Little Things Mean a Lot

Let's just tell it like it is. My bathroom is ugly. It's old, decrepit, and poorly maintained. However, I did convince the landlord to paint it, covering up the years of disgusting tar and nicotine left by the previous tenant. He had it painted, all right. And the walls look much better, but I don't believe a scrap of painter's tape or a single drop cloth was used, although I saw the guy had both with him. There is dried paint on the tub enclosure, counter top, toilet, floor, towel bars, everywhere. He even painted over the latch that makes the door stay closed. SIGH. I just can't deal with making another call to the landlord right now with the holidays upon us, so I will live with it, temporarily. I just finished scrubbing the bathroom from top to bottom, and it looks and smells nice. All ready for the kids to come home for the holidays. This is going to be my first apartment therapy-style post. Yay! I'm hoping if I make note of each little or big improvement I make, I will begin to see my progress over time, and inspire myself to do more, the way that Apartment Therapy inspires me now. Maybe you'll get inspired too. Anyway, the little bathroom improvement I did today was to hang a decorative shelf. Here it is:

Grandma Becker's beautiful corner shelf

Speaking of the holidays, when I was growing up, every Christmas eve we would head over to my great grandmother Becker's cozy little house, in a neighborhood of cozy little houses on a hill in Middleton, WI. It would always be bitterly cold and of course pitch dark even at 6 pm, but the snow and the twinkling lights made the drive so pretty. Her house was always very warm and full of relatives coming to see grandma, and she put on an amazing spread of Norwegian, German and standard American holiday foods. Some of them were scary to me, like mincemeat pie (I never did try that). Others were wonderful, like homemade lefse spread with butter, sprinkled with brown sugar and rolled. I always loved the inside of grandma's house, it was like a tiny museum, with a lifetime of gathered treasures all carefully kept and charmingly displayed. She had an array of beautiful teacups and saucers, no two alike, and many ornate crenelated dark wood shelves that held little figurines. When she passed on at the venerable age of 97 (I think) in 1993, I was blessed to be allowed to choose from some of her belongings. Other older relatives had picked everything over pretty well before I got to make my selections, but they left things that epitomized my grandma for me. Maybe she had a hand in that from above, who knows, but the dishes, shelves, doilies, embroidered-edge pillowcases and antique cookbooks and such I brought home with me mean the world to me, and seeing them every day keeps her close. She was a very special lady, so kind and very humorous. She had so many descendants, but always made me feel like I was her primary concern the few times of the year I saw her. Some people are just golden like that, and she was one of them. Anyway, the shelves were something that, although loved, never quite fit anywhere in my prior apartments, and they remained in storage for years. Now that I am in my first empty-nester apartment with my kids  grown up and on their own, I am learning to just "do me". My tastes, my time, etc. My tastes in decorating are usually in the realm of shabby chic. These pretty, curliqued shelves finally fit my life, and I am so happy to see one on the wall again after all these years (grandma passed away in 1993). After brushing off the cobwebs and wiping it clean and then dosing it with Pledge to add some shine, it looks great. There are little areas that need some wood glue and touch-up staining, but nothing too major. Something about them even makes me think of India, another decorating theme I love. They are going to work perfectly here. Thank you, grandma...love and miss you. Merry Christmas.

Great Grandma Becker and her first great-great-grandchild, my daughter Brianne. Christmas, 1982.