The Canadas

Winter 1999

News

Updated August 102002
© Canadas 2002

Birthday Season

Now that Essie has joined our family, we have two birthdays to celebrate in January. We celebrated Lisa’s with a small gathering at the home of some friends here in Laurinburg. The surprise party that I had planned with these friends did not exactly work out as planned, but we had a nice time anyway, especially since we were joined by Lisa’s parents, who were on their way back to Fort Wayne from Florida. As one might guess, the party for Essie was somewhat more elaborate, though still relatively modest: some friends and neighbors, homemade desserts, balloons. The party was an opportunity for us to show off some of our most recent home renovations—and for those who did not attend we presented a virtual tour here on the World Wide Web.

A Home Tour

January 1999: Now that we have finished the last round of major home renovations that we will make for a very long time, we invite you on a virtual tour of our home.

As you enter our front door and turn to the left, you see our living room and dining room. We liked this expansive area the first time we saw it, especially because of the hardwood floors, fireplace, built-in bookshelves, and the many large windows, which allow a lot of light to enter the room. All that we felt we needed to do to this space was to touch it up and add some accents. We installed crown molding around the perimeter, painted the walls a pale yellow, repainted the white bookshelves, added a white carpet in front of the fireplace, repaired the fireplace, and installed a chandelier and dish rack in the dining area. Because of the large space and abundance of light, we enjoy entertaining guests here as well as just relaxing in the evenings and on weekend afternoons.

Moving through the living room and past the dining area, you enter our kitchen, which we just finished renovating in December. In an early stage of renovation begun the previous year, we had replaced the less-than-charming red countertops with almond ones. This past fall, we painted the cabinets almond, repainted the ceiling, painted the walls cream and beige, put up wallpaper border, added some curtains that Lisa made, and put down new tile. The space is now a more comfortable place for Lisa to enjoy one of her favorite hobbies, cooking, especially since she can be in here and still look through a window into the playroom to watch Essie.

Added on after the house was built but before we bought the home, the room that we now call the playroom needed more work than almost any other room in the house. The main problem was that it was extremely dark because three of the walls featured dark paneling and the fourth, originally an exterior wall, was made of red brick. Lovers of light, we brightened the room by painting both the paneling and the bricks white. We also put a few coats of white paint on the ceiling, which had been brown, and added a ceiling fan. Later, we laid some berber carpeting over the tile floor and put down new tile in front of the back door. For many reasons, this area is an ideal playroom for Essie and her parents. Because it's in the back of the house, we don't mind if she strews toys, socks, blankets, and books all over the floor; the house still looks clean when visitors come to the front. Of fair size, it also provides room for Essie to roam and for all of us to congregate for a game of pass the ball. Because it is on the opposite side of the house from the bedrooms, one of us can play with Essie here without disturbing the other, or Lisa and I can listen to music here without waking up Essie after she goes to bed.

Peeking out the back door, you see our back yard, which, because of its size and the trees surrounding it, is pleasantly private. After removing some debris that had accumulated while the house was vacant, we planted a garden, built and installed a birdhouse, set out some Adirondack chairs that we made back in Chapel Hill, and added a hammock and a set of table and chairs. We like to sit out here in the spring and summer, especially when we cook out with friends.

Turning back around from the playroom and then looking to your left, you see our utility room, the unchallenged winner of the "most-improved" award in the house. Originally the home of the house's heating system--a hot-water system since replaced with a gas pack--this room probably never thought it would become much of anything. When we moved it, we saw a concrete floor painted battleship gray, a huge utility sink circa 1960, a hot-water heater, and eight square feet of exposed electrical boxes. We could have blindfolded visitors, charged then admission, and told them they were in the hull of a World War II aircraft carrier. Instead, we turned the area into a useful workspace by laying tile, painting the bricks white, putting up wallpaper and border, and adding several cabinets, two work stations, and a bar sink. Now, instead of studiously avoiding this room in our trips around the house, we deliberately and cheerfully come here to do paper work, talk on the phone, wash wash laundry, iron, and work on crafts or repairs. As you walk through this room, you see on your left a small half-bathroom, where we added tile, wallpaper and border, and new blinds.

After leaving the utility room, you turn to your left and walk down the hall toward the bedrooms. On the right, you see the master bathroom. Though not particularly offensive, this room presented a challenge because it had black and white tile. Lisa chose a border with both a floral print and hints of black, painted the walls a grayish blue, and sewed and installed new curtains for the window and shower. While the room is a little small for a master bath, it has a very practical feature that we like. The cabinets here also open into the hallway so that we can put dirty laundry in here from the bathroom and retrieve it from the hallway.

Continuing straight ahead, you enter the master bedroom, where we added a white carpet, painted over the mint-green walls with a pale rose color, added a wallpaper border, and converted the sliding closet doors to swinging doors. Sleeping here, we are not far from Essie, who sleeps in the next room.

Essie's room, which is just to the left of the master bedroom, is the only one that we did not paint. We like the soothing shade of blue, which is not far from Carolina blue, and merely added a few shelves, some pictures, and the furniture. One of the most recent additions is the child's bed, which we covered with a quilt that my mother made for Essie. While Es is not yet old enough to sleep here, she loves to clamber up on it and sit or lie there. Sometimes Mommy or Daddy joins her to read a book or help her drift off to sleep at night.

Coming out of Essie's room, you walk directly into the guest room, the most recently renovated room in the house. For a long time, we simply treated this room as a den, but we decided to convert into a guest room when we learned that our friends the Gambles were coming to visit us this past Christmas. We had hoped not to do much more than change the furniture, moving the futon that had been here into the playroom and bringing in an armoir from the master bedroom and a bed that Lisa had bought from a used-furniture store. Removing the pictures that had been hanging in here, however, caused the plaster to chip, and the spackling compound we used to repair these spots did not match the faded paint of the walls. In addition to painting the armoir and the bed, as we had planned to do, we wound up repainting the walls and the ceiling.

We hope that you have enjoyed this virtual tour, and we invite our family and friends to join us for a real tour sometime.

Esprit Turns One

January 1999: Our little girl is one year old. In fact, in some ways, she is not so little anymore. Since her arrival on January 18 last year, she has gone from a 6-pound, 9-ounce, 21-inch long baby who rarely left her parents' arms to a 21-pound, 2 1/2-foot tall toddler who is right at home in the world. Never one content with being a couch potato, even when she was about as mobile as that vegetable, Esprit has always been a free spirit, and now that her legs will carry her virtually everywhere she wants to go, she is seizing life with both hands, carrying it around with a big grin on her face, and crying, "Ooowow!" She is still our little girl, of course, but now she is becoming her own little girl, as well.

Having heard a thousand friends and strangers warn us how fast babies grow up, we have concentrated on savoring this extraordinary time. We feel blessed that Lisa is able to stay home with Essie, giving her meals, walks, attention, and love. I get to spend a lot of time with both Essie and Lisa, having arranged me schedule so that I can go in to work at 7 a.m. and come home at 3 in the afternoon. When I get home, I spend some time with Essie while Lisa has time to herself, and then we trade places so that I can work out. The rest of the afternoon and evening is family time, when the three of us eat, play, and read.

To celebrate Essie's first birthday, we invited a few friends--mainly neighbors, fellow church members, and mommies and babies from her play group--to join us for a dessert party. Lisa enjoyed the opportunity to make some special sweets--including chocolate-covered strawberries, roasted pecans, and a birthday cake--and Essie enjoyed playing with her little friends and generally being the center of attention, although in this latter respect the day resembled every other day of her life.

Lisa's Birthday

January: For Lisa's birthday, January 30, our friends Jennifer and Dennis Ward suggested to me that we throw her a surprise party--nothing big, just dinner at their house on the Thursday after her birthday. I liked the idea and told Lisa that the Wards needed us to babysit on that Thursday. Lisa, of course, agreed, and the game was on. Then the surprisers were surprised. Lisa's parents, Jerry and Marge Henry, whom we were expecting the following weekend, showed up Wednesday afternoon. OK, I thought, we can bring along Lisa's parents for her birthday party--even better! Lisa, however, had other plans. Like a character in a situation comedy, she unknowingly started chipping away out the whole endeavor by coming up with alternatives. Worried that her parents would not want to accompany us on a babysitting job, she suggested that we have the Wards bring their son, Heydon, to our house or we just let her parents stay here. I fended her off. Finally, a couple of hours before the party was supposed to begin, Lisa called Jennifer and proposed that she, her mother, and Essie come to the Wards' house while her dad and I do something else. Caught with her defenses down, Jennifer surrendered. Although the surprise was a bust, the party was not. Jennifer, a dear friend who has helped Lisa to feel at home in Laurinburg, prepared a delicious meal of chicken enchiladas, along with a salad and birthday cupcakes. Jennifer and Dennis joined me and the Henrys in singing "Happy Birthday," but they merely sat mute and a little puzzled as Jerry, Marge, and I performed the other verses of the traditional Henry birthday song, which includes rounds of "For She's a Jolly Good Fellow," "May the Dear Lord Bless You," and "Stand Up and Take Your Bow," ending with cheers of "Hip, Hip, Hooray!" On top of all this, Lisa opened her gift from the Wards, and the six of us talked and laughed while the two babies entertained us. We had a great time, which didn't surprise any of us.