The day I’ve been waiting for has come! Fancy Pants finally started laying eggs again! That took a while.
No longer Miss Broody! I love her ombré eggs.
No, that’s actually not the big news. It’s that I am able to put things in my new office. Chris said so!
Ooh. Ahh. The rug in the back left blends in a bit much, so I may change it out.
The rug for my floor magically showed up, so Lee and I spread it out. Hmm. It’s blue. No idea why I bought that rug, but the color goes nicely with the ceiling and the wall decor thing.
Looking out. The window will have stained glass hanging in it. The bathroom contains the bookshelf that I’ll build this weekend.
The pole thing shows where my desk will go, approximately. The desk has made it to the Pope house, but isn’t put together yet. I’m not sure if we’ve ordered the glass for it yet.
The window in this picture will be frosted to let in light but have privacy.
It looks like this weekend I’ll move more stuff in, though I’ll have to stay at the other office until we can officially occupy the building. The stair rail is almost done, too!
My favorite view, where you can see the ceiling. Picture the little stove over by the mantel, a chair in the corner, and my desk on the rug.
I can tell I’m getting back on a more even keel, mentally. I did a good job, for once, dealing with one of those, “It has been reported that X has happened, and if you don’t fix it, dire consequences will befall you,” conversations pretty darned well. I just asked the information-bearer to ask the person with an issue to get in touch with me, and I’ll be happy to work with them to take care of things. And I repeated that. I just don’t need third parties telling me so-and-so said this about me or that about me. I’ll happily talk to them. That’s probably not as FUN for the person in the middle to participate in, since they don’t get to lecture me in that scenario, but it sure clears up misunderstandings. (I’m sure everyone has the best of intentions; it’s just easier to communicate directly.)
Is it a clown? No, it’s Feisty Suna. Colorful!
Though I still haven’t heard from the person who needs to talk to me, I am doing my best to remedy the problem, anyway, because it’s a good thing to do. Treat others as you’d like to be treated. I mostly manage it! If you don’t let people bully you and put you down, they can’t make you feel bad, so that’s why I feel feisty. I’m just going to do my best to be strong, confident AND kind.
Before picture.
As for my office, today it’s getting a beauty makeover! We decided to put the really pretty wall hanging that looks like a quilt square made of tin, brown wood, and white wood under my mantel piece, to make it look like a unit.
It looks like it was made to go together.
After realizing there was no way to actually hang it, Chris screwed it into the mantel, and now it looks like one big, beautiful unit.
Then we went mirror shopping.
WHAT, you went out in public and SHOPPED?
No, no, we went upstairs where there are four or five different mirrors that came with the Pope Residence. We tried two of them, and one really was a winner.
On its way to goodness.
When installed, it will block the hole where the woodstove pipe used to be, so we don’t have to run a fake pipe in front of the mirror. The faux woodstove will be fine without it, since it’s electric.
I have cleaned the mirror and frame, but we are leaving it brown. There’s enough white in here now.
The other mirror we brought down is made from an old window. We are going to paint it white for Kathleen and then put it in the other bathroom instead of the tiny mirror that’s there now.
Here’s the window mirror, cleaned but not yet painted.
Oh yes, the counter top edges got dry enough to trim. That’s a manual job with a big metal file, when you don’t have a cabinet shop. But, they look good now.
I also ordered paper towel holders and a toilet paper holder, so all the bathrooms will have appropriate cleaning accessories. However, I’ll patiently wait until my office is finished to put art up. I’m so patient. Who are you kidding? I’m not, but things can only go as fast as they can go in these times.
But wait, there’s more! Here’s the stained plywood to finish the stair area. The wood looks like zebra print or something. I actually like it.
There’s a big difference between anxiety (see earlier post from today) and being anxious. For example, I’m really anxious to be able to move out of my current dungeon office at the Hermit Haus and enjoy my cozy new office over at the Pope house. That’s a good kind of anxious.
I am very tired of looking at these paneled walls, and sitting in this dim room I’ve tried to cheer up with paintings and flowers. The bird hanger will hold my purse in the new office.
I am waiting, as patiently as I can, because the floors need to be re-finished, and we couldn’t do that this week. Next week, though, baby, sanding will occur. The old floors will look really cool, and we are going to have some fantastic little touches in my office. Ooh, I’m excited, and that is helping me have something positive to focus on.
Today Chris came by the beautifully cool Pope house to pick up a very important item: the door that’s going to be the base for my new desk he’s making. While we had it downstairs, we decided to see where it will look best in the room. We first tried it lined up with the window in the center of the room, so I could walk around it from all sides. One thing that occurred to me when we did that is that when I’m in Zoom meetings, the camera will be facing the bathroom. It’s a cool bathroom, but…
You can see here how a camera pointing from the center of the desk would look into the bathroom.
It would have looked pretty good from this angle, though.
So, Chris suggested we try angling the desk. With a little shuffling around, I saw that I’d have a better view out the window, a nice view of my wood stove and interior window, and it just felt good. Plus, my computer’s camera would be looking at either the barn door and the wall, or just the wall, which will have either a bookcase with nice objects on it, or a big painting. Ahh.
Pretending to sit, I can see everything pretty, the stove, my chairs, my interior window, the door.
This is what you’ll see looking in the door. Zoom will show either that barn door or the brick it covers when shut, like it is here.
It doesn’t look too weird from this angle, either.
There’s one more decision made.
Mmm, lilacs. I assume the paint won’t smell like them.
Meanwhile, Meghan came up to us and showed us colors she’d like for her upstairs office. She wants a nice lilac color. The color she chose will look great with the dark trim that we’re leaving up there (it’s in great shape). All we have to do to get her up and running will be clean well, paint the walls, and run a 220 outlet up to the office so she can have a window air conditioner that will actually keep her cool.
Felix says that when we are ready to finish out the rest of the upstairs, it will be really easy to put in an upstairs HVAC unit in the attic. That’s for another day, though!
What’s this? We found Tubby’s sibling WITH feet in a house near the Pope house. Ooh, if we buy yet another Victorian house, we might have another project.
I hadn’t planned to do another renovation update, but then I got all excited. The office chairs that Chris and Kathleen got me for my birthday arrived, and of course I had to put the one I could find together and test-sit it.
A new chair, just crawling with flowers, just as I like it.
The color came out a little darker than we’d thought, but the red and orange will still be perfect in my new office. It certainly looks fancy in my old office!
Here you can see it matching all my stuff. It’s really comfy and short enough for short folks. Yay.
But, More!
A lot got done yesterday, so I’m going to share even though I just posted pictures yesterday. For one, all the drywall is now up, including along the future “break room” wall.
The last sheet of drywall goes up. Note that the wooden ceiling is also up, ready to be covered in tin.
The stairs are all covered up, and the old flooring removed in the new landing. This is unrecognizable as the same house!
All ready for a new floor.
The brickwork is moving forward. It’s now getting dusted and cleaned, and two of the rooms are now blocked off in preparation for sealing.
Do not enter!
All rotten wood is replaced, ready for trim.
Dusting off all the surfaces. Randy has a lot ahead of him.
Yep, it’s getting real. Shoot, we’re so close to being done that we ought to start on a new project, right?
I have been over-doing it in the decorating, lifting, toting, and moving department for the last week or two. I need to learn to do a few things, say “good progress, me,” and stop.
This is an old kitchen. But it’s less disgusting now. And our stuff is moved in
But no, once I get into a frenzy of decorating, unpacking, or moving furniture, I cannot stop until I feel like it looks to some unknown outsider like I’m finished.
That futon is another heavy object I should not have moved.
So today, despite having a sore back from lifting heavy objects the day before, not only did I completely decorate my new office in the old church building we bought, but I unpacked all the other office stuff, “cleaned” the kitchen (really made it less dirty), then rearranged all the furniture in the main room of the church building to look like a meeting area, an eating area, and a lounge area.
Why was I driven to make a little arrangement of random furniture?
I felt all justified when an unexpected visitor (the president of the bank who loans our business money a lot) showed up. It looks like people are working here, even though it is obviously an unrenovated space.
The lights don’t work in here, but maybe you can see the many chairs and tables I moved to make this arrangement. Not seen are boxes I moved OUT so it would look better.
My guess is that I am, at my core, a nester. I feel incomplete if the space I am in does not feel comfortable. Still, someoene MAKE ME STOP.
The Hermits' Rest 