Update February 26

Oh my! It's been forever since I wrote! The incremental progress we've been making is so small, it doesn't seem to merit a blog anymore, but for those of you who still care, this is for you :o)

We took the old wooden shelving in the guest closet and converted it to new shelving with much more storage. It's a double door closet, so on one side, there are now two levels of hanging for shirts, and on the left there is a hanging area for longer items. It's a bit jury-rigged, and I've seen prettier work--we call it "slightly better than Gomey-table construction". (Tangent story--I hated that my dog had to sit in the rain or direct sun sometimes, so Rich built him a quick and dirty platform table out of two-by-fours and some plywood to hide under--I don't think one corner was straight and after being in the weather for a couple of years, it fell apart--and Gomez didn't even like it!!) So we're not necessarily saying it's high-quality. BUT-- somehow, it doubles the space, which is good, because we needed to move all of Rich's clothes out of the office closet so we could work on that next.

In the office closet, we took out the doors entirely and reused them as shelves, along with other shelving from the other closet, and put up rows and rows of shelves for office boxes, supplies, etc. Other than needing paint, it looks okay, and is sturdy on cleats along the back wall. It is SO much more organized now . . . that part is quite lovely. I went to JoAnn's fabrics for their President's Day sale and a 10% off everything coupon and found a nice rough woven fabric (softer than burlap, but no, I wouldn't want clothing out of this stuff) to hang over the closet opening--for basically 60% off. The threads are a lavender and a peach, when woven together almost look rusty, which works perfectly with a painting on the wall that we love from Rich's dad, the rust-colored Spatz chair, and an animation cel of Mickey Mouse in Fantasia.

The "curtain" over the opening still needs to sewn and hemmed and cut properly, but the semblance is there for now, clipped and hung, until I have time or the inclination to figure out the detailed directions Barbara went to ALL the trouble of writing down for me with the sewing machine; seeing as I sew about once every 5 years, and therefore forget how to thread the cotten-pickin' thing. It's actually an absolute MIRACLE that someone designed a sewing machine at all . . . I think people forget how amazing it truly is! Through this hole, up and around this thingamabobby, back behind this loop, over the river, through the woods, and out a manhole cover . . . who DOES this?

Anyway, the curtains are now unfinished project #89 in a sea of more than one hundred . . . but it'll do for now. It adds to the character of the rest of the house . . . Neo Unfinished.

The edge-banding trim for the kitchen counters is taking way longer than expected. To do it right, I sanded between the first few coats, and now I think I'm on coat number 6--and it's a bit too red, so we're trying to figure out what to do about that part now. So it's still not up yet. But it will look amazing when it's done!

I got a new coat of paint onto the ceiling and walls of the guest bath. It's now a slightly less gray blue, and now has crisp edges, and has a mildew-resistant chemical in it. To save paint, I didn't roll it--I used a drag edger pad instead, which I thought looked fine. Rich isn't all that happy that you can see a faint pattern on the walls now instead of roller marks. It'll be up to him to fix it. :o) The only area that still needs paint attention is over the tub, where I had used pure silicone caulk between the tile and wall because I thought I was done painting. Did you know latex paint doesn't stick to silicone caulk? I did . . . and then forgot when I decided to change the color a bit. So I'll still have to go through there and work on getting it to look less like blue orange peel.

And while I've been at camp, er, I mean working, Rich got a wild hair last week and starting building the main storage closet we need in the dance hall. It's a roughly square room in the left-hand corner of the dance hall now when you first walk through the 15 light glass door in back. There will be a coat closet area immediately to your left (and we have a spare door thanks to B&L--friends!) and then as you walk around, you'll find a deep storage closet big enough to house the extra fridge and as much crap as we can throw in there. As we walked through the floorplan beforehand, we realized that we really needed to install a pocket door there, which disappointed me, because it was going to postpone the project. But when I got back from showing houses, Rich had built the entire first part of the structure, and had found a pocket door kit at Lowe's for even cheaper than we had found online! It looks fantastic! Now we want to install pocket doors everywhere! He said it was crazy easy. Sweat and sawdust all over his body . . . he was grinning. Pig in slop.

Talking with builders, I found that most hate pocket doors because they don't align very well. I also discovered that the door cannot be a luan door. It HAS to be a solid wood or glass construction, because a lightweight luan door will warp, which causes binding on the tracks. Every house I've seen that a builder hated the pocket door happened to also have luan doors. You'd think they would figure that part out? In old houses that I've shown, the best pocket doors were ones with heavy solid doors. Luckily, we have one already!

That door has been in storage and we're planning on using in it--it's an old salvage 15-light door that I got from a short-sale client trying to get rid of the doors entirely. I took them off their hands and now we'll finally get to use one after storing them at Bedford and then a storage garage for 3 years. The door itself is probably 80-90 years old with the glass knob. Very cool.

Using salvage pieces take time, apparently. I have a couple of old wrought-iron sewing machine tables I want to use someday. If I'm using this time-table, I guess I should find a use for them within the year or so.