Woodwork Zen
I’m redecorating another room in the vast suburban edifice that is, God help me, my house.
Let me say this up front: I never wanted this house. Everything about it feels alien: too big, too suburban, too late 1980’s, too electronically wired. It’s too needy, too greedy, too consuming of precious resources like time and energy and money. For nearly ten years I have been at odds with my house, longing to pass it on to someone who might be more willing to put up with it appreciate it more, but for various reasons, most of which are out of my control, unable to.
The rest of the family like, even love the place. I am the odd one out.
I am also the only one in the family whose relationship with the house is as intensely intimate as only the connection between a building and its chief caretaker can be. In cases where this relationship is a love affair - this is not one of those, I assure you - the burden of stewardship, while still onerous, is lightened by periodic surges of pride and joy. Lacking love, it is more akin to a relentless contest of wills. Every day I grapple with grime and clutter, wear and tear, creeping obsolescence, major and minor issues, long-term irritations and the never-ending oeuvre of future planning. Often, in rebellion, I turn my back on necessary tasks and find more rewarding ways to spend my time. The illusion of freedom lasts a while, but invariably something draws my attention back to the chores of domestic management, and I bend under them once again.
I know one thing, though. I’m ever to unload this house, it needs to be spruced up. Polished. Brought forward into the new century. It was already a bit passe aesthetically when we moved in, and the ensuing decade has only made it worse. While the necessary major renovations are out of the question, I have identified the things that fall within the realm of the possible. A few years ago I began an ambitious program of “clear out and redecorate,” but since at the time I was the only one working on the program, the odds were stacked against me. Whatever I accomplished was quickly undone again. Eventually, I gave up and wrote a novel instead.
Now, fewer of us live in the house, and my years of arguments in support of the artistic, philosophical and spiritual truth that “less is more” have begun to take root, so I’ve begun all over again. This time I am wiser: I expect little help from anyone else, I take my time, and I keep my plans smaller-scale and doable. Thus was born the “one room at a time” plan, which I am now putting into effect at approximately the speed of a crippled snail. I began with one infrequently used bedroom, and over a period of weeks, it became a guest room that even I, with my critical eye and exacting standards, find satisfactory.
The room right next to it is Kickass Daughter’s 'bat cave.' It is still technically “her” room, but as a senior in college she mostly lives elsewhere, and has for a while. Half of it is still painted the acid green she chose in middle school, the other half, a paler, more tolerable green of a well meant but never completed re-do for which she never forgave me. I never have reason to go in there, as privacy was ever an issue, so the dust gathered over all the odd boxes of books and baskets of clothes and the other possessions that she had left behind. It had become, for all intents and purposes, a storage room.
Last week I took steps.
When Kickass Daughter came home for a few days at the end of the summer, I annoyed her deeply by demanding that she go through everything in her room and weed out the nonessentials. Feeling violated (she hates to throw out things) and put-upon (this was her only vacation all summer!) she managed to get through it. When she left for Boston again I piled all her remaining “must keep” belongings in the hallway, aired out the lingering Darth Vader vibe, and asked the menfolk in the house to remove the large furniture. I was lucky. It only took them three days to get around to it.
So yesterday I began. Dusting the floors and woodwork. Patching all the tiny holes in the walls from years of hanging posters, photos, scarves, artwork. Taping off places that need to be protected. Once that was done, the first big task was to re-stain the woodwork.
One thing I’ll say for this house is that it has nice six-panel doors, which were originally stained a medium brown rather than painted. Unfortunately all the doorframes and the baseboards (too narrow and too obviously off the cheap builder’s shelf to be graceful) were stained to match, setting the whole place instantly and unmistakably in the 1980’s. Over the years the wood has grown dry and parched looking; whatever sheen it may once have had is gone. The finish feels rough under the hand. The baseboards look dusty even when they aren’t. I thought about painting all of the woodwork white, but something always stayed my hand - not just the sheer enormity of the project, but some persistent sense that it didn’t want to be painted white. I can’t explain it, other that to say the damn house fought back. I capitulated and searched out an “honest” color of wood stain, a rich chestnut brown that avoids both the artificial yellows of the pine/oak end of the stain color spectrum and the Miss Clairol reds of the cherry/mahogany group.
When I first began my project of refreshing the house’s tired wood I did so gingerly, leaving only a faint sheen of cleaner-looking trim behind. Lately, though, I have become bolder. The doors and wood trim in the guest room gleam with a deep satin finish that even I find surprisingly satisfying.
The house smirks and goads me on to tackle the green cave.
Painstakingly I rub down and smooth the tired, faded, parched wood, then, finally dip my pad for the first time into the brown liquid that smells of artists’ studios and craftsman’s workshops. I take a deep breath. This job has no tolerance for stops and starts - once begun it must be finished. The room’s northern light is just right at this time of day; a little later and I won’t be able to see what I’m doing.
The moment I begin to stroke the brown stuff onto the wood, the faded boards seem to come alive under my hand. The wood is so thirsty that there are hardly any drips. Over the years I have developed my own method of applying the stain to achieve the satiny result I insist upon. It is a long, repetitive process of looking and feeling, a constant balance between application and finish. I use a pad because I can feel the contours under my fingers. It gives me better control of the minutiae of stroke and pressure, of direction and blend, of necessary haste and due care.
I am alone in the room, shut inside because I’m working on the back of the door. The phone rings far away. I ignore it. I left the radio playing in the other room but I can barely hear it. At a muffled distance from the day’s upsetting political and economic news I feel isolated, alone, silenced. All that exists is the wood, the pad, and the sharp-smelling stain. Carefully, with total concentration, I move from piece to piece, from inside to outside, from top to bottom, following the way the separate pieces of millwork were joined to one another.
All at once I’m vividly aware of the carpenters who cut and affixed that trim, who hung those doors nearly 30 years ago. I see the dust and hear the noise of the saws; note the pauses to measure and to mark. There's sawdust underfoot. I notice that the hinges I so carefully work around are strong and straight. The doorknobs are good, and show no signs of wear. I imagine the hands that affixed them. Strong hands, no doubt. Calloused, maybe, and practiced, responding to the same inner sense of judgment to fix and tighten the screws - tighter, not too tight, just right - that I am using to find the right pressure for the pad, the right direction for my strokes. I notice that unkown carpenter’s work on that closet, on that baseboard, on that door. I’m probably one of the few people who ever has. I am aware that the work I am doing at this precise moment, like so much of the work I have done in my life, will never be noticed by anyone, except in the most general sense. All the small strokes, all the individual actions, all the gestures we put forth day after day in the service of larger goals are largely invisible, and always will be. Alone in the room, I continue to work methodically for no reason other than that I have decided to do this. I choose, and therefore I act. The act is the expression of my choice. I am -not because I choose, but because I act.
Silently, the house laughs, and the woodwork begins to glow.
Let me say this up front: I never wanted this house. Everything about it feels alien: too big, too suburban, too late 1980’s, too electronically wired. It’s too needy, too greedy, too consuming of precious resources like time and energy and money. For nearly ten years I have been at odds with my house, longing to pass it on to someone who might be more willing to put up with it appreciate it more, but for various reasons, most of which are out of my control, unable to.
The rest of the family like, even love the place. I am the odd one out.
I am also the only one in the family whose relationship with the house is as intensely intimate as only the connection between a building and its chief caretaker can be. In cases where this relationship is a love affair - this is not one of those, I assure you - the burden of stewardship, while still onerous, is lightened by periodic surges of pride and joy. Lacking love, it is more akin to a relentless contest of wills. Every day I grapple with grime and clutter, wear and tear, creeping obsolescence, major and minor issues, long-term irritations and the never-ending oeuvre of future planning. Often, in rebellion, I turn my back on necessary tasks and find more rewarding ways to spend my time. The illusion of freedom lasts a while, but invariably something draws my attention back to the chores of domestic management, and I bend under them once again.
I know one thing, though. I’m ever to unload this house, it needs to be spruced up. Polished. Brought forward into the new century. It was already a bit passe aesthetically when we moved in, and the ensuing decade has only made it worse. While the necessary major renovations are out of the question, I have identified the things that fall within the realm of the possible. A few years ago I began an ambitious program of “clear out and redecorate,” but since at the time I was the only one working on the program, the odds were stacked against me. Whatever I accomplished was quickly undone again. Eventually, I gave up and wrote a novel instead.
Now, fewer of us live in the house, and my years of arguments in support of the artistic, philosophical and spiritual truth that “less is more” have begun to take root, so I’ve begun all over again. This time I am wiser: I expect little help from anyone else, I take my time, and I keep my plans smaller-scale and doable. Thus was born the “one room at a time” plan, which I am now putting into effect at approximately the speed of a crippled snail. I began with one infrequently used bedroom, and over a period of weeks, it became a guest room that even I, with my critical eye and exacting standards, find satisfactory.
The room right next to it is Kickass Daughter’s 'bat cave.' It is still technically “her” room, but as a senior in college she mostly lives elsewhere, and has for a while. Half of it is still painted the acid green she chose in middle school, the other half, a paler, more tolerable green of a well meant but never completed re-do for which she never forgave me. I never have reason to go in there, as privacy was ever an issue, so the dust gathered over all the odd boxes of books and baskets of clothes and the other possessions that she had left behind. It had become, for all intents and purposes, a storage room.
Last week I took steps.
When Kickass Daughter came home for a few days at the end of the summer, I annoyed her deeply by demanding that she go through everything in her room and weed out the nonessentials. Feeling violated (she hates to throw out things) and put-upon (this was her only vacation all summer!) she managed to get through it. When she left for Boston again I piled all her remaining “must keep” belongings in the hallway, aired out the lingering Darth Vader vibe, and asked the menfolk in the house to remove the large furniture. I was lucky. It only took them three days to get around to it.
So yesterday I began. Dusting the floors and woodwork. Patching all the tiny holes in the walls from years of hanging posters, photos, scarves, artwork. Taping off places that need to be protected. Once that was done, the first big task was to re-stain the woodwork.
One thing I’ll say for this house is that it has nice six-panel doors, which were originally stained a medium brown rather than painted. Unfortunately all the doorframes and the baseboards (too narrow and too obviously off the cheap builder’s shelf to be graceful) were stained to match, setting the whole place instantly and unmistakably in the 1980’s. Over the years the wood has grown dry and parched looking; whatever sheen it may once have had is gone. The finish feels rough under the hand. The baseboards look dusty even when they aren’t. I thought about painting all of the woodwork white, but something always stayed my hand - not just the sheer enormity of the project, but some persistent sense that it didn’t want to be painted white. I can’t explain it, other that to say the damn house fought back. I capitulated and searched out an “honest” color of wood stain, a rich chestnut brown that avoids both the artificial yellows of the pine/oak end of the stain color spectrum and the Miss Clairol reds of the cherry/mahogany group.
When I first began my project of refreshing the house’s tired wood I did so gingerly, leaving only a faint sheen of cleaner-looking trim behind. Lately, though, I have become bolder. The doors and wood trim in the guest room gleam with a deep satin finish that even I find surprisingly satisfying.
The house smirks and goads me on to tackle the green cave.
Painstakingly I rub down and smooth the tired, faded, parched wood, then, finally dip my pad for the first time into the brown liquid that smells of artists’ studios and craftsman’s workshops. I take a deep breath. This job has no tolerance for stops and starts - once begun it must be finished. The room’s northern light is just right at this time of day; a little later and I won’t be able to see what I’m doing.
The moment I begin to stroke the brown stuff onto the wood, the faded boards seem to come alive under my hand. The wood is so thirsty that there are hardly any drips. Over the years I have developed my own method of applying the stain to achieve the satiny result I insist upon. It is a long, repetitive process of looking and feeling, a constant balance between application and finish. I use a pad because I can feel the contours under my fingers. It gives me better control of the minutiae of stroke and pressure, of direction and blend, of necessary haste and due care.
I am alone in the room, shut inside because I’m working on the back of the door. The phone rings far away. I ignore it. I left the radio playing in the other room but I can barely hear it. At a muffled distance from the day’s upsetting political and economic news I feel isolated, alone, silenced. All that exists is the wood, the pad, and the sharp-smelling stain. Carefully, with total concentration, I move from piece to piece, from inside to outside, from top to bottom, following the way the separate pieces of millwork were joined to one another.
All at once I’m vividly aware of the carpenters who cut and affixed that trim, who hung those doors nearly 30 years ago. I see the dust and hear the noise of the saws; note the pauses to measure and to mark. There's sawdust underfoot. I notice that the hinges I so carefully work around are strong and straight. The doorknobs are good, and show no signs of wear. I imagine the hands that affixed them. Strong hands, no doubt. Calloused, maybe, and practiced, responding to the same inner sense of judgment to fix and tighten the screws - tighter, not too tight, just right - that I am using to find the right pressure for the pad, the right direction for my strokes. I notice that unkown carpenter’s work on that closet, on that baseboard, on that door. I’m probably one of the few people who ever has. I am aware that the work I am doing at this precise moment, like so much of the work I have done in my life, will never be noticed by anyone, except in the most general sense. All the small strokes, all the individual actions, all the gestures we put forth day after day in the service of larger goals are largely invisible, and always will be. Alone in the room, I continue to work methodically for no reason other than that I have decided to do this. I choose, and therefore I act. The act is the expression of my choice. I am -not because I choose, but because I act.
Silently, the house laughs, and the woodwork begins to glow.