Dreams

I dream about houses a lot. I dream about running in old houses; houses with hidden rooms and peeling white paint on the walls. I dream often that the walls are shaky and the foundation is slipping. The houses are tall and spindly some times, and I have a mild vertigo as I climb the stairs, feeling like a drunk....disoriented and dizzy, off balance.
I dream that I don't believe that the house can stand, that it will fall around me and I'll fall with it, but I still strangely love it and can't leave it. In the end it's often all okay, and I feel a little stupid for having doubted it's integrity.

Secret Room:

The hole to the room:


A close-up of the wallpaper (at least it isn't yellow!). Roses!




I still can't believe that this was discovered in my home after my recurring dreams on the subject! Maybe it's one of those things that magically appears just when you've learned to let go of the need to seek it!
I can't figure out what the room must have been for. It's too short to stand in, but the wallpaper seems to fit its dimensions which leads me to believe that it was built/used at it's current size.
Perhaps it was a separate attic space that the house's first occupants furnished as a playroom for their children. Who knows, it obviously hasn't been open in many many decades.

Dreams Made Real:

As per this post:
We are currently having our house rewired. The workmen just discovered a Secret Room behind our kitchen. It's raised up, above our closet, but below the ceiling and attic. It's very very old, it probably hasn't been used as part of the house since the 1920s (or even later, depending on when the water heater and refrigerator nook was built in to the kitchen). It even still has some wallpaper up in it.
So Neat!!
I'll post pictures soon.

More Dreaming

Speaking of a specific Recurring Dream:
I was reading one of my favorite blogs, Angeliska Gazette: Black Honey from the Bee-Log, and saw she had a made a post about Recurring Dreams. One of the Recurring Dreams she mentioned was about secret rooms. At first, I thought to myself that I'd never had a dream like that, but then I read her description:
"I’ve had this dream since I was little,
of discovering secret rooms or chambers.
One of the first dreams I can remember,
I found an enormous cathedral-like theater
in the steeple of my church. Swooping
red curtains. An apt analogy for my young
mind to make, hmm? When I lived in
a tiny baba yaga shack with only one room,
I constantly dreamed that I would find other rooms
that always been there, behind walls or partitions.
Once I dreamt of a whole second floor!"

I started having these dreams after I grew older and began to live on my own. I didn't recognize her description immediately because my dreams were so much more adult and less fantastical that what she was talking about.
It had a yearning attached to it that was both wondrous and wanting, and in that way you only learn to want once you have known some level of poverty. It is not the same wanting you have in childhood where you are trying to find ghosts or fairies or passages through wardrobes. The dreams still have an element of fantasy and wonder to them, but that yearning that accompanies it is unique to my adult experiences.

I would dream that I was in my apartment and I would begin to wander. I would open doors and find gardens, extended rooms, extra floors, or an extension of the the complex I lived in.
Why did these dreams only start when I got older and began to live on my own, away from my parents? Do the represent some sort of recognition of my lesser means now that I support myself, a sort of anticipation of what will come once I am able to save for myself and afford better lodgings? Or something else?


My most recent version of this dream happened the other night, and took place in our current house.
I love our house. It is a Victorian duplex in a flavorful part of town. It is long and narrow, we have room for our things but it takes some arranging. Inside the house all the original fixtures and wood molding is intact, with carved runners in every room.


In my dream, we had found a way to expand the space in our house by rearranging the furniture, and our duplex turned into a huge, expansive mansion with high ceilings.
However, in the dream, the house was in a level of rather deep decay. We had minimal furniture, the rafters were all exposed, and it was dark and drafty inside.


Just as the interior state of our old house was exaggerated, so was the exterior. Outside I could hear all sorts of ruckus, and people were loitering around conspicuously in a way that I found very unsettling.

The house was mostly a brick red, like the one in this picture I found.

The neighborhood was in decay too. I was anxious and relieved all at once. I had a grand interior, but it was in poor condition. And I was high up above the fray but it was closing in and the doors were weak. It was such a strange dream, filled with a desire to shut out the world and yet to escape.

And yet, near the end of the dream the people I was so fearful of noticed the house falling and propped up the walls and fastened them in place as I hid inside the crumbling structure.

All I can think is that maybe the dream is about my own anxiety. That it's all too easy to see things in great exaggeration and let your perception run away with your good sense. You are suddenly fighting flight or fight, and next thing you know the things you're so frightened of weren't so bad after all, and have a way of resolving themselves if you are just patient enough, and open-minded enough to give events a chance to unfold.
I am definitely in a tense situation involving home right now, where I have to wait for the other shoe to drop before I can decide what will become of our situation. We have no to little control over what we're waiting to here on, and all we can really do is determine whether we will leave our home or remain. In the mean time, waiting to find out...it is better not to let anxiety bubble up and become a storm. If there's nothing you can do, then spend your time waiting enjoying what you have instead of fearing what you can't control. Or something like that....
What do you think? Have you ever had a dream like this, and if so, what did it mean to you?

Around the House

A few photos from my home.
It's still a work in progress, but here's a spot that's photo-worthy.
I'd like to put up more on the sides of the mirror as well.




Most of our walls are waiting for appropriate frames, at which point we have many lovely posters and pictures waiting to go up! When will that be? On Saturday! Our friend works at Michael's and is going to help us to pick some affordable frames. Frames can make a room, it's nice to know we don't have to wait indefinitely to find a reasonable deal that suits our budget.
This is all pretty exciting to me, this is the third place I've lived since I've moved away from home, but it's the first place I've really felt a connection to and that I've considered staying indefinitely. Therefore, decorating and home maintenance has become a constant preoccupation with me.
Also, I bought new "work" shoes yesterday:































Are the days of wearing combat boots everyday at an end? Perhaps. I work someplace quiet fashionable, I like to look at least somewhat professional at work, especially as a supervisor. I hope they are comfortable enough to wear all day! If not, at least I can wear them on the office days. I'm usually a stickler for comfortable shoes, but again...the budget!