My Kitchen is a Bistro
Things in my house have been slowly changing. I have not performed wholesale changes because for the most part, I am quite happy with this house. Coleen and I lived here for the last 26 years. We raised our family here and we each lived here longer than any other house in our lives. But the new reality is that it’s my house now.I am very respectful of what this house is and has been and I’m very careful about making changes. I have changed some things, left others alone. Right now, my house is a combination of old and new.
The living room is unchanged except for the entertainment area where I have added some stereo equipment , higher fidelity, and some record albums. The dining room is the same except for the bookshelves. I have rearranged some books and added some prints from vacations we took. And of course, Coleen’s urn is there too.
The bathroom has a lot less product in it now. I don’t require much more than the basics to get by and have eliminated extra toothbrushes and hair products. Our bedroom is virtually the same as the last time Coleen was in it. A little less clutter maybe.
I converted Lindsay’s bedroom into a small office and I do much of my writing there. But I did that while Coleen was still here so that doesn’t count. Our third floor is also different since Patrick moved bit I’m not counting that either because that room has always changed.
That leaves the kitchen and that’s where the biggest changes have occurred. You would think that since the kitchen was Coleen’s domain, that room would have the smallest amount of change. But I seem to spend a lot of time here and it seems to be the room with the most to change. Coleen did a log of cooking and used a lot of equipment for that. I don’t plan on being as ambitious as her on that front so I have relocated some of that equipment to the basement where I know where it is but it’s never in the way.
I have rearranged some of the contents of the cabinets to make sense for a single guy or bachelor or widower or whatever it is that I am. And the layout and wall hangings are different. I moved a clock that Coleen hated, raised a light fixture that bugged her, put retirement party gifts on the wall where the clock was, made artwork from an old cutting board and the bumper sticker from her van and hung it on the wall, and rehung a wine cork collage that we took down with the old wallpaper. I moved the table back against the wall under the new artwork and it kind of looks like a bistro in here. I like it.
I’m certain to make more changes as I go. Not for the sake of change but for the sake of making things right for me. After all, it is my house now and if I want my kitchen to be a bistro, it’s up to me to do it.
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