My Own Project 2025
After the 2016 election I fell into a dangerously dark depression. The worst ever. Somehow though, magically, this lifted around mid-December but all I could think of was: How the fuck am I gonna get through 2017?????????
A year later I realized that 2017 had proved the best of my life. It proved deeply satisfying and rewarding, to my utter astonishment. Had somebody told me this in 2016, I would have laughed in their face.
What made the difference?
The Cross House.
The work I did proved powerfully rewarding. I would spend my mornings, at home, working on lights and obsessing over near-daily Trump horror stories, but then get in the car, turn on a good audible book, and drive the 20 minutes to the big house. Once there, I would spend most of each afternoon working to make the house better and all the while listening to good books. Then, drive home, moreAudible, and suffused with a great sense of accomplishment.
The NE corner, 2014. Yikes!
June 2017. The NE corner is to the left. Wow.
I removed a non-original door to the dining room, and returned the opening to a window. See picture above this one.
The east wall after removing a non-original shed to the basement.
Not quite done.
Done!
Throughout 2017, stained-glass windows kept returning to the house after restoration. Two Heritage Trust grants paid for the whole massive undertaking. So, squee!!!!!!!!
.
All the Long Bedroom stained-glass back.
You can enjoy all the stained-glass, here.
I was finally able to begin to actually decorate a room. This is the parlor. I had no idea of what I was doing and the whole process proceeded by doing things over and over.
The same wall after. This though would….
…get redone in 2018. It looks the same today.
November, 2014. The house shored up to install a steel beam in the ceiling.
And, in 2017 such work would proved invisible. This is decor 1.0. It would evolve in 2018.
4.0 in 2018. The white picture frame has since been painted the sofa color. The tall upholstered chairs have been replaced.
I ordered these stunning floor registers. Small pleasures. None of you liked them. I still love them.
April, 2015. The great North Front.
NORTH PORCH, 2015.
October, 2017. I am still gobsmacked.
Again: BEFORE. I began work on the North Front in 2016, and finished…
…in late late 2017. This consumed most of the last six months of 2017.
I well recall the towers of scaffolding.
The West Front, after I finished the paint job in 2015.
In 2017, in a masterstroke, I realized that the exterior color scheme needed some subtle “enhancing”. Note the newly repainted porch gable. And a black pinstripe under the porch cornice.
The unique porch capitals were deliciously enhanced.
Even the columns were subtly enhanced via several coats of gloss poly. The porch ceiling was repainted a few years later.
Finishing the great North Front, decorating the parlor, and the “enhancement” project proved powerfully uplifting. My whole soul felt nourished.
And today…to my shock and horror…it is like November 2016 all over again.
Except I now know I can not only survive, but perhaps even have a good time.
But how this time? How?
I sooooooooo don’t have the energy anymore to undertake monumental tasks like the North Front.
In pondering and pondering and pondering this I came up with a brilliant idea: My own Project 2025.
The house I live in is a mess. I was in the middle of a massive renovation in 2015. Then I purchased the Cross House and all the work abruptly stopped. I resumed some work a few years ago.
Thus, my Project 2025 is to work every single day on the house I live in. And it will be mostly via my patented Baby Steps™ method. It will not matter if I work for 15 minutes. Or several hours. I will just need to do something every day.
By the end of 2025, if I can finish the house, I will feel profoundly nourished. In the good weather I will work on the exterior. As each room/project gets done, I will feel profoundly nourished. And this, this, will sustain me during a new round of inevitible horrors.
Every room needs attention. Some vast, some minor. The biggest project (and I will need Justin to help) will be creating a new pitched roof over the flat-roofed living room, which has leaked since being built in the 1960s.
Tonight’s project? To prime the upper south wall in the kitchen.
I might post about my Project 2025.
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Your words have comforted me, and your Plan 2025 sets a good example of forging bravely onward, being productive and doing good in a screwed up world.
Thank you for the visit back through the years. It was very soothing.
I am still in awe of the size of the house, and how much you have done to it. It is stunning.
As always, you inspire me. I will come up with a project of my own to fight the depression and grief I’m feeling
I came to basically the same conclusion today that a game plan to survive this challenge is necessary and I am also formulating my own Project 2025. Thanks for the quick trip back in time and the lovely reminders of Cross House progress during those dark years. They brought a lot of joy and hope yet again!
Best wishes for a plan to survive the coming years. I am still in a very dark place, remember my weeks-long depression in 2016 and feeling today like I’ve been run over with a steamroller. I have been re-watching Downton Abbey from the beginning. When that’s done, I’ll figure out what’s next. I do know we have a couple of months before the horror can start, and I hope someone somehow can do something in those two months to help mitigate it. My cat and I will be hibernating for a while.
You poor dear!
Yes, just hunker down and enjoy Downton Abbey! All the more poignant with the recent passing f Maggie Smith…
Thank you. It’s going to take a while to feel better.
Please take care and do soothing, comforting things.
I wish you well.
Once you finish Downton Abbey, watch Ted Lasso. 🙂
Ross I am heartened by your philosophy and how to survive this Deja vu experience!
I am very excited you feel comfortable returning to your current home and repair and restoration plans.
Cross House is just exquisite!
Thanks for your wisdom. My husband was diagnosed with brain cancer, Glioblastoma, two years ago. He had a tumor removed in 2022 and again in August with rounds of chemotherapy and radiation. The stress we live with is wearing and now this happened. I’m allowing myself to be sad today. Tomorrow I’m starting your plan of baby steps. Everyday I’m going to keep myself busy by cleaning out closets, the attic, storage sheds, and the garage. I’m 72 so I can’t do a lot for long but I can do something. That and being kind to those I meet maybe I’ll get through this disappointing time. I enjoy your blogs immensely. Keep writing.
How about some adventures in the kitchen? I’ve just discovered Chef Jean-Pierre on YouTube and I’m making clarified butter tomorrow. I’m planning to make Steak Au Poivre for New Year’s with a Filet Mignon from the butcher. In the mean time I am going to make chicken kiev and some stock.
Thank you for the reminder to turn my hands to working on my own house, and to the work that I can do. We’ll get through this together.
Sounds like a great plan.
I find this to be pretty good advice for anyone anxious about events they have no direct control over:
https://youtu.be/sTulrGo-2T4?si=Yt0Y8aId_N24FEK_
Ross, I love love love that you have a Project 2025 that is worth following.
You’ve inspired me to think about my own “Project 2025”;. I wonder what I can do in the coming year to make things better and not let you know who/what drive the narrative.
Maybe it’s time to revitalize my own blog and start cooking and posting again.
Thank you, thank you dear Ross. I came to your blog for solace today, and I knew I would find it.
You are a loving, generous man.
I will continue to work on my 50 year old Tudor dollhouse restoration. I think of you very often while working on it. It presents similar challenges, but in miniature.
You have helped me through hard times in the past. Your blog is part of my nighttime calming routine.
I thank you.
Many hugs.
I don’t remember what I did in 2016. I did go to the therapy pool on Tuesdays and Thursdays and watercolor class on Wednesdays. I also went to Yosemite.
I do know what I’ll be doing this time. Same project as you but my own house. Already started. I’m finishing off the broom closet in my kitchen to be a pantry. The cleaning stuff can just live in the garage except for a few bottles. I have a fence to repair and a gate to replace. I’m about to tear out the summer garden and then plant the winter one. Just waiting for some late ripeners as the weather, at least during the day, continues warm. I just planted Spinach yesterday and will be planting lettuce tomorrow. I have concrete projects, a base for a birdbath I’m putting in the front yard and pouring some mosaic stepping stones for the front garden. I am pruning like a mad woman. I let a lot of the yard go when I was taking care of my parents and now that I’m not I’m taking care of me, getting done a lot of things I neglected because I was at their house instead of my own. Not any more. I want to get the house even better than it was. Just in case I need to sell and move to Canada.
Watching with concern from the U.K. I know you can do this, a timely reminder today of all the mammoth tasks you have taken on and achieved. What lovely progress. Small steps is a great philosophy; all the more satisfying when a project is finished and you get there by just constant chipping away.
The answer to surviving all of this is to create our own projects for the new year and share the joy they bring.
Stay strong together.
Gabrielle, as an American, I thank you for your words of support. I’ll also say that I hope that our allies, especially the UK, won’t forget that so many (just not quite enough) of us are repulsed by Trump and don’t agree with his plans. Before Tuesday, many people shared memes on social media comparing the election to a bitter parental custody battle; unbelievably, the smart, kind, hardworking mother lost us to an abusive, narcissistic, horrible…I can’t call him a father, even to complete the comparison.
Thank you Mike.
It’s also vital to remember that only about 1/4 of Americans voted for Trump.
Please do document your own project 2025 — it will be the only project 2025 I can bear to contemplate. I love your blog. All best wishes at this awful time xx
Thank you, Ross and friends. I needed this reminder of focusing our lives on something other than what’s-his-name. I hope your upcoming projects go well.
I have trouble describing how I feel about the election, but I do understand why you feel somewhat better while working on your houses. My wife and I decided yesterday morning to gut our dining room and by bedtime last night, we were ready to hang drywall. I’ve hired a couple of younger buddies to do that, and they’ll be here in the morning. Today, I have been stripping decades of paint off of the original maple woodwork, while my wife has ordered wallpaper and drapes. I still get a knot in my stomach when I think about the future, but then I go back to work.
Ross, I’ll miss the Cross House, but will still come by for your efforts. I had really hoped for you to be able to finish and rent out the Carriage House to help with renovating the main house and finish the cat fence, but you know your own battles.
I had other hopes, too. Sigh.
My own place isn’t worth the time and effort, but I have a car project that is going to be my focus.
Jay, work on the Cross House and Carriage House will continue in 2025.
My current plan is to finish the fussing around the main entry of the Cross House, then install some porch railing, and then…ta-da!!!!!!!…resume work on the inside of the Carriage House.
I like this approach. For 2025, I want less clutter in my life, and more progress on knitting projects. I’m going to make a long list, cut it in half, cut it in half again, and do 15 minutes a day until I feel better.
Thank you for this, for not dropping into despair. It’s helpful to focus on making the immediate, tangible elements within our control better, so that we keep progressing hyper-locally, in the midst of national regression.