Office Makeover

I really should have taken a picture of the office before we started rearranging things. It was packed FULL of stuff. Boxes everywhere. All kinds of stuff crammed onto shelves. Couldn’t hardly see the floor except for a small path through the room. A total disaster.

I packed stuff up and Jonathan helped me carry it out. We took everything out but the computer table and a couple of bookshelves. We put them on one side of the room while Jonathan shampooed the carpet on the other side, then he moved the furniture to the clean side, and shampooed the carpet that was still dirty.

Then he put my computer back together. He did a really neat job with bundling the wires up so they weren’t a mess of spaghetti everywhere.

And that's the status my office has been since before Jess had his knee surgery.

This is what you see when you first walk into the room. There's a built-in closet to the left not shown in the picture. The black metal strips up against the couch are the tracks for the new bookshelves.

This is the end of the office, the wall "facing" the back yard. That's the parrot's play door by the windows. She was always walking in to see what I was doing and getting into trouble because there was no where for her to perch and play. Jess told the old door from the bathroom - we put up a new one when we remodeled it - and made this play center. Cool, huh?

And here's the computer desk area. The door is in front of it, along the same wall, and the white directly in front are the doors to the built-in closet.

I’ve been trying to decide if I like this arrangement. Well, actually, I didn’t. I hated it. It just seems a long walk around to finally get to sit down at the desk. It's not as simple to just walk in a few steps and check my email as it was before.

However, I’ve tried and tried to rearrange the furnishings on the graph I made of the room, and there is no way to change the arrangement and keep everything in there that is now in the room. So I’m just going to have to learn to like it.

That being the case, the next step is to get some shelves on the wall over top of the couch. We bought the tracks and brackets at Lowe’s yesterday, but still have to buy the boards. I also need to fix the 2 free-standing bookshelves along the back wall.

Then I need to start bringing stuff back in. That’s going to be much more difficult than it was taking it out - and that took 2 or 3 days - because I need to arrange it in some semblance of order as I put it back. Neatly.

This is going to take a while.

Of stain, a baby & fireworks!

Jonathan and I actually got with the program Sunday afternoon and stained the door and trim for the bathroom. It was a major project, not because it took so long to stain everything – it didn’t – but because we had an awful time trying to get the stain to match the existing woodwork. It’s got a “Honey Spice” stain, which has just a hint of red in it, so no matter how much we darkened the natural stain with the “Golden Oak”, it wasn’t going to look just quite the same.

Finally I remembered I’d used a cherry colored stain for the aviary in our living room, and ferreted out a can of it in the basement. After several tries of mixing the three shades, we finally got something that looked close to the same color as the cupboards.

While we were working on that, Jess went down to Huntsville to see Jason and the new baby, before heading to church.

Meet Sara Beth King, born May 28th, 2008.

He visited with the three of them for a while, and snapped a bunch of pictures.

Jason and Katie Sharp

Then he headed back up to FRBC for the big 4th of July celebration. They had all kinds of food and games and a HUGE fireworks display.

It was pretty late by the time Jess made it home from all his frivolities.

We all had a full day of activities!

Taking a break!

It’s been a busy, busy week. Remodeling is high-energy time-consuming stuff, especially when things don’t go according to plan due to problems. And when do you ever do a project without any problems?

Today after we finished painting, Jonathan and I were trying to scrape linoleum backing off the floor. One section was resistant to parting from the wood it’s clung to for so long. After working a while, then checking out the rest of the flooring, I told Jonathan we’d cease and desist until Jess got home and gave us a second opinion.

I felt like the particle board needed torn out and replaced. There are two sections, and the one in the back that borders the bottom of the tub and where the commode sits was black with mildew. NASTY. There were also a couple of breaks in the board, and a broken piece around the heating vent.

When Jess got a look at it, he concurred. Tomorrow we rip out the flooring and put new stuff down. We had hoped to get by with just putting finish board on top but no such luck.

This is the guy’s job. I feel sorry for Jess though, because he’s feeling bad. I’m afraid it sounds a lot like how I felt last week. I was thinking I probably ate something in one of the airports or some such on the way home from Canada. Maybe it was some kind of bug. I hope the two aren’t related, because it took me a week to get better.

Jess is taking off work tomorrow, and we’re hoping to get the bathroom, well, probably not totally finished, but at least to where we can use it again.

Sticker Shock!

Okay, I finally did it! After weeks - months even! - of thinking about it and researching, I went to town today and ordered a bunch of stuff for remodeling the bathroom.

Ouch. In more ways that one.

I drove down to Huntsville. That wasn’t so bad. It’s driving back after I’m exhausted that’s a killer! Anyway, I stopped at UPS on the way down to drop off a couple of boxes with some return items, then stopped at Foods for Life to pick up a couple of things. By then it was almost time for Jonathan to be off work, so I met him there.

We hopped in his car and he drove over to Park Supply Company. I didn’t know they existed until I was looking for a particular brand of toilet and looked to see who carried them in our area and up popped their name. Wouldn’t you know, when I told Jess about it, he knew exactly where they were, as he used to go over there and pick up some parts when Shelby Construction needed them. However, he never went in the showroom and had no idea they had all the residential kind of stuff.

And they had a huge selection. I was intrigued with the toilets that had lids which popped open when you walked by, and slowly closed a while later. Jonathan wanted to know what a "washlet" was, and when I told him it was sort of like a bidet, he did a great Crocodile Dundee impression, "It's for washing your backside, right!?"

However, I already knew what I wanted, and those were a little more uptown than our budget would allow. Once we’d looked around and ascertained they didn’t have anything else we wanted, I asked one of the sales reps how much that model toilet was.

She started going down the list of height, seat shape, etc. As fast as she asked a question I lobbed back an answer. She told me the price, I said, “I’ll take it.” Her mouth dropped open, and she said, “Well, that was easy!” I just laughed and told her I’d already done my research and knew what I wanted before I got to the store.

Then she surprised me (and herself) by discovering they had one exactly like I wanted in stock. I figured since we were ordering a gray colored one, we’d have to special order it, but she said they’d got several in so they could show customers what the color looked like. Well, we didn’t drive the truck because we didn’t expect to take it home with us, so Jess will have to go back and pick it up sometime.

From there we went to Home Depot and looked at base cabinets for a vanity in the bathroom, and for a valet cabinet to put over the toilet. They didn’t have a counter/sink top like I wanted, so we decided we’d head on up to Lowe’s and see what they had before buying anything at Home Depot.

We ended up ordering oak - a base cabinet for a vanity, a cupboard for over the toilet – in a light colored stain, and a one-piece cultured marble top with recessed sink in a gray and white swirl pattern.

Of course, even though I knew about what it was going to cost, by the time they tacked on taxes, I had severe sticker shock when I checked out. Ouch.

And by that time, my body was in full-blown rebellion. BIG OUCH!!!

On the bright side, Jess stopped on the way home from work – he was headed home before we were! - and picked up some KFC for supper. And he didn’t bat an eye when I told him how much I spent today. He just shrugged and said, “Well, we knew it was going to be expensive.”

Hopefully, it all goes together well. It’s so difficult to tell from those little bitty samples. Whatever it looks like, we’re gonna be stuck with it for a long, long time!

Three Week Countdown!

Guess what folks!?? I looked at the calendar today, and noticed that not only is it the first day of spring, but it's only THREE WEEKS until I go to Canada!

ALL RIGHT!!!

I'd better be thinking of what I need to take, but maybe I've got a while yet to worry about that.

In the meantime, I'm making out a plan for that blasted bathroom that is still waiting to be remodeled. We've got a list now of what needs done and the order in which we need to do it.

I already know what we need to buy. We went down to Huntsville last Saturday to order a vanity, and couldn't decide which color or model for sure, and couldn't get anyone to wait on us and answer questions so we could make a final decision. Both stores we visited were a madhouse. We finally gave it up and went home.

We can't buy just anything that appeals to us and stick in there. We are limited by space, fitting it under the present medicine cabinet, getting a color that doesn't totally clash with the gold colored tub and a few other considerations. Nothing's simple.

I'm giving serious thought to riding down to Huntsville with Jonathan when he goes to work tomorrow afternoon, and going to the stores again when they hopefully won't be so busy, and get this DONE.

Some people may enjoy this, but to me, there's NOTHING easy about remodeling.