Rehabbing a Mansion?

I’ve been having a recurring dream about a house or mansion. Sometimes, I see it in its former glory as a casino/theater/hotel, other times I see it as a derelict property and I take refuge in the basement for safety. Lately, however, I’ve been seeing a rehab on the property.

I can’t really describe the outside. I don’t think I’ve ever seen it. What’s going on now is the kitchen and baths. Well, only one bath now. I think the one on the upper floor was taken out. Let me see if I can give you a word picture of what I’m seeing.

The dream starts out in the kitchen. It’s total chaos. Appliances out of place, trash all over the floor, and a stopped up sink. The shelves are stocked with so much Masa in so many grades that it looks like a Bodega emptied out into the pantry.

The main floor bathroom has a wood plank floor with a hole right in front of the “throne.” However, things function as they should and the hole is covered with a board. There is another bathroom on the top floor.

The second floor is like a mezzanine.

This photo is as close as I could find of the double staircase

There is a wall of doors and stairs leading up from the main floor to a small balcony along these doors. If you open the doors, it’s open to like a ballroom with loose chairs. Nice but dirty and unused. Kind of abandoned looking. I only caught a little of it before I went up to the next floor.

The top floor used to be bedrooms and a bath. Now, it is all one huge space, with a warren of separated spaces marked out by half-walls. There is no ceiling. The rafters are exposed.

Where the bath used to be, there is a closed section. When I open the plywood doors (full along the room’s wall), a sheet of water like rain comes down in front of me. I feel the cool mist coming off it. There is nothing in the box. The misty water seems to be coming from the roof.

A little further on, I see a section with a man using bare light bulbs in various lamp-like fixtures, studying what looks like a  wasp nest. Not like a typical mud-dauber nest, but living in the walls like carpenter bees might. 

There are workers all around me, and I hear hammering metal-cutting electric saws and voices. Nothing is distinct. It’s very confusing. I go back downstairs to the kitchen.

In other dreams, there was an elevator that went to the main floor, never stopping at the mezzanine. The mezzanine itself was always a series of ramps and carpeted halls in the “back of the house” portion of a large facility. Offices, meeting rooms, and endless hallways.

Back on the main floor, I go into the bathroom but the throne is gone and the floor is repaired. It’s painted a cerulean blue that is somehow important. Another thing about the floor is that the patched part has a piece of wood sticking up – like a branch from the plank in the floor. Everything is painted, so it’s supposed to be there, I guess. The porta-potty unit hadn’t arrived yet, so everyone is without a bathroom until it arrives.

woodburning-cookstove

When the dream ends, the stove is in place and the fridge is clean, but it’s acting more like an icebox than a fridge.

I get a good look at the stove. It is remarkable! It’s a wood-burner, with a rounded front edge. It’s blackened from use with some dark shiny metal under the black. Really slick looking! And my mom can cook on it! I mean really cook! Better than any time she ever had a pan on the stove in my memory. 

I’ll fill you in on more details in the coming weeks as I have more of these dreams. I’m sure that it means something in me is being torn out and rehabbed.

Works for me!

I’m a work in progress, any day.