Turning a Mess Into a MOMENT💫

When one A/C dies, another makeover door opens.

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As luck in NYC would have it, our A/C decided to die on the verge of record temperatures. I mean, thyroid biopsies were nothing compared to the anxiety that swept over me when we realized we had to upgrade the whole unit..and patch a good chunk of the wall.

For most people, this is not a big deal. Changing out air conditioners is akin to buying a new shower-head. Big whoop. But when you live in a small space, every change has the potential to trigger an unfurling of NEW projects, not to mention piles to be relocated, art to be rehung, corners to be vacuumed…and, Lord, I did not have the energy for it. And, because I have a gift with such demented divergent thinking, the spiral went something like this: I wouldn’t just have to paint THIS wall, I would have to paint the whole apartment, so everything matched. But, how much would that cost? Do we have enough $$ to cover it? How long would that take? Where would we put everything? Would they have to sand the walls again and cover the entire apartment? I mean, it wasn’t long before I was imagining us moving out and joining the circus.

Even small projects in small spaces can turn into big ones. Because your whole home and daily life is disrupted. You can’t just close a door on it…it’s right there in the middle of everything. However, something (mercifully) unexpected happened in the midst of the mess. (And I mean MESS…like shit and sanding dust and drop-cloths everywhere, as well as a gaping hole in our living room, which, in our apartment, feels like the WHOLE apartment.) As I was looking at the stripped wall, with water stains, crayon marks, old nail gouges, and sun fading…I started to think: What if we just changed the whole thing and painted the wall a different color? Instead of pretending nothing at all had changed…maybe actually change it.