The Trailer

I am sorry I have disappeared off the face of the Earth like that.

Like most trailers that have been parked (as this one is in a trailer park) there's an addition built on to the side of the trailer proper. This one has three rooms, shotgun style. This is the first one, the entry.

I have been so busy I can barely breathe.

This is the second. We call this the bonus room. It is wired for a television cable. The junction box identifies it as the den. I have since painted the ceiling.

It started in mid-July with my Mom getting pneumonia--for the third time in the last twelve months. When she was released from hospital she was highly motivated to declutter and clear out her house. The doctors had also prescribed quite a high dose of prednisone to keep her lungs clear--and she used the energy and clear headedness it gave her to make the million and one decisions necessary. She asked me to help.

This is the third room, the "back bedroom." My sister's three year old son had this room. There was a lot of marker on the walls, the door and trim. I've painted the room, and door since this photo was taken.

I jumped.

Back at the entry, looking into the kitchen. 

We made excellent progress. It was all quite exciting and wonderful (we decluttered the living room and threw out masses of dvds and cds and I painted the room. We turned to the upstairs bathroom and tossed mountains of bath products and towels and I painted the room and the vanity and we reorganized closets (and I painted them, of course) and put up cupboards and shelves and painted some more....when suddenly, we had to stop.

The kitchen and the living room/dining room are essentially one big room. That's not"wallpaper" in the kitchen. Those are pre-printed wall panels. 

As the prednisone dose was being lowered to wean my Mom's body off of it--my sister broke up with her husband and left the house trailer she'd been living in with her two small children. They had been three months behind in rent to my Mom. They left a lot behind. I didn't understand the extent of it and welcomed a few weeks to myself as I let Mom sort things out.

Living/Dining from the kitchen

Living/Dining from the Living room window. It is not your imagination.The walls are different. 

But I was alarmed at the amount of things coming from the trailer into my mother's house every single day. And then as the leaves on the trees were turning, I realised Mom could not handle it herself. Breathing became more and more difficult. She started moving more slowly. She needed naps.

The hallway to the rest of the trailer. The walls are different, here too. 

So, I jumped.

This is the "first" bedroom. I have since repainted it. The door leads to the bathroom.

I have spent every single spare moment I have over there packing things up, sorting things into piles of garbage, recyclables, and donations. On my journey home (it's a half hour each way) I've been delivering an entire jeep stuffed full of things to Value Village. Today, I realized we've been cleaning up after my sister (and her family) for six solid weeks. I've painted two rooms and a door. Tomorrow, I paint a ceiling. We've replaced light fixtures, we've had to purchase curtain rods and blinds (my sister took those) and I still need to install them.

The bathroom has been updated by previous owners: but the layout is odd. The tub is opposite the toilet. The entry from the hallway is opposite the vanity at the foot of the tub.

We skipped Thanksgiving this year, too, so we could clean out the shed.

The laundry room is in the hallway outside the bathroom (the tub is right behind the machines) and main bedroom. Yes, they left a small load laundry in the hamper.

These pictures were taken when we had it almost ready for the cleaners at the beginning of October. Our plan is to rent it out for a while, at least a year, and then use those funds to spiff it up and sell it. Meanwhile, I have a lot to learn about how house trailers are constructed and how we can install an Ikea kitchen.

The main bedroom. It was renovated, (The ceiling is drywall and not the usual drop panel affair. There is no door.) The bed was left behind with no way to take it down. We're hoping the good folks at Ikea can advise us and give us the appropriate allen keys. 

Looking back down the hallway to the kitchen/dining room. The door on the right goes outside to a nice little deck.