The Discovery In Plain Sight

The remodeling project has made most of the downstairs unusable. The bedrooms and major bathrooms won't be ready until the project is almost complete. Our public rooms (living room, library, lounge, New Mexico/dining room, & kitchen) are mostly filled with furniture and all in unusable states to allow for the flooring and painting. This resulted in Wife and I creating temporary bedrooms on the second story using air mattresses. 

Honestly, once we figured out how to deal with the heat sink properties of the air mattress, they have not been uncomfortable to sleep in. We were able to get Wife's chair and TV set up in the living room relatively quickly, so she has had a place to relax. The only place I have to go in the evening is back up stairs where my card table desk and chair are set up in my temporary bedroom. 

I go up here in the evening and do what I always do, work on my writing and watch YouTube. Which has led to an interesting realization. It is really cool up here! The evening light, the views, the air flow. It's wonderful.

I know you are scratching your head. How could this be a realization? You've had this space for 15 years and you use it virtually every day. Why is this a surprise to you?

The answer comes from our daily life habit and the design of our furniture. We have always visualized the upstairs space as our office. We come up in the morning and we spend most of our day here. In the evening we go down, have dinner and retire to our 'special comfortable chairs' for evening chilling. There really isn't anywhere to sit and relax. 

Now that I've had this epiphany, and we are looking moving furniture around upstairs, I am advocating for creating upstairs the kind of comfortable seating we have downstairs. It never ceases to amaze me the opportunities for new experiences if you are open to them. Even ones that have been in plain sight all along.