Time to Start Anew

My husband and I gut renovated our house five years ago. I documented the construction from start to finish here on the blog.  It was the biggest project I’ve ever been apart of. Mentally and physically it was so intense for the both of us. It feels like a dream now. I can’t believe we went through it all.

During the process of the rebuild, we accumulated a tremendous amount of tools, wood, paint, sinks, plaster, you name it. To put things in perspective, we had 4 sledge hammers, 10 shovels, maybe 50 screwdrivers, two table saws, four hanging fixtures and enough screws to build a whole new house. And that’s a small list of things compared to all the equipment. We could seriously open up a second-hand hardware store. The tools slowly made there way from the upstairs where we renovated the rentals first, to our apartment on the first floor, and ended up in the basement, essentially untouched for the past two years – now that we’ve got everything [almost] done.

This past week, we had planned to finally  tackle the “hoarder situation” in the basement. Our friends Maggie and Or stayed with us for several days to lend a hand. What great friends we have! The situation was monumental and overwhelming. Having Maggie and Or to assist us in deciding what to throughout and what to keep was a huge help. It was easier for them to make the call, as they were detached from all the stuff.

While cleaning, I kept thinking of Marie Kondo, “Let’s spark joy through tidying”. And how I wasn’t feeling any joy. I was feeling complete chaos!

After a while though, I got into a groove and started  “thanking each object for the service it provided” and putting it into the contractor bag, or out front in the free pile. We were making progress finally.

While cleaning out under the porch, where most of the clutter lurked, we made a discovery, “Is that some kind of… fur?” Or said. It was, in fact, fur. The fur of a dead possum! We felt really bad, he looked so peaceful, despite being covered in a layer of dust and paint chips. I hoped the little guy didn’t get trapped down there, leading to his death, gesh.

My husband had to scoop the animal up with a shovel. He was about to put it in a garbage bag but just couldn’t. We decided it was only proper to bury Toxy*.  The group of us went to the side of the house where Matt dug the grave. We said a few words and buried Toxy. Ashes to ashes; dust to dust. Maybe it was pure exhaustion from the long day or the bizarre experience of finding the dead possum, but we all started laughing uncontrollably.

We still have a little more cleaning and organizing to go but the worst of it is over. We couldn’t have done it without our dear friends Maggie and Or who helped us dig out of the basement trenches, making room for a new chapter of who knows what!

*Toxy, named  after what looked like toxic dust and paint covering his adorable corpse.