Ceiling's the Limit
Located in the basement just behind the laundry room is a small wooden door that leads to my office. It’s my favorite room in the house and last weekend, I took on an unexpected renovation to reimagine the space. What used to be a storage room has been transformed into a little editing bay and work station. When we first moved into our home two years ago, we had a friend lay down a mosaic star tile floor over the cement, and Sal and I painted the wood paneling a cool blue. The final frontier on my office’s to-do list was the ceiling: a low hanging drop-ceiling that was missing tiles and falling down in some places.
After a busy day working on a new project, I felt newfound energy and inspiration. I was buzzing with productivity and just started ripping out the loose ceiling tiles. I was a woman possessed, and I kept pulling tile after tile until my whole office ceiling was exposed. The following weekend, Sal used a hammer and removed the last bits of wooden framing. After what felt like no time at all, the ceiling was fully exposed, giving me an exposed industrial ceiling with wood-beams look. I got to work sweeping up sawdust and deep cleaning my office. I washed the floors, cleared off mountains of paper on my desk, and hung art I had been neglecting since we moved in.
When I woke up the next morning, I grabbed Poppy and scurried down to the basement to sit in my newly cleaned office. It felt like a little sanctuary, and a blank canvas waiting to be used. And while I’m still dreaming of painting the ceiling or adding a new shelf for my books, I know the big tectonic shift that’s happened in the physical space and the one I felt inside me wasn’t coincidental.
The past few months I’ve embarked on a brand new podcast project with my friend Frank Shaeffer and new friend Ernie Gregg. We have been meeting every Wednesday morning to record our perspectives about love, mental health, grief, money, sex and more. Not sure where our conversations would lead, we would meet, cup of coffee in hand, just ready to talk.
Three months later “Love in Common” was born- a podcast about the stories that shape our lives and the big questions about the moments in between. Our first episode comes out TODAY and you can subscribe here!
I’m so excited to be launching “Love in Common” and working with Frank and Ernie. It’s given me a renewed sense of purpose, confidence, and joy. There is nothing I love more than a good creative collaboration, and I never know what direction our conversations will go in - they are both thrilling and terrifying to record and I’m having so much fun putting all the pieces together.
I hope you’ll join me by subscribing to the podcast here. With this show I’m exposing parts of myself I’ve never shared before. It feels like a full renovation of heart and spirit, and if it’s as effortless and chic as my ceiling renovation I know we will all be in for a real treat.
Erin