Monday, November 26, 2007

Even on Satanday, good things can happen

Well, Satanday was going about as usual, which is to say, badly. I’m picking up the Denizens and damn it, Danger Mouse is AWOL. So I got looking for her, and can’t find her, and now I’m getting worried, so I’m charging around looking for her, and I break a nail on a heavy bathroom door when a hyperactive third grader kicked it open from inside as I was reaching for the door handle.

I have acrylic nails, so breaking one is not as simple as breaking real ones. It takes a lot more to break one, but boy howdy, when you do?

Owies.

So when I got home I went In Search Of…nail clippers. You laugh, but we are still mid-project and something like nail clippers can rank right up there with Atlantis on the findability scale.

While digging in a likely looking backpack, I found…THE CAMERA!!!!

{Happy dance}

SO! The following picture-heavy post is brought to you by Satan, who was trying to ruin my life but failed due to the power of Serendipity.

Now, I have to say right up front: We’re still in progress. It looks like a clutter nightmare right now…more than half of what is currently on these shelves is coming down over the next few days weeks to be replaced with actual books.

That said, here’s the bookcase!

Bookcase

But wait…there’s more! (Note that the bedroom door is actually standing all the way open!)

Over the door

And my desk:

Desk!

Oh looky! The Carpet Formerly Known As White is gone! And now we have this!!

Walnut!

Oh, why did the bathroom fixtures need replacing?

YUCK!

And what did we put in? (At ridiculous expense, I might add – turns out that the folks who built this bathroom assumed that their brass-plated fixtures would never in a million years need replacing – we had to cut a hole in the synthetic marble to get at them!) (Also, these “roman style” tub faucets are just plain expensive – ouch!)

American Standard

Now, this might be a little hard to see…we had the synthetic marble “painted” white. It isn’t paint-paint, but it isn’t anything much hardier either. If you’re sensing a certain level of “eh”, you’re right – I’m not really feeling the love for this refinishing. It feels kind of sub-level to me. But then, we paid about 20% of what we would have paid to replace it soooooo…you get what you pay for. We figure we’ll leave it alone for now and replace it “eventually”. Which may rhyme with “never”, because sometimes I feel like that is how long it will take to pay all this off.

Bathroom counter

Yes. We’re painting those oak cabinets. I put the unpainted drawers in for contrast – you can see why we’re painting them?! Or maybe not…well, if you were actually standing in front of them, you’d see it. Scarred up, faded in random streaks, the gloss gone in most spots but alas not ALL of them (either way would be fine, but partly one and partly the other was not good).

We replaced the carpet in the bathroom with this tile; I always hated that carpet, and when we pulled it up and found mold under it I felt vindicated for years worth of snarking about it.

Egyptian Beige

I am loving all this; even more, I am loving how it is starting to all come together. Every day, even on the days when it doesn’t feel like it, we’re making progress on All This. This weekend, I finally got my filing system put together, and the stuff that has been needing filing put away.

Where it goes. Where I’ll have a chance (however remote) of finding it again when I need it.

Every day one more box gets unloaded, the contents put not ‘wherever they will fit’ but ‘where they belong’. Soon, the space currently known as The Future Home of a Knitting / Reading / Spinning nook will actually be…home.

Future Home

I can’t wait.

(p.s., that is not a basket of intestines - it is the crap sliver, which I am using to make yarn-like substance, like this:
yarn someday

5 comments:

Lisa T said...

Looks amazing, am highly envious.

Query, did you ever find those nail clippers?

PipneyJane said...

Hey, yes, did you find the nail clippers? I was too busy admiring your Californian Closets to remember about them until Lisa reminded me.

When we were in Montreal two weeks ago, I kept going passed a Californian Closets display and wondered how yours turned out. Is it still love at first shelf?

- Pam

Very Herodotus said...

The most wonderful thing about roman-style handles is that you can shut the water off in the tub with your toes, while barely moving the rest of your body from the water. You'd have to have some serious tree-climbers to do that with your old faucet!

So glad you found your camera!!

Rena said...

Yay! Looks wonderful. But stop making cracks about "clutter." It's the only thing holding up the walls of my 1200 sq.ft.house!

MadMad said...

Oh, wow! Everything looks AWESOME! I love the shelves!