Aim & ABILITY: PURPOSE & MASTERY

This is a story about how I found purpose and mastery in creating a beautiful home for myself.

I live in a log cottage. It was one long building divided into two small cottages. They were linked by a door that slides into the wall, in the middle of the building. There was a locking mechanism. This allowed people to rent the units separately or open it up and rent it as one big space. In each unit there was a kitchen, washroom, living room, dining room, small closet and two bedrooms. There were separate power hook ups. Then I bought it......

Over the past 30+ years I have shifted the power to one service drop with the help of an electrician. I changed one washroom into a laundry room which includes my hot water tank and pump. I upgraded the other washroom to include a walk-in tub.... for those days when I might have trouble lifting my leg over the tub. Those days which have come to fruition in the present.

I removed the door between the two units using a chain saw. Wasn't the best idea for the saw.....

As I began the process of shifting and changing my cottage more consistently into one unit, I got rid of the two small fridges and one of my stoves. I replaced the smaller fridge with a larger fridge in the space where the stove was that I removed. This left me with my stove at one end of kitchen 1 and the fridge at the other end of kitchen 2. I made it work for a very long time.

Then my bestie, Paula Latham and I came up with a plan. It was the beginning of many shifts in my space and it excited us to get up in the mornings and tackle our new project(s). As an aside, I met Paula at Mount Saint Vincent University, many moons ago and I am grateful for her presence in my life. I love that we share a passion for building and playing. I love that we feel good about all our accomplishments. Even when they don't work out!

The first of many project was to move that fridge closer to the stove.

Our first plan.....take apart the closet across from the stove and frame it in differently to fit the fridge. We removed all the items in the closet and would need to find a space for them eventually.

Our next project was to figure out where to put all the items from the closet. We needed a pantry and so here we went again.....

Step 1: total demolition of kitchen 2. Then building the pantry.

We made a couple attempts at building the pantry.

Our first attempt saw us end up with a bowed wall at the end. Kind of looked like a ship which was very cool. However, as I continued to shift and want things differently the bow did not work. I wanted a door to separate my space from the rest of the house. We went back to the drawing board and took parts of it apart and straightened out the wall. We removed the door and made a wider walk-in space. It is perfect. Room to store canned goods and storage containers, as well as my deep freezer. Various cooking supplies that needed a home have one now as well.

We kept the beautifully build in microwave space. A highlight of our carpentry abilities!

We learned a lot about each other and how our brains work. Have you ever heard the story about 6 and 9.....

There are lots of images in the internet where one person is on one side of a six and sees it as a six and one person is on the other side and sees it as a nine. It is about perspective taking and Paula and I sure did have different perspectives in many things we tackled. However, we always found a way to be generous with each other and work it through.

I changed one living room/dining room space and two bedrooms into one large space for myself. I have a nice personal space with a bed, dresser and night table that match. A new milestone in my growing up. I have a gym space, television space and a place for my musical instrument to hang out. I use my space for many purposes including a tool closet. Necessary to hold all the tools I buy myself every Father's Day! My gym has ring rows, rower, an old dresser from what was mostly likely a hotel model years ago. We removed the top, stored it for some project later, disposed of the drawers, separated what is left and I have three different levels of solid wood that I can step up onto to allow my mobility to do stairs

My friend and I built a lovely walk-in closet and I placed colourful, comfortable floor mats in that space. I love the comfort and versatility of my space.

Recently I traded electric fireplaces with my sister and added that to the space. I am doing the Lord of the Rings conqueror challenge and this winter I plan on doing a Lord of the Rings puzzle in my space.

I replaced my first kitchen with a new updated modern streamlined lower cupboard system. I simply love it. While Paula and I have tackled many things and saw them through to the end we felt that our focus was on the design of the kitchen. Once we designed it, I brought our drawing to local people and left it up to them to implement the finished product.

In my WW journey I am part of a living alone group. We had a challenge during 2022 to declutter. A shout out goes to Fern for getting us started. I got rid of over 500 items during that process and re-designed my laundry room. It is streamlined and much more spacious. I also started to get ready to embrace the food pillar and added shelving with bottles of nuts, raisins, prunes and many other things.

This week Paula and I sat back and enjoyed other people doing the work of putting in heat pumps for our comfort and the comfort of others who share this space. There are still many things to do and I am sure we will continue to have fun using our skills and abilities to find purpose and mastery along the way!

One upcoming project is to move the wall between Paula's bedroom and the guest room so we can build her a closet. Also, to add barn doors to Paul's bedroom and the guest room and finish off the tongue and groove on the last walls. Another project is to seek the help of a friend of ours to build a a game board called Sjoelbak. It is a German shuffleboard game.

The final large project will be finishing my floors in some fashion. Still dreaming about that one. Then I can focus and dream about the outdoors.....

Life is good and having projects that give me purpose helps me continue to be engaged. It also elevates my self-esteem and self-efficacy. I get to live my life freely through the lens of love and enjoy doing so with my tribe. I am grateful for all the people who has and continues to help me build the home of my dreams.