Ok, now back to frivolous things because we all need a distraction.
Our old house in Del Ray was something else: it was a little rowhouse in terrific location, a fact which blinded us to its many flaws. The day Joe and I moved in, we realized that it didn’t have a dishwasher. File under things that that would’ve been helpful to know.
The house was close to the metro. So close in fact, that it butted up against the train tracks and at 3 a.m., the walls would shake and it would feel like a freight train was right in the next bedroom. My mom was convinced a train was going to derail into our backyard and strike us down while we were grilling.
I broke so many dishes because we had basically a single countertop of work space. The microwave was on a shelf at waist level and one time I tipped up a bowl of hot soup and the entire bowl splattered into the wall (and the ceiling!) and Katie came over and started eating soup off the wall. Normal O’Chapin things.
I really wanted to make this place look nice, despite all the odds, and the vibe that Joe and I could agree on was “Modern Farmhouse.” You know, like a Chip and Joanna project or the Vanderpump Rules kids’ houses.
Of course, I wanted it to be way colorful, like this awesome blogger’s house:
We desperately needed storage so I found this cool vintage pie safe from Miss Pixie’s (like the inspiration photo, right?). The note on it said it was straight from a farmhouse, but they could’ve been pulling my chain. It was handmade, that’s for sure. And very fragile. The nice movers just barely got it in the house. This cabinet was absolutely massive.
When we found our current house, there was no place for the gigantic vintage pie safe. But I thought: I wanted it, surely someone else too. Then I did the thing I always do when I’m selling on Craigslist, which is like haggle with the first person who emails over $50 and acting all indignant, then a week later, I’m basically offering to pay someone to take it off my hands (which I ended up having to do with our old couch).
I got close, but by moving day, I had no buyer. And good thing because once the movers tried to pick this thing up, it started falling apart in their hands. It was so sad. They ended up tearing it apart to get it out of the back of the house, and I could barely even look as the glass shattered and the cornice part fell off and oh God, the humanity. It went from farm family (maybe) to D.C. store to me, and I wrecked it.
It was a goner. We left it out for the trash by garbage cans. I could tell it stayed there for awhile, because if I sat on the right side of the Metro car, I could see my sad, broken down vintage farmhouse cabinet out the window as the train passed by, a sentinel and vestige of my home design folly.
