Not sure if I mentioned James got his grill on Friday night. Right now it's in pieces on the deck. It simply fastens together with wing nuts, so he won't even need tools.

I have a small blue table that used to be on the front porch of the old house. I'm going to put that on the deck and use my coupons to buy two of the pseudo—they're plastic—Adirondak chairs from Linens'n'Things. My godmother had big old-fashioned Adirondak chairs under her grape arbor, where I remember spending many summer afternoons keeping cool.

Along with the grill and St. Francis, I bought a floor lamp at Home Depot. The small bedside lamp simply wasn't throwing the light we needed into the combination living/dining room and I didn't want to have the table lamp on all the time, since we're both usually reading anyway, reflecting in the television screen. The one thing I noticed about all the floor lamps is that they don't go over 100 watts, and I felt we needed one that went over that limit. (I'm usually wandering around putting smaller wattage bulbs in the overhead, so this is a big surprise.) I could have gotten a torchiere, which do go up to 150 watts, but I'm wary about having a lamp that's open at the top with a budgie flying around, since they all have that "hey, guys, watch this!" attitude. :-)

So what I ended up with was a lamp with a cantilevered joint in it; it either stands up straight or bends down (here's the Ikea version; the Home Depot version has a real lampshade instead of a plastic cylinder). It came with a three-way bulb, but instead I went out and found a clear 100 watt bulb. That provides adequate lighting for the room, unless James wants to read, and then he has a reading lamp at his side table.

Today we went to the home show at the Georgia World Congress Center. We'd quit going to these several years back because it seemed all they were selling were expensive kitchen remodeling, jacuzzi tubs, and fancy glass doors. Still plenty of those this time, but they did have other things. James and I are both much enamoured by the Little Giant Ladders, but it will have to wait.

I particularly wanted to look at the various dealers for retractable screen doors. I really want one of these, at least for the deck. (I'd prefer one for the front door, too, because the blue-grey color and the wreath looks very attractive and I'd hate to cover it up with a screen door.) These folks look to have the best value; here's a photo of how the door looks closed and open.

We came home after a stop at Lowe's. James had assembled his Enetri shelving last night; he is planning to use these open shelves to display his built-up models. If you look at the metal support that holds the wooden shelves of this unit, there is a crossbar between each shelf. I wondered aloud, since the models are so light, if he couldn't get three boards, perhaps eight or ten inches wide and three feet long, and put them on these crossbars for extra shelving to display smaller models. So we went by Lowe's and got the boards and also some foam tape (the kind that takes the drywall off). He used the foam tape on the crossbars, to secure the extra boards to them.

While he was doing this and assembling a second Enetri unit to use as storage, I mostly put together the two Billy units we bought last night (James had to help with the heavier bits, like lifting the sides). We put these back-to-back across from the two bookshelves with all his books. I put in all the shelves, including the two extra shelves for each unit, then began shelving my paperbacks. I got the nonfiction, television and movie tie-in books, science fiction and fantasy, and the few romance novels in the unit. The mysteries, young adult, and mainstream novels will have to be shelved in my old seven-shelf paperback bookcase that I made, "capping" the two large shelving units, until we expand the bookcases, but that's a while down the road. It's going to look a bit goofy, since the paperback shelf is about four inches wider than the two bookcases back to back, but we've expended enough money for now.

If James' paperbacks runneth over, he can use my other home-made paperback shelf for the interim.

The next thing I'd like to get is the china cabinet, so we can place Mom's china and the blue glasses in a proper storage space. They've been in the attic nearly forever and are now in boxes. The china pattern is vaguely autumn-y and will match everything nicely.

I can't wait until the curtains show up!

I didn't think I could ever be happy doing such domestic stuff. Thanks, Mom...

--------------------------------------
. . . . . Linda at 7:57:00 PM

Comments:

tooo coool.. bet you mom loves all you have done...I know she is watching...

# posted by  Anonymous : Mon Mar 27, 12:36:00 AM 2006

 

Post a Comment