Emptying Sewing Room

I have goofed off for long enough—time to get moving again. This week I started emptying out my sewing room with the intention of finally finishing stripping the paint in this last bedroom. But since the sewing room has been a bit of a dumping ground for the past many months, I'm having to spend many hours cleaning and sifting it before I actually start packing.

It's actually getting easier to imagine a day when we've finished stripping paint and I hope it will come before next spring.

Late last week Jeff also managed to finally re-hang the doors in the guest bedroom! Woo hoo! It only took us an extra year. 8-)  Pictures will follow soon. I actually stained the doors in September for Jeff's mother's visit, but the doors didn't make it up. Nor did they get hung for another friends visit earlier this month. Oh well, they're up now and once I finish touching up the stain and shellacking them, I'll post photos.

Period Book: Home Handicraft (1908)

As we start settling in for the winter, I figured now was a good time to take a look at a book that shows some good indoor activities. This week's book (okay, this month's book): The Good housekeeping manual of home handicraft, published in 1908 by the Good Housekeeping magazine.

This book extensively covers stenciling: how to make them, how to apply them, what paints to use, how to decorate with them, and more. If you're a fan of stencils like I am, go download this book and check it out.

They also have chapters on making handmade toys, applique, printing with wood blocks, making lamp shades, and decorating clocks. Some really interesting stuff.

But, of course, I'm most interested in the parts about stenciling. They had a chapter on curtains with some interesting designs.

Non-House Update

OK, I've now heard from three folks asking what we're up to, so I guess I'll throw in an update. I did finish shellacking the closets and we moved in the next day. We also went out to storage and brought back what clothing boxes we could find so we could unpack and sift stuff. Our closets are not photogenic enough yet for photos.

Over the last couple of weeks, Jeff and I also preserved four 26-pound boxes of peaches. We ended up with at least 21 jars of sliced peaches, six pie fillings plus a number of containers of frozen peaches for making smoothies.

Jeff has been spending a lot of time with his friend Eric (who helped us build the fence and closets), helping him out on big projects. He helped repair a deck and demo a bathroom. This weekend, Jeff went off with Eric to a World War 2 reenactment. It sounds like he took a bunch of pictures so perhaps he'll do an update when he gets home.

I (in a moment of ?insanity) volunteered to be the newsletter editor for the Laurelhurst Neighborhood Association. My first issue is due in early-September, so I've been working on it. I decided I didn't want to use the software that came with the job, so I've been retyping it all into Publisher which takes time.

I've also been poking around my downloaded Oregonian pdf files looking for "clip art" that I could use in the Laurelhurst newsletter and I've been cleaning up the images using CorelDraw. I haven't really learned CorelDraw yet, so the project goes pretty slowly as I struggle with the learning curve.

I am deeply annoyed with our 2009 Toyota Highlander. We've had to call out the tow truck about four times since moving here and we've had to replace the starter battery twice. It is sitting in front of our house right now unwilling to move, giving all kinds of warnings, waiting for the damn tow truck again. I think it is time to figure out a reliable replacement. This stupid vehicle cost twice as much as any of our earlier vehicles and has been more than twice the trouble.

Stupid vehicle off to the repair shop

And We Have Closets

We've been crazy busy since my post on Wednesday trying to get the wood ready for our closet install today. Yesterday was spent sanding and applying two coats of stain and then we got up early this morning to put on a coat of shellac. Luckily shellac dries fast or we would never have made it.

I still have to do some minor touch up on ends which I hadn't stained because I wasn't aware they'd be showing then I'm planning to do a second coat of shellac in place. We are in the home stretch on this part of the closet project.

It's hard not to start moving into this space.

Jeff's closet shelves - obviously some picking up is in order

Jeff's closet double hang

Sharon's closet double hang

Excuse the poor pictures. We just don't have the technology to get a good picture. Once Sharon's closet is cleaned up, we should be able to get a better picture in there because the room is pretty big.

Closet Progress

Despite my lack of posts since last Friday, we are still working on the house. I don't tend to wear my little camera anymore and I've been too busy/lazy to take pictures of our current projects in progress.

Eric came again on Monday and helped Jeff cut the rest of the wood for the closet built-ins. The plan is to finish both sides of Jeff's closet and just the hanging side of mine. We'll come back to the cubes in my closet after the chicken coop is finished.

Rather than installing it all and then staining in place, we decided to cut the wood then stain outside or in the garage. I was prepping the wood for that project today, but then I asked Jeff to reach me a tub of shellac on top of the workbench that was way out of my reach. Anyway, the lid was not properly on the tub and it spilled everywhere: down Jeff's front, all over the workbench, all over the fir propped up against the wall, etc., etc. Let's just say, Jeff was not pleased.

So, it turns out today was the day we finally found motivation to work on cleaning the garage. We restacked the cherry tree boards along the back wall and pulled out the last bits of the salvaged douglas fir to take to Willow Classic Woodworking for planing and now we're working on figuring out how to arrange the rest of the stuff so that we can get to it when we need it without having to move everything else around it.

We were planning to have the closet boards stained by Friday so we could have Eric back to help us install them, but with this garage cleaning detour, we might have to push it a day or two. I hope not.

This is approximately what that side of the garage looked like, but it was a bit worse when we started today.

Here is the back corner this evening. We still have lots more cleaning to do, but there is a lot more space in there to work now.

Closet Shelves

Today found us out in the garage again, pawing through the huge pile of salvaged douglas fir trying to sort out the closet wood. Jeff managed to cut down the edge-joined pieces so they fit on the support boards we installed last winter. (Has it really been 8 months? That's embarrassing.)

The original plan was to cut the boards down and then stain them out in the garage and then install them, but Jeff said he likes the lighter color shelves, so I think we may just shellac them as is. (Excuse the slightly blurry picture; I need to get a tripod.)

I worked on stripping paint on more salvaged baseboards so we can install those on the hanging side. I clearly have gotten out of practice as my wrist was feeling quite done after using the heat gun to strip only two of these old boards. I'll work on more tomorrow.

Side Fence Built

I am so excited because it is built!! And am I ever happy with how it turned out.

Eric and Jeff built both gates today and they made the process look fairly easy.

The side of the house is still looking a little ghetto because there are piles of gravel and other scrap, but it should look better when we get to the chicken coop next month because all that loose building material will end up going back into the chicken coop and runs.

I still have to finish the fence with a clear coat or with our white stain, but I am appreciating this project being this much done for now. I just love it when projects turn out how you plan them. Excuse me, I have to take another look.