Uncluttered holiday decor suits trailer
Designer Jackie Glass should have known better than to tempt the gods of renovation back on a sunny afternoon in August.
Referring to work being done to a 2,000-square-foot bungalow on the 5.3-hectare Niagara Escarpment “dream property” she bought last year, Glass confidently asserted that she and her husband Barry Harris would be moved in by early fall.
“Unless,” she added, “something doesn’t go according to plan.”
Those were famous last words, given that a snafu with the glass for the black aluminum windows she ordered and which were central to her design, held up the reno by several weeks.
“That was a big setback. The whole house is about views. Without glass, you can’t heat it or put flooring in,” she explains. “On the other hand, nobody died, so it’s not a catastrophe.”
The slowdown did, however, mean that by mid-November, the couple was still living out of the trailer set up on the property as temporary accommodation.
We featured the sleek reno of the 1970s-era trailer this past summer.
In an if-life-gives-you-lemons-make-lemonade moment, the relentlessly cheerful Glass was inspired to decorate the trailer for the holidays, thinking “it would be a great chance to show off some stylish, small-space decor ideas that don’t clutter.”
The fun she had with holiday decor aside, protracted time in the trailer “has been a blessing,” Glass says.
“I’ve learned I don’t need as many things as I thought I did. I won’t be filling my new house with ‘stuff’ and I hope my family will be the beneficiaries of that.”
While the experience has been self-actualizing, Glass is relieved it will soon be over, in part because when the ground freezes she won’t have water in the trailer.
She’s optimistic, though, that she and Harris will be in their new home before the holidays. “Oh for sure,” Glass says. “We’ll be in (before Christmas). Absolutely! Well — absolutely and all being well,” she says with another laugh.