Grimy

Sunflowers and tomatoes, story of my summer.



"We begin to find and become ourselves when we notice how we are already found, already truly, entirely, wildly, messily, marvelously who we were born to be."
- Anne Lamott
Whiskey River.

The bathroom sink is hideous. Always has been. Replacing it, as it is still functional, we put off.


It's hard to clean, doesn't stay clean, the caulking around the edge isn't cleanable, and the top is broken at the corner. But another, so far controlled, bout of fruit flies that love to live in the overflow, pushed me over. Really doesn't look much better when it's very clean.


So, I started looking online. Know what we'd like, but getting it all together a different matter. I can mostly find all the bits, but nothing all together, and we didn't know if that would be a problem to install.


Single handle faucet - check.

Vessel sink - check.


Small cabinet - check.




Found this, and although all the main boxes are checked, and it's a reasonable inclusive price, it's way too silly, even for us. Easy to clean? Uh, nope.


Went out to a decor showroom, and although we got good information, we also gave up on keeping this reasonable. Why is the cabinet, the most dull and least important part of this, the most expensive, by about twice what everything else together costs? We don't want something fussy or finished, don't need drawers or even doors. This doesn't even include the top, which is also separate. I feel slightly guilty about taking up her time and deciding on the way out not to buy anything there. Not much, but a little.


Dreaming about this dilemma last night, not sleeping well as I kept trying to work the puzzle of what to do, what to get first, how to ask for what we need. Not to mention the rapidly escalating cost, mostly toward what we didn't really want. If it was going to cost more, but be just lovely, that would be somewhat different. But to go to so much work and expense only to wind up with the wrong thing, intolerable.

In my troubled non-sleep I thought about the garage sale find I use to keep shorts and jeans and sweaters, that Eleanor likes to lay on. And it's about perfect. Then a DIY post about exactly our problem, and a relevant solution they executed.



Remove the wheels, and it measures up very well. Needs to be sanded, stained and sealed, but I know how to do that. D seems to think we can drill the right holes.


May even be able to use the 'granite' from this, which has proved useful, but never liked.

And use the table in the kitchen, which seems altogether better.



And we do have a dining room table.



Obviously, what I most need to do first is tidy up. I'm not comfortable in this much clutter and grime, but it's hard to avoid some weeks.

Remembered my mother getting sick of the old, worn, yellow flowered linoleum in the kitchen. She began pulling it up. So when she went to pick my father up from work, they went out to get tiles to replace the floor. Older story of her taking a sledge hammer to a wall one day, in one of those old houses too much broken into too-small rooms. They spent that weekend making an arch. This makes me laugh, and rather like her a bit. I can relate.