work yesterday—as entertainment, natch, not because I’m house-hunting—one of THOSE postings caught my eye. It was a house on Boston’s famed Acorn Street, one of the most photographed streets in America.

The listing. Source: Coldwell Banker

There were no interior shots—just a few images of the door, a shot looking out onto the street from the entry, a shot of a sad-looking deck, and a handful of images showing the property’s best asset, its unmatched location. (That cobblestone! Killer on heeled footwear, but so easy on the eyes...)

What a listing like this usually means is that the home is in total disrepair, and may or may not have a wild animal living in the basement. “For a buyer with vision! Customize to create the home of your dreams!” the blurb will usually say. At $2.7 million (dropped from $2.9!) and, oh, at least 200K of needed upgrades, probably more, there’s only a handful of people who’ll bite on this type of project. But listings like this always stop me in my tracks. Astronomical price aside, the cryptic listing isn’t unlike what compelled me and Dave to schedule a showing of our own place seven years ago.

This was the listing that got us:

Mansard roof complete rehab needed. 4 star location. wood floors period detail.

That’s it. Typos included, no extra charge! And this was the lone picture:

STUNNING, right? I mean, that industrial blue runner stapled to the stairs just really sets a tone.

We started poking around for more info, and Google Street View showed us that the home looked like one of these:

Source: Zillow

Heyyyy pretty housey! This was starting to get interesting. Eventually we got in for a showing, and took some pics of the interior. We were prepared-but-not-quite-prepared for what we found. 

This was the state of the kitchen:

Lighting goals—am I right?

Those cabinet doors and drawers neither opened nor closed fully. And who wants to play "Is This Lead Paint?"

The homeowners were kind enough to leave us some cinderblocks that we could use as footstools. And that amazing "command center" with a free dry-erase pen! So sweet.

There was no fridge. The ancient range was fueled by a gas pipe sticking out of the chimney wall; we were advised not to try and turn it on. The sink was one of these bad boys, an all-steel hulk of a unit built by Youngstown Kitchens some time in the ‘50s.

Source:Restoreguy via Flickr

We mockingly called the front room, with its broken lamp, Rubbermaid garbage can, and gratis postal bin, "the parlor." The name has since stuck, and now my kids, in weirdly Boston-like accents, call it the pahlah. 

Really great job maintaining those floors, guys. 

I can't find pics of the rest of the house, but rest assured it was all in similar condition. The house had been owned by one family for many decades. After the kids grew up and the mother passed, the real estate agent said, the home was rented to relatives of the family, and then others moved in after that. Neighbors have told us there was a junkie living in the house at one point. There were holes punched in the doors. There were sticky beer stains on every wall. In the basement, we opened a door and found an iron toilet with a wooden tank hanging above it, a vestige of the time when servants lived downstairs. The toilet was buried under a pile of broken bricks. There was one bathroom in the house, upstairs, and it had a blue faux-marble sink unit and a rusty clawfoot tub enclosed by a mildewed shower curtain.

In short, the house was disgusting. And we loved it. We loved the plaster moldings, the staircase spiraling up three floors, and the heart pine floorboards we knew were hidden under those layers of dirt. We loved that it was an end-unit single-family, and I adored the Victorian styling of the home's bay window and mansard roof. We could see it all coming together, from the grease-encrusted marble mantels that begged for showstopping mirrors to the front entry that ached for gleaming, glass-paneled doors.

Because the sale was complicated, with an estate and multiple sellers involved, and because we had a condo to sell and no means to carry two mortgages, we didn’t close on the place for six months. By the time we closed, in March 2009, a bird had taken up residence on the second floor. Add it to the list, we said: Remove Bird.

We moved our stuff and our cat in, and treated ourselves to one night at a nice hotel before donning rubber gloves and starting the cleanup process. When we arrived the next morning, ready to work, our house was covered in feathers, there were blood stains on the wood floors, and our cat was chirping like a madman. Remove Bird.

We are brave people, I tell you. The next seven years were full of (more) blood, so much sweat, and so many tears. Today it’s close to the home of our dreams. There are several more projects to wrap, and of course there’s all of the the inevitable tinkering and maintenance that comes with home ownership and a life in the decor industry (read: I’ll never stop redecorating it).

But if you’re the renovating type, you can’t help but peek at these listings when they come around. Just to see what prices things are going for, you tell yourself. All I can say is, it’s a good thing I don’t have $2.6 million burning a hole in my pocket right now. In fact, I think there are ACTUAL holes in my pockets right now.

Godspeed, 7 Acorn Street. I wish you and your future owners the very best.

Renovating with Kids: A Cautionary Tale

Friends and colleagues often ask how we’ve been living through our renovation, especially with two children under 5. In short, it’s not easy. It sometimes sucks quite a bit more than I let on. 

But over the last six years (I’m including a pregnancy here), I’ve arrived at a few truths—things I’ve learned the hard way, and that I’d like to share with anyone who’s considering doing the crazy and starting a project with little ones around. Here are 6 things everyone with kids should know before applying for that building permit.

1. Dust is your greatest enemy.

Every project creates dust—demolition, for sure, but also carpentry, painting and wall repairs, tiling, et cetera. And that dust will quickly get airborne, blown around, and tracked from space to space on the soles of your shoes. It’ll end up in rooms you’re not even working on. This is a guarantee.

Several years ago—I think it was when we demolished the basement—we went away for a long weekend to escape the chaos of construction. When we came back, I immediately noticed a thin layer of dust coating everything in the house, from the mantels and the stair rails to the third-floor furniture. A subcontractor had neglected to cover the air vents in the space where he was working, and the dust he produced was sucked into the ducts, blowing it across every square inch of the house.

Anyone who has toddlers knows that any unpalatable substance in your home, be it dirt, glitter, or pet hair, will inevitably end up on their hands, in their eyes, and in their mouths. And since we had no way of knowing what was in the dust (Paint? Lead? Plaster?) that had blanketed our belongings, we had no choice but to clean everything we owned. With the help of a cleaning crew and a few hundred microfiber rags, we washed and wiped everything not enclosed in a box or cabinet. Buckets of blocks, balls and plastic toys went into tubs of soapy water; every item and every surface had to be wiped with a damp rag. Every piece of furniture had to be vacuumed three times with a HEPA filter, every bed stripped, and all of our towels turbo-washed. I threw out our toothbrushes. It was the worst.

The lesson: Renovation projects become much less impactful once you learn how to manage the dust. We now use zip walls, these amazing inventions that let you seal off areas with plastic and enter and exit via a zipper system. We sometimes even build semi-permanent walls that divide the work zone from the living zone. We also triple-check to ensure the HVAC system is turned off in the work zones, and we cover and tape the vents so there’s no path for dust to travel. We place rugs or drop cloths at the entrance to the work zone, so dust won’t get tracked through the hallways. And we always keep plastic dropcloths around to keep dishes and toys dust-free.

2. You can never have enough rags.

See above. Microfiber towels, terrycloth rags, flour-sack towels, dish rags: You need them all. 

3. Insulation products look like snack food.

Ever see those huge rolls of Owens-Corning insulation in Home Depot? Yeah. Your kids will point at it and say “cotton candy,” and you will have to physically restrain them as they barrel toward the aisle with their mouths open. And when your son walks up to a recently framed-up windowsill and shouts “Pirate’s Booty,” know that he is about to pull a piece of spray foam out of the wall, and that you will intercept it two inches from his mouth.

On the left, spray insulation. On the right, delicious Booty. The confusion is understandable.

Be vigilant, mamas. Which leads me to…

4. Contractors aren’t mothers.

Even the best, most considerate contractors on the planet can’t keep an under-construction home truly safe for kids. That’s your job. You can ask electricians and plumbers to pick up after themselves, and to use the Shop-Vac at the end of each work day, but it’s unreasonable to expect them to keep everything baby-proof while also doing everything they need to get your electrical, plumbing, and other systems working. So as long as there’s construction in your home, and probably for six months after each project, be aware that there may be rogue staples on the floor, nail heads peeking out of new carpentry, bits of copper wire in the carpet, outlet covers that were removed, and more. Scan a room for hazards before letting your kids play there unattended, and sweep and vacuum whenever you have the chance.

5. You need to plan for the process, not just the end result.

Assume your project is going to take longer and be far messier than you originally plan, and find ways to make your situation sustainable for longer than you’d like. That might mean creating a temporary cooking station in the living room, buying a portable dishwasher that hooks up to the bathroom sink, converting a living room to a bedroom, or hell, even getting kitting out your backyard with an outdoor shower. (I have done three out of these four things.) This is especially important with kids, who can’t just go without bathing for a few days, crash on a friend’s sofa, or go out to restaurants for every meal. 

When renovating our current kitchen, for instance, we found a friend willing to let us cook at her house for a week and a neighbor who’d let us use their grill, and Dave used that time to build a temporary kitchen in our mudroom downstairs. Here's a pic.

Our “crazy kitchen,” as the kids called it, made from the cheapest Home Depot cabinets and counters we could get, the old sink and faucet from our previous kitchen, a compact Craigslist fridge, and a $100 convection toaster oven. It occupies what will eventually become our mudroom on the garden level. My husband installed it in three days, because apparently men from Ohio just know how to do things like that.

Sometimes it's even more complicated. Two years ago, when we ran all-new heating, electric, and plumbing, added one bathroom, and renovated another, we knew that the project was going to be too invasive to live with. For three months that turned into nearly five, we rented a nearby apartment in a high-rise. Our toddler slept in a windowless "office," our mattress was on the floor, and I was 4 months pregnant. It was noisy, inconvenient, and far from lovely, but it made our situation sustainable so that we could get the work done right, and not cut corners because we got tired of huddling in a corner of our home.

It’s all about creating interim comfort, and it's always worth it. If all goes quickly and cleanly, you can take down the interim solution earlier, move back into your finished spaces, and pat yourself on the back. But if sh*t hits the box fan and your project plan gets extended by a month, you’ll be able to chug along just fine.

6. Kids like to be involved.

All of my advice thus far has sounded pretty grim, hasn’t it? But the truth is, renovations can be a whole lot of fun for kids. A few years back, I interviewed Dana over at the amazing blog House*Tweaking about her own renovation experiences, and she told me about handing her tots a sledgehammer on demolition day. Why not? 

During this last project, after we built a temporary wall between our in-progress kitchen and the rest of the house for dust reasons, we noted that our kids liked to yell their morning “hellos” to our GC, Jimmy, through the plywood. So Dave went to the hardware store, bought a piece of Plexiglass, and had Jimmy saw a hole in the door.

Watching the new walls go up in the kitchen. 

Through this “aquarium” window, our kids watched the entire progress of the redo, stopping by a few times a day to make piggy-noses on the window and oink at the carpenters. And when it was time to place the countertops, Jimmy took down the wall and called my daughter over to write her name on the cabinetry before they glued down the marble, preserving it for posterity.

She loved it—and so did we. At the end of the day, I want my kids to know this is their home as much as ours, and the project is for them, too.  I’ve never wanted a “do not touch” home—so I’ll let them draw, hammer, and watch. 

I just won’t let them taste the insulation.