Randomness

Looking through the house pix, I just came across this hilarious shot.



This is the result when we were tiling the bathroom and poor Jeff had to take a barcode sticker off about 2/3 of the tiles we used.

Really lame. I know why the stores have to do it, but BLECH.

Windows and shelving

Lots more done in a relatively short time. The guys at KC Deck Builders finished up with everything, and we're very pleased with the results. The new windows are in, and look like they've always been here.



The dining room looks vastly bigger. Unbelievable what a difference it makes to have light coming in this north face.




Ditto on the bedroom upstairs, which we're turning into a library/sitting room.



And from outside, everything lines up and looks just fine. It won't win any design awards on this face, but it's not terrible. Another window in the kitchen will help to balance things a bit.

Today I finished trimming out the tops of the porch posts with details to give them a bit more weight.



Meanwhile, Jeff finished up the painting on the new shelves in the master bedroom closet. While the closet's a good size, its depth was totally wasted before with nothing but a set of bars and a shelf at the back. Like that, it might as well have just been hanger-deep.



These new open shelves are going to provide a huge amount of storage. Living with our clothes in the weird shelves between the dining room and living room have sold me on this kind of storage. You can see everything and get to it easily, since the piles can't get too tall and disorganized.

Next, back to scraping popcorn -- this time in the library. Blech.

Big changes out front

These past few days have seen some monumental evolution on the front of the house.

Our beloved, amazing Myriam was in town Friday and Saturday -- and her visit coincided with the new doors going in up front.



Yes, that's right. This house finally has a front door.



Seen from inside. We splurged on the Pella fiberglass with a custom three-pane top panel, and couldn't be happier. It's very attractive, and the guys from KC Deck Builders did an absolutely perfect job installing it.



As they did on the upstairs window-to-door replacements.



We finally have the elevated porch to sit outside -- with a railing that keeps the cats from being bad and running away.



Jeff painted the new siding to match the semi-gross grey color that was already here. We'll fix that eventually, but it looks finished now at least.

Next, the new windows on the north side of the house go in. This is going to be an incredible change.

Prepping the dining room

Beastly hot here, making us feel not quite so motivated. However, we're anticipating the installation of the new doors and moving the old windows soon, so it's time to clear out the dining room to make way.



First, the dry bar in the corner goes. Lucky for us, it wasn't attached in any way at all, save for the Romex simply poking out of a hole in the wall, through another hole in the wall of the bar, and into a (non-attached, of course) junction/outlet box inside. Grr. Oh well -- the circuit's exactly where we'll want a wall outlet, so it'll be easy to repurpose. The cabinets against the wall were pretty easy to remove, too, and the blank wall is ready for its new window.



Best of all, our friend Brigid (another Weatherby Laker in fact) has a great use for the bar, and reports it works very well where she installed it after picking it up this morning. We love to give things a new life instead of throwing them out.

Speaking of repurposing, the new grading in the backyard left an enormous step down from the deck without a use. So I cut it into two pieces, which I attached at a right angle to each other. Then I took the leftovers cut off from the top of the front-porch support posts to create new legs -- and we have a really swell new bench on the back deck, which will give us great party seating. Best of all was the cost: Sweat and sweat alone. Even the screws were leftovers from another project.



And speaking of the back deck, the portland cement dried and I filled in that nasty window well. All you see now is as it should have always been: Heavy clay left over from digging out the posts on the front porch.




Back to the dining room for a moment: I'd measured when we moved in and determined the china cabinet wouldn't fit under the soffit on the east wall -- the most logical position for the furniture in the room. So instead, we'd planned on parking it on the west wall, where it would work, but wouldn't be the most elegant solution. Well, after some exploratory drywall chopping revealed the bad news that we couldn't get rid of the soffit (darned ductwork in the way), Jeff asked me to measure again, because he thought the cabinet would fit underneath.



I was wrong. He was right. It fits and actually looks great (and will be much better post-popcorn).

Tomorrow night the library upstairs gets cleared out and perhaps the beginnings of de-popcorning.

Oh, and here's a picture of Tequila being weird.