Fitting three mature households into one: time for triage! We scheduled time for all three of us to meet at each of our houses to select items that could be used in our new communal living areas.
From multiples of the same item, we chose the newest, best, and closest match for décor. After all, five vacuum cleaners, 25 pie plates, three coffeemakers and toasters, eight couches, three dining room tables, upward of 200 wineglasses, three lawnmowers, and 18 crates of Christmas decorations might have created crowding. (Thankfully, there was only one chainsaw – Karen’s, of course.)
The following e-mail gives a glimmer of what we had to contend with. Karen concluded that Louise has a “table fetish.”
From: “lmachinist”
Date: July 1 9:44:30 AM EDT
To: “Jean McQuillin,” “Karen M. Bush”
At 9:18 PM lmachinist wrote:
Hi, Partners,
For anyone who might be thinking about decorating and furniture arranging, here are some of my pieces.
Horizontal file cabinet-2 drawer
Glass-topped patio table
Piano
2 Red/green plaid wingchairs
Colonial red couch
2 Small wicker green and brown armchairs
Round table – adjustable height top
Antique 3-drawer dresser
Maple 5-drawer dresser
Antique gate leg table
Antique drop leaf table – rectangular
Teacart
White and glass oval coffee table
3-drawer campaign chest
3-drawer end table
3-drawer colonial style end table
1-drawer campaign chest end table
Maple dining room table
Antique occasional table with interesting trim
Wood/glass/rattan octagonal coffee table
I didn’t even bother listing the multitude of motley bookcases—at least 7, 8, 9.
Louise
For this to work, we each needed to let go of some items that we cared about. The new house was large enough but not huge, and it did not have a lot of storage space. The biggest challenge fell to Jean, who graciously agreed that the dining room furniture and living room couch she loved just wouldn’t fit and would be sold.
If “personal space items” sounds like a euphemism, it is. It’s a nice way of saying, “No way!” Many items were dear to the owner but not to the taste of the other two. We confronted such items up front, calling them “Personal Space Items” or PSIs.
As we sorted through our belongings, one of us would say, “Oh that will look wonderful in your personal space,” sending the message that, while it might be pleasing to the owner, it would not be welcome in communal living space. This humor diffused (or defused) a potentially sensitive situation.
What made for a personal space item? The definition was broad, according to taste or how well the item fit with the rest of the house. Take Louise’s mirror, for example. It’s a large mirror with hammered tin motifs extending well beyond the frame. While it didn’t fit with our living room furniture (or with Jean and Karen’s taste), it looks great against the blue walls of Louise’s bedroom.
Another example, Jean’s torchiere lamp is . . . um . . . exotic – just perfect in a dark corner of the downstairs game room.
Then there is the picture of a magnolia branch that Karen’s mother painted. Not a masterpiece, but a painting that Karen saw every day of her childhood. Now hanging in a corner of her bedroom, it is a fond remembrance of a mother long gone.
There were no serious hurt feelings, and we moved forward in the spirit of integration, determined to create a unique home that would work for three individuals with definite but distinct tastes. From time to time, when one of us admires something in a store or catalog, someone else might say, pointedly, “PSI,” and we get the message.
Each owner sorted personal items. An astonishing eight pickup truckloads departed from Louise’s house alone. An amazing number of superfluous remaining items were sold at a combined garage sale at Louise’s house, yielding the first deposit to our newly opened joint household checking account. Three truckloads of rejects went to charity resale shops.
We got several moving estimates, hoping to find a company that could transport us simultaneously in one mega-move. This turned out to be a fantasy due to scheduling issues and the plain fact that, no matter how much we got rid of, we all still had too darned much stuff. A simultaneous move would have been utter chaos.
So we used separate moving companies and moved on different days. There was no financial benefit to scheduling three moves through one company, anyway. We used colored sticker dots on boxes and furniture to indicate the destination floor at Shadowlawn. Years later, we are still finding those little colored sticker dots. Happy memories.
We are three different individuals, and our separate moves reflected our personal and life styles:
•Karen, seriously crunched by her travel schedule and her old house’s closing date just two days before we took possession of our new house, had movers pack and store her household, stayed with Louise for two days, then moved to the house the day after the Shadowlawn closing.
•Louise had movers transport only large furniture. The rest of her belongings were brought by car, with help from friends and family.
•Jean packed her things in boxes with the assistance of good friends, using the movers to take the boxes and furniture.
We were grateful that the closing on Louise’s old house was not until mid-August. This gave Karen and Jean a place to stay after they moved out of their homes, because – surprise – extreme August humidity prevented the polyurethane on our newly refinished floors from drying. Another three days, and we could move in safely.
Chaos reigned at Louise’s. Her daughter, Sarah, was in the process of removing her childhood possessions, which were piled out the door of her bedroom and down the main hallway, creating a minefield that claimed at least one casualty. Carefully avoiding the piles, Louise broke her little toe running into Karen’s suitcase, a very bad time to have a painful broken toe.
Thank goodness Louise’s parents arrived the weekend after we took possession to help pack and ferry boxes. At the end of an exhausting day, they took us out for dinner, where Louise’s father counseled, “Now, you girls be nice to my Weesie.”
Bountiful stress, but mostly good, because we worked so well together. We developed the heady sense that we could handle anything that came our way, including carrying boxes and furniture up three flights.
On Louise’s moving day, two truckloads of her furniture arrived. Try as she might, Louise couldn’t figure out how to fit that one extra couch into the living room after the movers left. Fortunately, a friendly new neighbor helped her haul it to the curb to become someone else’s found treasure.
Second floor bedrooms:
top – Karen’s; bottom – Louise’s.
Jean’s third floor perch.
So the move was finished. In retrospect, it seems impossible that we accomplished so much in so little time. Rather than the gradual planning we first envisioned, our timeline moved up by months if not years. Consequently, details we had planned to explore over time were forcibly addressed immediately.
It all worked because we prioritized tasks and respected each other’s diverse styles. We found it best to be very clear with each other when anyone had a concern. We stopped long enough to talk everything through, but we were efficient and did not belabor the issues. When we had consensus or a majority vote of agreement, we proceeded. We developed an open, honest style of working together that continues to serve us well.
Before moving in, we had already selected bedrooms. Louise took the master bedroom with integral bath because she does not need a home office. That left Jean and Karen to make the tough choice between two rooms with bath on the second floor, or two rooms with bath in the finished attic.
After several days of deliberation, Karen said, “I know which rooms I favor, but either would be fine with me. Jean, you decide.” Soon after, Jean chose the attic space. It turned out that Karen preferred the second floor anyway, so everyone was pleased. If Jean had wanted the second floor, either Karen would have cheerfully taken the third floor, or they would have drawn straws.
This willing flexibility is key to creating a workable shared living situation. Obviously, choosing to live together in shared space means that each person will not always have things his/her way.
During unpacking, we defined property boundaries: items brought into communal space were for the use of our little community. For instance, soon after the move, Jean noticed a book from Karen’s house on the living room shelf and asked to borrow it. Louise pointed out, “But Jean, it’s in your library.” And so it was.
However, much as we encourage sharing, we set limits. From the very beginning, we did not enter one another’s private space (bedrooms, bathrooms and offices) without permission, a boundary that we have steadfastly maintained.
As we picked our way along our uncertain path, we developed our own survival strategies. Here are some ideas that we recommend to anyone following in our footsteps:
•Each participant must unfailingly do every task to which they commit. And we did. This confirmed to us that we were the right people, in the right place, at the right time.
•Your best friend will be humor, applied liberally.
•A clear vision of what life will be like together will sustain you. Even in the midst of planning and moving, we started to create shared traditions and a pleasant home environment. Karen bought a copper fire pit in preparation for fall nights on the patio. Louise came to evening meetings with choices of tablecloths for the round table that we imagined placing in front of the bay window overlooking the backyard.
•Plan an open house to introduce your new home to friends, family and neighbors.
•Meet over shared meals. It’s an enjoyable way to accomplish two things at once.
