… that the bedroom in Ye Olde Wreck has come a long, long way. I moved into it Friday and after two nights of rigorous testing, I can also state categorically: IT WORKS!
Category: Home improvement
At least I think I did. Hope I did. It’s a very slow-moving bullet, however. It’s a government bullet, and it might still be out there waiting to strike. Not government as in feds battering down my front door. Just government as in bureaucrats at the county, the kind we all have to deal with now and then. It’s a dirty little tale. Literally. Involving a septic tank. My house, Ye Olde Wreck, shares a septic system with the house next door. An odd arrangement no modern bureaucrat would approve. But at the time (1970s, maybe earlier) it was an…
Danm, that felt great. I’ve just sat down to rest after 24 hours of mad housework. I cleared about half the construction disarray, then scrubbed, swept and dusted. (Okay, I got a few hours sleep in there, too; but it was still a marathon.) You have no idea how feeeelthy a house can get after six weeks of drywalling (even with all the work being done in a back room) and an even longer time of cutting up 2x4s, shims, and trim with a chop saw that has no good place to operate. The saw’s been in the living room…
The past week I’ve been staggering between working on the new bedroom and editing the book Kit Perez and I are writing. The manuscript went to Kit yesterday for her comments and revisions. It will probably go back and forth a few more times, but for now it’s out of my hands. Yay! The bedroom project has turned from grueling into fun. I’ve reached the finishing stages, where work can be done a relaxing hour at a time, and where each hour produces more aesthetic improvement than entire weeks did not long ago. Even though it’s not done, time to…
How’s that for a blog title? Sounds like one of those avant garde 1960s plays, doesn’t it? (The Persecution and Assassination of Jean-Paul Marat as Performed by the Inmates of the Asylum of Charenton Under the Direction of the Marquis de Sade — that sort of thing.) Actually, it’s the plain, mundane, and muddy fact of the day. Just now, I was sitting in the bedroom-to-be, sipping a cup of sweet tea, kicking back in a bentwood rocker (maybe I should add that to the title), inspecting/admiring/critiquing the wall I taped and plastered this morning. And it occurred to me…
I felt churlish yesterday after venting at The Wandering Monk. I was in one of those “it’s my blog and I’ll rant if I want to” moods. Not great moments for wisdom or discretion. It turned out the Monk’s issue was seasonal depression compounded by a tragedy he associates with this time of year. The tragedy was years ago, but of the kind that alters life forever. Then — you know how it goes if you’re a depressive — the funk of idleness he fell into fed on itself. Every day he was unmotivated led to more inertia. Which led…
[venting] Nine-ish today, he said. The Wandering Monk was coming to repair the floor so I could finish the bedroom project. He knew my neighbor also needed advance notice so we could collect stored flooring from her. I have been busting my buns for days to be ready for him. Neighbor J. left her garage unlocked for us. At 9:30 I texted him. 10:00: Sorry. Forgot. No word on whether he ever planned to show again. So are you going to be here today or have you quit? Tomorrow. I texted him back to say those materials were coming out…
Still have to put on the baseboard molding (tonight, maybe) and clean up the mess, but other than that the inside of the bedroom closet is now Officially Done. Nifty, eh? That’s a Rubbermaid Configurations organizer for 3-6-foot closets from Home Depot. Reviewers praise them and it was certainly easy to install and seems sturdy. But I’m not giving it my full v*te of confidence until I see how well it bears weight. The Chinese cabinet and Indian wall hanging I picked up at a storage-unit sale a couple of weeks ago. They give the closet a nice touch of…
… but to me, it’s a project nearing completion. Besides, it’s actually two closets. And it’s what you get when you have a long hallway left over after your plans have been repeatedly unplanned by reality. Here I’m standing at the back of the second (utility) closet, looking into the nicer clothes-closet-to-be. The clothes closet portion has a tongue-and-groove wood ceiling, which I installed yesterday (a pleasant job, for a change). And it will have proper baseboard and crown moldings. Here I’m standing in the clothes area looking back into the utility closet. Befitting a utility closet, it’s much more…
Funny thing, human psychology. I wrote Monday night that my bedroom renovation project had begun to feel like purgatory. So I gave myself permission to take a break from the project yesterday … which naturally made me feel good about working on it again. Got a fair bit done. By next week I’ll have reached the point where I’ll need The Wandering Monk’s assistance again (to replace sections of bad flooring, mostly). But I’m afraid the Monk may have finally wandered. Oh, not wandered from the area; he bought a house a year ago, so he won’t be leaving for…