There is chaos in this house. While to a degree it is organized chaos, it is chaos nonetheless.   

When we moved into our newly built, suitably downsized home nearly five years ago, I naively thought we were done with home improvement projects and the chaos they impose. Fat chance.

Here I sit, with the contents of two closets  piled, stacked, and hung throughout the house. Hubby, to whom I am deeply thankful, used the mercifully snowless snow day to do all the heavy lifting. I give his very ordered brain complete credit for giving some well thought out method to this madness. The coats were removed from the guest closet and layered neatly on the loveseat. My clothes were hung in the guest closet in perfect order, and most of his are upstairs. The sweaters and tees are on the bedroom chairs. The contents of the linen closet are lined up on a towel on the dining room floor, against a row of luggage. Impatient as I am, I freely admit that I would never have taken such pains.

This is largely a painting project: the closet, master bath, foyer, and a few other odds and ends. The closet had never been painted; we were in a rush to move in. Attempting to make both the bathroom and foyer brighter, I’d picked shades so subtle that they’re just about disappearing. So, five years hence, we are correcting my goofs. Temporary inconvenience, as the highway sign goes, permanent improvement.

The real killer, though, is that straight-as-an-arrow ceiling crack that appeared out of the blue several weeks ago. It crosses the great room from the fireplace to the kitchen. Over the furniture. Over the mantle and its assorted pretty stuff. Over the rugs and hardwood floors. Over the kitchen island and counter. There’s give in the sheetrock, which means there’s no joist above it. The repair is guaranteed to make an awful mess. I fully understand that this is a very small problem in a world fraught with real ones, but it shouldn’t have happened in a house this new.  They don’t build houses the way they used to, do they?

Once all the work is done, though, we’ll do a down-to-the-bones spring cleaning and put everything back in its proper place. Perhaps the threat of snow will have passed once and for all by then, too. That would be welcome indeed.