amycooper | (no subject)

You know, as I do this whole clean and purge thing, decluttering, whatever, I'm coming to a bit of a realization. I really don't feel like I belong in this house.

First off, I'm the only clean one. I grew up in a family of obsessive cleaners. I'm not anywhere to their level, but I prefer things much less cluttered. My husband grew up in a family of hoarders. Really honest to God hoarders. So...shit's everywhere and he doesn't see it, but I do. Half finished house projects from three years ago? Material's still in the hallway. He has a fit if I try cleaning up any of his stuff too, because he remembers where he puts everything and gets upset if it moved. Finn's only six, but he's pretty much the same. He has a fit if I throw away his old tooth brushes.

I don't have space for me. This has gotten a slight better after I had a melt down over this a year ago. But my husband has the garage and the basement as workshops. He cooks, so the kitchen's his zone (I've even been kicked out). He has a desk by the stairs, which I will give him is not very private. I've got...nothing. I have no place to store things for my hobbies or my garden stuff. My computer was, until the meltdown, in the hallway. Now it's in the office/storage with totes of Christmas stuff and his paintball stuff (which takes up a whole corner) and the kid's storage clothes and pieces of furniture. It doesn't feel like my space, though it is more private than his desk.

But, and I think this might be the biggest factor, I have had little say in what comes into this house in terms of furniture and whatnot. My husband's kinda cheap and keeps accepting whatever second hand, hand-me-downs offered. There's a good number that comes from his family ("this has been in my family since the 30s!") There's a number of chairs that could desparately use refinishing (and a few that he found at the dump that he actually refinished). There's actually way more chairs than we actually need. A couple are broken but he plans on fixing them eventually. Even the one I'm sitting on right now is part of that group (and as uncomfortable as all hell.) We have a couple of pieces from the previous house (that were left there when we moved in and took with us). A used couch from some friends. A pair of unmatching side tables for the bed that a friend picked up at a garage sale and gave to us so I guess their ours for life now. Don't get me wrong, a couple of pieces are nice; the dining room table from his mom, the glider our friend refinished; I just kind of wish I got more say in what we have and the ability to make at least a couple decisions on getting rid of stuff (which my husband HATES to do).

Even are garden is planned largely by my husband. Or rather, I do plan what we plant in where, but he insists we just keep tilling what was once a lawn with thick heavy sod and plant directly in and we're always losing to the grass. I think we should have raised beds. In fact, his friends, his father, and my father have argued for raised beds. Everyone with gardening experience has said raised beds (and he didn't grow up gardening, I did). But, here we are with plants growing out of a years growth of new lawn because all those roots just don't die when you till. Ideally I'd love to do something more like a potager's garden, but that's never going to happen.