Slow and Steady Wins the Race Right?

I won't post pictures. Just go back a post and imagine the same picture with out the boxes in the background. That's what I accomplished today. It doesn't seem like much visually, but if you break it down analytically it seems much more impressive. The following are no longer taking up space in the library...

• 5 boxes of stuff burned
• 1 large garbage bag on non-flammable garbage
• 2 large boxes of books for the library book re-sale (next weekend - be there!)
• 1 box keepsake items up to the closet to be put in appropriate boxes
• 1 box office misc to the office to be put away
• 13 boxes of keeper books to be stored in the back bedroom until the library can be turned from a play room unto a library

So I'd say half the stuff that was in there is now gone. I'm starting to get excited. I talked to the local flooring store to see if I could get carpet squares for the room, but I guess they don't do carpet squares anymore. He said to come see him about a remnant, but I hate to spend that much money on something that will only be in place for the next 10 years. When it becomes a library we want to refinish the wood floors.

Now I wish I had looked at toy organizers when I was at Target last night. But I think I'm going to end up disappointed because I have all these great plans for everything that's going to fit in the room. I have a desk, a children's size table and chairs, a four piece kitchen set, a wardrobe, three doll beds, a doll high chair, a toy airplane set, and the easel my mom plans to get them for Christmas to get in there. I'm starting to worry there won't be room for any toys once I get all the furniture in.

I Might Have Started A Project (But Don't Hold Your Breath)

OK, I fully realize that this is the most unproductive looking after picture any houseblogger has ever posted. And I don't have a before... but you have to cut me a little slack (or else I'll go back into posting dormancy in protest) ha ha!



Yesterday afternoon I had the girls down for naps and was happily wasting away my life on Facebook when there came a knock on my door. It was my mother. She had come to help me (i.e. forcibly motivate me to) start cleaning out the men's room.

Not because we are going to turn it into the wood-paneled library Tim has envisioned all along. No, it's going to be a toy room. It seems as the girls get bigger so do their toys. So this is a project that needs to be done by this Christmas or else all Santa is going to be able to bring them is cloths.

So Mom showed up with a stack of plastic totes and I grabbed some garbage bags and we set to work. Three boxes of tools and various hardware are now on the porch to be transported to a pallet in the new shed. Various pictures are now lying on the dining room table ready to be hung using the hangers I found in a pile. And three sacks of junk were hauled out. That took two hours and seemed to clear about 1/4 of the room's floor space.

You can't really tell from the glare of the window but much of the remaining clutter in the back is our book collection. I'm going to need a few more boxes before I can tackle that (mom heard some where that books shouldn't be stored in plastic totes because it can cause mold). Also, it's not in the picture but off to the left side of the room is stacks and stacks of paint and varnish cans left over. I need to weed through those and deem which ones are still fit to store.

But that is progress.

Barn Update and Cool Barn Artist

Here's the library. It's the last room to be worked on here at the farmhouse. There for it has become storage. Though you can't tell, a lot of what is being stored here are tools. The rest of what we have collected is down in the basement which floods every spring. It's not a good situation.

That's why I haven't protested too much when Tim told me he wants to build a shed this fall. I thought we had a kind of un-said agreement that the house would be finished before we started on the exterior structures. But I'm really looking forward to this shed. I can picture tools put nicely away in tool boxes and hanging on peg boards. Tim plans to insulate and run water to the shed so I also picture a nice faucet on the side that I can use to water the garden (this year I would make 5+ trips from the kitchen faucet to the garden). I can use it to clean my fancy paint brush!

He's still pricing and looking at options, he started off wanted to turn the barn into one. But after much angst we decided it wouldn't be the best option for the barn. Plus, for what that would cost we could build a standard tin shed and roof the barn too. So that is what we decided to do. The only problem is the guy we want to do the barn roof is busy until next spring so we'll have to cross our fingers and hold our breath that it survives another winter. He's also looked at options like changing the pitch of the shed's roof to give it a more old fashioned look, but people look at him funny and ask why you'd do something stupid like that (i.e. spend more money to not gain any room).

On to the barn artist. I think I have been a good girl this year. So Santa, if you read this, I would like to find one done for my barn in my stocking please.

Here's the article from Iowa Farmer Today.

Three Year Anniversary - the Library

March 2003

March 2004

March 2005

March 2006

Punch List:
I don't have a punch list for this room. We are still battling over what is going to happen in here. I would love to just rough finish it off for now and use it as a play room (it's perfect, right off the living room and you could shut the pocket doors on the mess). Tim is dead set against "polluting" his room this way. Some how I think he might change his mind when our house is taken over by the onslaught of toys that the first-time grandparents and aunts and uncles provide.

No Dale = No Progress

Dale is on vacation. Tim is out of commission while the wound is healing. So not much went on around here this week.

However, before he left Dale did get the doors in the living room hung.

The pocket doors to the library.
The double doors between the foyer and living room.

Here's a question for you. Do double doors have to have lites (divided glass) in them to be called French doors?

Sycamore Pocket Doors

This is the only set of pocket doors in the house. It is a set of double doors that separates the living room from the library.
They are interesting because they are half quarter sawn oak (the living room side) and half what we believe to be sycamore (it was written on the back of some of the library woodwork and it's definitely not oak).

Neither side is vaneered, the doors were cut in half and the two sides fastened to each other some how.