A Place of Her Own

The last couple of weeks have been crazy.  After almost 2 months of renovations, we moved my Mom into her own apartment last week. Making the decision to follow my dream to Santa Fe also meant that my Mom had to find a new place to live because she didn't need all of the space with my Dad gone and me moving out.  She moved from a 1200 square foot house with a garage into about 700 sq feet.  Naturally, I've been helping her get organized & downsize.  I sold sold some of her large pieces of furniture and we shopped together for some pretty new items to replace them.  

It was just a white box when she bought it, so we had the cabinets above the counter torn out, then painted the upper cabinets "Svelte Sage" and the lower cabinets "Connected Grey".  The living room walls are "Accessible Beige" and the new carpet is a warm "Taffy".  We found the black "TV" cabinet & her black corner desk at a lovely little consignment store called Great Finds and she's using it as her pantry.  I found the round, drop-leaf kitchen table & bar stools on Craigslist and kitchen the chairs at Tuesday Morning.  All of the pictures and art on the wall she already owned. 

This is the first time in 71 years that she's truly lived by herself.  Well, there are more than 100 other residents in her new high rise, but the apartment is all hers and she got to put her own personal stamp on everything.  I was just there last night helping her hang all of her pictures and make some adjustments to the furniture placements. While we were having dinner, I asked her how it feels to be living by herself for the first time in her life and, without hesitation, she said, "Great!".  

I am so grateful we were able to get her settled in such a lovely and safe place and that we were able to tackle this project together.  It's only a few minutes from her church and the building is full of people over 50 and there always seems to be some sort of activity in the building.  I just know that she's going to be having her own adventure here in Omaha when I'm in Santa Fe.  I love you, Mom.  Have fun stormin' the castle!