If you thought I seemed overwrought in Grief Lives in my Basement, wowza, the cumulative impact of the last 20 months has left me emotionally stalled at the intersection of euphoria and decision-fatigue. 

Regular readers will know the story.* In August 2021, in my gazebo, fuelled by perhaps too much wine, and with the encouragement of two similarly boozed-up housing developer friends, I cooked up a plan to reduce my footprint, move without moving, create a unit of housing, and earn some rental income from my house.

Chandlerville, the laneway suite, is the physical manifestation of my new life: a beautiful yet functional kitchen; yard for contemplation and entertaining; plug-in for my car; an office to work from home; and spaces to inspire creativity for wherever my writing takes me. With an occupancy permit issued 10 days ago, I’ve begun moving my favourite and essential things across the yard, marvelling as I do so about how well my new house meets my needs. I am truly delighted and to anyone who’ll listen, regularly extol the virtues of the builder, Angelo Carnevale at CCS Construction Group, his wife, Nancy, Hern, the onsite super, Giovanna, the project manager, and the rest of the capable and accommodating CCS team and subcontractors.    

I have made thousands of decisions related to achieving Chandlerville. Some days, it’s felt like some unknown enemy threw all its question-weapons at me at once: an easy one like “should there be a dimmer on the kitchen fixture" might be lobbed at me. At the same time, though bigger decisions like: “will I unfurnish my house for rental?” bored a hole through my chest. All the while, “which financial instrument shall I cash to pay the next contractor’s instalment” sat like a land mine in my gut ready to explode. It’s required rapid mental gymnastics. Is this permanent or can I change it later? Do I really care about this? Is there a financial component to it? Is it an aesthetic decision? And that’s on top of the daily decisions we all make like what to have for breakfast and which route to travel to work. 

Wikipedia describes decision fatigue as the tendency for peoples’ decision making to become impaired as a result of having recently made multiple decisions. In addition to reducing the quality of decisions, decision fatigue can result in decision paralysis - a failure to make any decision at all. I was fascinated to learn that many high-powered leaders like Barak Obama and Steve Jobs reduced their clothing choices to one or two to preserve their decision-making power for the important ones. 

I’m not likening myself in any way to these two, but choice has always overwhelmed me. I have eaten the egg on toast for breakfast nearly every day throughout my life. I prefer small grocery stores so I don’t have to choose between multiple kinds of rice. I maintain only one streaming service. Every few months, I order the same jeans from the same company, just in varying colours.  You get the idea. 

After 20 months of this process, I’m very happy and equally done in.  I feel certain Chandlerville is equipped with an outlet to charge my personal decision-maker.  Until I’m fully recharged, I will limit myself to choosing between friends to entertain in my gazebo and what colour wine to serve. 

Now, please, enjoy some photos of the near-final laneway suite. Choosing them has been hell! :-) 

* Read more about Chandlerville - Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5, and Part 6.

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