there is only the now...and the after pix

you've seen those pictures on the web, you know you have, we all have.

I'm so ashamed, we all are, but we keep looking.

here is where we come clean: "Hi, our names are Phrodaux and the Fairy Queen, and we never take 'before pictures.'" Free coffee in the back, and why is everyone smoking cheap cigarettes?

I feel better, but that might be the liquor talking.

We take on big projects, we do all the work ourselves (this might justify an intervention from those whom we have heard referred to as "the sane")

...and most of the way to the point where we say "done" we realize we have no "before pictures." The only comfort is that I rarely get to the magical and mythical point that hobbits and the elven folk call "done."

(bathroom... before)

all those shiny magazines and equally shiny websites that say "what an amazing job" or "what the F' did you just do, you sad, sad person"...They all have the underexposed and weirdly lit from some angle that is never to be reproduced "before" and the oh so well lit, and taken from an angle that highlights the amazing view of the sunset dropping over the mountains to the east (yes, I know, assume I'm being "funny") "after." All is well. I will never poop in a hole in the ground (or a lavender toilet) ever again.

(bathroom... after)

This room went from functioning 70's stylin' (there was at one point plasticy embossed pink/baby blue wallpaper and an overly routered/underly styled "bathroom" tissue holder ) to nothing but studs (boom, chicka wow-wow) then back to sheetrocked (and rolled... sorry, that one kinda sucked) then new walls, bead board, sink and toilet, the whole shebang. Wires, 'lectricity, indoors plumbing and everything. But no "before" so, you all have to take our word for it, that and those that came over during the 3 years it took to go from "after the carpet bombing look" and "we have to go where to pee?" to a bathroom that they fear going into as we might be funnin' them, but really is kinda nice, if I do say so myself.

 

(ok, it is not a before, but it is a mid. Note bad lighting and not the same angle)

(here is an after picture of the kitchen. Superman is there for scale, the Fairy Queen does not like bananas so I have none for scale)

should mention the garden, or the kitchen, or all the weird baby blue trim (that shedded new paint like water off an overly waxed ranchero) and window treatments that looked more like square dancing skirts likely worn by that large lady with a 5 o'clock shadow and an Adam's apple. (she was quite the dancer and she let me lead, but that is another story about a christmas season years past that at one point has a Truman Capote look alike with a chihuahua sitting on the bar drinking from a highball glass and a young geologist from Oklahoma disappearing into the night, never to be seen again).

[Fairy Queen sidebar: Phrodaux SWEARS this is a true story.]

Before-ish...you can see individual plants and expensive rocks.

Half the grass gone, art in place, but no steel fence.

(Voila, a garden, no more grass or english ivy, fancy rocks mostly engulfed by plants)

...sometimes we think we are the before (shut up, it isn't just me, it's EVERYONE!) and if you think you're an after then just shut up, you, and put the damn camera away, or not. Really, we are what we are, in 10 years when you look back you will think "It wasn't bad" except for the hair (spiky mullet? really?) and the neon shirt that is oddly coming back into style (but not for you, at some point you can't wear things ironically and those shoes? argh). Stand up, get the "before" picture taken, and realize that ten years from now you will be become the before picture for that guy that was the after way back then (despite his obvious bad taste in hair, clothing and footwear, but still has dancing the night away with that nice "lady" that made you feel pretty to look forward to).

...and the bathtub is still in the driveway (so technically, the bathroom is still pre-done).