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28 March 2007
Bowing to the Inevitable
 Isn't the "flower sheep" adorable? He's from Hobby Lobby. My mother crocheted the scarf that is on the table. Bunnies and lambs frolic before the spring bouquet which are in a little juice glass, just as if someone gathered them outside the door and needed a quick container.  Labels: spring  18 March 2007
Project Library, Part 4
Well, it's not finished, but I'd say it's over eighty-five percent done.We assembled the other four bookshelves and put them in place. Then James went upstairs to deal with some kitchen projects and I spent about three hours reshelving books. I haven't had such a good time doing hard work in a long time. The history books now have their own bookcase. I want to organize the books by subject at some point, all World War II homefront books together, all Victorian/Edwardian books together, general American or British histories together. The linguistics books are taking up half a bookcase. At the top of that one we also have our "art" books: Escher, Kincaid, Rockwell, and the Taaschen advertisement books. The organizational books and our photos are now in one of the "cap" bookcases on the end. One bookcase is actually almost empty, which I find enjoyable. Room for more! I have magazines in magazine holders and a few books (Roman albums for Star Blazers and Blake's 7 annuals) at the bottom. I'm going to sort through the magazines and bring all the decorating ones to work, just leaving the Reminisce issues and Best of British. I've found my "decorating style" and don't need them any longer. One bookcase has now enabled me to separate the regular novels from the science fiction and fantasy novels—and there's room for James' Tom Clancy collection, too. I've spread out my children's book collection in a rather higgilty-piggilty fashion in the second bookcase. All the "Little House" books are together at last. The "cap" bookcase here holds all the American Girl books and underneath my copies of the Junior Classics and my books about children's books, like Gillian Avery's Behold the Child and also Where the Heather Grows, and the St. Nicholas anthologies, a Youths Companion sampler, and a book about The Brownies Book. Last finished was the wall between the entry door and the bathroom. I have put one of my grandmother's kitchen chairs under the light switch, replacing the small bookcase that held the magazines and some computer books, with the computer desk we bought for the old computer next to it. But we erred when we bought that desk; it's too bulky and looks out of place. When we get a chance we are probably going to replace it. The small bookcase is now on the other side of the computer desk, under two magnetic bulletin boards James mounted on the wall. There are still some computer books in it and part of our collection of Backwoods Home. Still need to figure out what to do with the Starlog issues. And of course, now we need the other shelves. But they're all up. Yay!!! Labels: books, bookshelves, library 17 March 2007
Project Library, Part 3
Two more down.Friday afternoon I phoned Ikea, and the extra shelves that we needed for the pair of bookcases we had earmarked for the paperbacks were not back in stock yet. Things that are out of stock for a while like that make me nervous, especially when you have begun a project in a certain color and are going to keep needing that color until you finish. What if the beech-color bookcases were on their way out? It would look terrible if we had to buy the four other bookcases in another color. I phoned James and asked him if he wanted to have supper at Ikea. So it was chicken marsala again before going downstairs and picking up the remainder of the bookcases. One is not really expensive. Four are a bit of sticker shock. But now we're done buying bookcases. Having nowhere to put them last night, we just stacked everything in the hall. Tonight, after supper, we did the two paperback bookcases, even if we didn't have the shelves. What happened is I "cannibalized" two of the shelves meant for James' paperback bookcase for mine. Mine are now all out of the smaller bookcase I built and re-shelved. James used the two shelves that were left and shelved books he had left in one Xerox paper box and some fiction novels that he had finished that were upstairs. The rest can stay in the other set of bookshelves that I built that are in the "bay" between bookcases for now, and we'll keep watching Ikea. If it gets to the point that they don't get the beech-finish extra shelves in and we get fed up, we can always buy birch shelves, which are just a shade off. Since the shelving will be in the back, it won't be that noticable. It was after ten when we finished, so we figured we will do the rest tomorrow. We also re-hung the wire shelving in the garage that collapsed, recounted in the March 7 post. We added more hooks, including installing a couple upside down so the shelf couldn't pop up and out. We also distributed the weight of the boxes a bit better. Hope that works out. Labels: books, bookshelves, Ikea, storage 07 March 2007
Bother...
About quarter to two last night I was woken up by what sounded like an explosion or thunder in the distance and Willow broke out into a salvo of barks. James slept through it, but I called him, and we got up to see if anything was wrong, but it all looked okay.Well, until James went in the garage this morning. The shelf in there had collapsed. We had put all the supports into studs except for one, where we used the wall anchor. That had pulled out of the wall and all the supports bent and dumped all the boxes down. The box of dead computer parts had fallen against the side of the truck and left a mark. Blast. Labels: storage 04 March 2007
Shelf Life
It was time to do something with all those shelves we had bought and today was the day.James placed the big shelf we bought at Lowe's yesterday in the garage over the ladder and then stocked it with the plastic storage boxes that were taking up the middle of his hobby room. There is still room on the shelf and for now we have placed there as well a box of old computer parts we are saving for electronics recycling day. I also cleared off some shelves by rearranging the things on them on another set of shelves. I wanted James to bring some of our emergency water bottles out to the garage. These will be for flushing toilets, etc. if something happens to the water, and we can reaccumulate more jugs of drinking water in the downstairs bathtub now. I had to pull out some things so he could get to the area where he'd be mounting the shelves, so I swept out that corner while it was empty and then sprayed with Ortho. What was in the corner is my bicycle and the lawn mower, both which were grimy from being in the old shed. I rinsed them off with the hose and let them dry in the sun and breeze, as it was quite windy and cool today—great for working in the garage! They were whining on the news about how it was sunny but chilly; oh, get over it already. First they talk about global warming and then they whine if it's cold in the winter like it's supposed to be. When we finished in the garage, up went the short shelf in the "holiday closet." Then we came up and installed one of the 3-foot Closet Maid shelves in the bathroom over the organizer that is over the toilet. I will be keeping the other set of towels up there instead of using a drawer for them and they will help absorb the echo in the bathroom while freeing up the drawer. I also hung a cute print of a bathroom sink and towels/accessories in blue, brown, and green in a square frame over the bath towel racks. The final wire shelf went in our own closet and cleared the floor a lot, especially when I also put all the suitcases up on another shelf rather than being on the floor. It's not like we need them that often! Several weeks ago I bought two small shelves at Ikea for $2 each. (I tried to find them on the Ikea site to link here but don't seem to find them.) They were with the kitchen things and labeled as spice or canister racks, I think, about 28 inches long and 8 inches deep, a nice solid light wood with a lip on the back with two holes pre-drilled in them so you could just mount them on the wall without using hooks or supports. Instead of placing them in the kitchen we put them up in a staggered pattern on the empty wall between the bedroom door and the chifforobe and filled them with a few stuffed animals (a stuffed collie puppy, a dragon named "Bertie," and a little fluffy brown-and-white terrier dog) and a little "Love" mug James gave me one Valentines Day with a stuffed dog in it and a tin TARDIS bank featuring Peter Davison. The last things I wanted to do was mount some hardware I bought at Ikea. In my craft room, to hold recycled vegetable cans that are filled with scissors, pliers, pens and things, I have a Bygel rail and Bygel cutlery caddy and a Bygel wire basket hanging behind the door. I bought a second set of all this stuff because the cans were too crowded and I needed more room. At least I thought I bought them; I went into the bedroom and a bag with them wasn't there, nor anywhere in the house. Puzzling. I also thought I bought another magnetic rail for the coupons, too, but couldn't find that, either. Hmn. Labels: crafts, decorating, storage |
