Lots of New Things On the Learning Curve

One might wonder how someone can continually tell others "Sure, I can do that!" With no real clue as to how to do it.  Lifelong problem of mine which some would consider a severe personality defect.  Life may have been a lot simpler if I did not spend days living in terror trying to figure out how I was going to do something I had no clue what so ever about.

Driving home from the latest picnic in the park with Barney the fact that I had somewhere in the neighborhood of two weeks to come up with all the window coverings, wallpaper and paint for the downstairs of his house became frightening.  Add to that the fact that even though Lauren did not care what the house looked liked, she needed to be present to see everything and to meet the decorator. Going into a state of panic was not going to be helpful.

Barney"s House 

The best plan I could come up with was to go buy lots of graph paper and draw out all the window coverings I needed to make.  Thank heavens I had taken good measurements and I had notes as to what Barney wanted in the way of color and pattern in fabrics.  Wallpaper for the kitchen and the powder room were a little easier as I had done a lot of that for myself. Once everything was all drawn out Wally and I spent a lot of days looking a professionally made draperies to see what size hems were used and learned how to make pleated draperies without using the homemade pleater tape I had used before.

The company that Barney had me go to to buy stuff for my house was outstanding.  They carried thousands of fabrics and custom made mini blinds, vertical louvers, roman shades and woven woods.  I discovered that if I showed them my drawings they taught me how to figure the amount of fabric that I would need and how to price everything.  Having Wally travelling with me was a big help and every place we went people fell in love with the little guy and were willing to help his not-much-in-the-know-Mother. The result was a fast lesson in everything I needed to know about being an Interior Designer.

I am not sure how this happened, did I miss a meeting, did someone volunteer me?  I had been a member of the New Neighbors League for six months and I got a call that I had been appointed to be the editor of the monthly newsletter.  The newsletter, called the Pacesetter, was a once a month publication with everything anyone needed to know about the club.  It told about the monthly luncheon, the activities, the sponsors, what there was to do in Kansas City and a whole lot of other information. It ended up being about fifteen 8 x 11 sheets of paper printed on both sides that was sent out to 450 people every month. Who said I could do this?  I only had a vintage typewriter with a missing O. Oh well, add a typewriter onto the shopping list.

Dennis finally decided to speak again after five days.  He just came home from work on Friday all cheerful just liked nothing had happened.
That was fine, no need to start an argument on why all the silence. He did announce that he thought it was time for us to finish the basement as he was tired of the toys all over the family room. Actually I was all for getting it done as I was going to need the space to sew in.  The basement was actually a walk-out as it was on the downside of the hill.  It had sliding glass doors, a fireplace and plumbing for another bathroom.  We had framed in a twelve by twelve room when we first moved in for storage and if needed later, a fifth bedroom.

Dennis was curious about all the architectural drawings I was working on.  I told him a couple had asked me to decorate their house.  He said he didn't know how I was going to do that which I took as perhaps I was too stupid to do someone else's house.  He had no problem in me making a little extra money as long as dinner was on the table at the right time, the lawn was mowed by Friday afternoon, the laundry and ironing done, cars washed and house clean and then of course, no Mother showing up anytime soon.

My two weeks went by pretty quickly.  That happens when you have to do a crash course in Interior Design (is there really a college degree in that?), attempt to learn to type out the first newsletter on your new typewriter and get it to the printers, listen to Dennis carry on about what needs to be done in the basement because there is no way you can hire it done and Wes, our nine year old, is out of school for the summer.  That was going to make for an interesting summer all by itself.

There does not seem to be many pictures of Wes during the first part of our move to Kansas City. The reason is probably because Wes was like living with a little whirlwind, always on the move, always some calamity and definitely never a dull moment during his waking hours. Our neighborhood actually had about a hundred families most with school age children. If he wasn't racing up and down the streets on his bike with a wing and a parachute on it everyone he knew was in our house playing with race cars or just running in and out the door.He was actually a pretty good little guy but just always busy.

Barney had called a couple of times from from different places in California.  It sounded like his seminars were successful as I had begun to learn how to tell from his sometime careful wording how things were going. He called on Friday morning and asked if Saturday at 1:00 was okay for me to ome by the house.  In my most positive, cheerful voice I said sure.  There was a laugh from Barney and he said not to panic, we would get through this. Gee, I only had about thirty-six hours to slightly panic.