Potential Overhaul

October 26, 2011

What's the deal with the human lure toward ugly things? Ugly dogs, ugly patterns, ugly pumpkins, ugly cars--people like ugly. And lately I'm absolutely obsessed with an ugly little storefront that's down the street from Jared. Do I feel bad for it? Do I want to mother it?

I don't know, but I take that back. It's not ugly, it's tired. No, exhausted. And I feel like it's an egg (a wood-panelled egg), and my dreams are swooshing around inside of it, waiting to BURST OUT like a butterfly, catch a draft on a moonbeam, and glitter my life with heaven dust. Except butterflies don't hatch from eggs, which is fine.

Did I mention that it's also an Art-Deco egg? I love Art-Deco.

Back in the day, this place must have been a little dress shop--at least that's what the storefront windows make me think. A dress shop or a hat shop, but either way, a place where fabulous ladies shopped. I don't know what it's been lately, but I think I know what it's about to become, and damn. Just damn.

I haven't been all the way through this space, but I'm planning to get in there today or tomorrow--when I can really peel back some carpet, and pull down some paneling, and see if there's cool looking duct work up above the drop ceiling.

Right now, the potential is completely in my imagination, which is an okay place to start. In my imagination, the space runs all the way to the back of the building. In my imagination, the space has old wood floors that I can paint. And in my imagination, I'll be able to afford an awning by spring.

In reality, I know that if only one of my imagined scenarios is true, I'm a lucky duck.

So. Can anyone out there tell me an amazing transoformation story? A house your remodeled? A barn you saved? A rust bucket car you restored? How you learned to use a hammer? All for fifty bucks?

Sometimes I forget that we overhauled Jared's office, and a tiny little house back in 2003.

What have you overhauled?

9 comments:

Rain said...

I want to see pictures...sounds interesting!

Team O'Connor said...

http://ceeburt.blogspot.com/2007/09/basement-remodel.html

Good luck on your remodel. That kind of thing is so exciting to me and I only wish I could help! I would even grace your work site with my butt crack. I still haven't matured past the fact that butt cracks are the funniest thing in the world.

Morgan Hagey said...

So what's going in the new space?

Cheryl said...

Ooh, this sounds exciting! Is this going to be a place for your coaching business? I can't wait to see before and after pictures... eventually. I'm not a good renovator, but my kids are great at renovating houses. Maybe they'll volunteer. :-)

David said...

The office that J (figure it out) and I work in is an old house built in 1910. It was a disaster after about 25 years of neglect. Now, it's an awesome office space.

TheOneTrueSue said...

Oh, REMODELING. I LOVE remodeling. I remodeled a whole house once.

See, this one time, I bought this two-story cottage in Vermont, sight unseen. I was single at the time, but I had a baby (long story, I inherited the baby from a distant relative) and brought her to Vermont with me. It was hard to quit my big-time city job, but sacrifices had to be made. ANYWAY, when I got there I realized that it needed more work than I thought it would. So I spent a bunch of time remodeling it. Luckily there was a hunky vet nearby to help me with it, so that was awesome.

It was pretty awesome.

Mel said...

We took an empty 10 foot deep basement and made it the second living room, our master bedroom and huge full bath. In less than a year and only hired plumbers.

I swear I have final pictures on my blog somewhere, apparently I didn't tag them properly but here's some of them:
http://melizerd.blogspot.com/search/label/basement

Grandma said...

well, we have this van......:)

Grandma said...

...and I remember the word for the window storefront.....vitrine. Dad said that your great-grandparents had a striped awning in front of the millinery and dress shop. When the canvas was up, the shop was closed.When the canvas was unsnapped and the awning rolled down, they were open for business. When a customer would walk in, a bell would ring upstairs.