the wall, she is gone

"Follow your bliss and the universe will open doors where there were only walls." 

~~Joseph Campbell~~

Architects, in their quest for a balance between design and function, are willing to try unusual features in homes. We had (yes, I am so excited: h.a.d.--past tense) a wall which separated two areas of our home and housed the fireplace. It has always felt like it blocked the flow and energy and light in the house. It didn't quite go to the ceiling (it was a wall, it was not a wall), included a recess for a television (which we used to store baskets and pottery), and partially blocked the ingress/egress of the door to the back patio (I ask you, who designs a wall to partially block another doorway?).

It's gone {let's hear a squeal and do a little happy dance}. The rooms are now a single, greater room with space to breathe and visit and move. This very much delights me. The light from the windows aren't impeded by the wall anymore. Everything feels brighter and cheery.

We had no need for the fire place. We live in a climate where it does, on occasion, lightly frost, but truly our winters are mild. The chimney hole will become a sky light this coming summer. More natural light!

I would like to thank my husband for continuing to putt up with me and my ideas of change. "This is just a small wall, can we take it down? What if we push out the side of the house a few feet on the west side? See this space here, which we really don't use to its best potential--what if we take off the roof of the garage, use this space for a staircase, and add on another bedroom, bathroom, exercise room, and gathering room up there. It's "do-able", isn't it? Let's build a walled-in terrace, our own little grotto." These proposals are but a few of the many I have thought up.

I would also like to thank our daughter, for being such a good worker and great sport about her nutty mother. And then there's the great big thank you to her for having strong bones and not breaking any of these said strong bones when the wall fell on her (oh, yes it did!)--actually it somewhat bounced on her several times as gravity pulled it down, then it pinned her leg as a final assault. Just to make it clear, it wasn't the dry wall that fell on her...it was the massive amount of wood framing. She has bruises--big bruises--and scrapes. She's a red-head--she rarely bruises. Sorry daughter, for sending you back to your home with lumps and bumps, back to the barrister world of the courtroom, skirts, and heels with bruises.