Oh, the Joy!

Well, the hard part is done and the organizer is installed. Now I just have to figure out what to do with it. We have lots of ideas and we just need to make a decision and start. But as you may remember, decision making is a rather fraught process in the Wayward house.

So here's the before:


As you can see, we keep the litter box in this closet. But the front of the box sticks out past the doors, so we were unable to slide the doors to access the other half of the closet. Also, the bathroom counter is only about a foot from the doors on that side, which made it difficult to access even before we started keeping the cat box there.

And here's the after:


Ta Da! Actually, this is probably the half-way point since I still need to put things away in the closet and find and hang some kind of curtain.

Last weekend, when we switched the cats to a new box, we also switched their litter. Previously we had used a clay litter which left everything with a fine coating of dust, especially the coats and jackets we kept in this closet. When we ordered the organizer we hadn't even thought about switching the litter. We had decided then that we didn't want to hang anything in the same closet with the cat box, which is why there is no clothing rod.

We're always complaining that we don't have enough space in this house, it's 950 sq. ft. Since it doesn't look like we'll be moving anytime soon, hopefully this will help us use the space we do have more to our advantage.

In the Closet

So the whole "quick and easy installation" of this closet organizer is a load of hooey. We spent the better part of yesterday saying, "Huh?" and drilling (and then patching) holes in the back wall of the closet.

As it turns out, other than finding Scoob, I'm apparently challenged when it comes to finding studs, and Scoob's not much better at it. After we finally figured out that our Stanley stud finder was just not working, I made an evening trip (7pm) to our local OSH and picked up a plain old magnetic one for about $4.

Once we were able to find the studs, things started to pick up speed and we finally got the main support rail up. We called it quits after that since we figured our neighbors who share that wall with us probably wouldn't appreciate our continued drilling and hammering into the night.

I've since decided that the closet doors are coming off and that I'll put up an inexpensive tension rod and lightweight curtains to use as a door. It should make half of the closet that is difficult to access easier to get to, and it'll be a nice way to introduce some color in that space too.

Oh, and it looks like there will be some painting involved. We recently repainted the bathroom, but not the interior of this closet, so there's this lovely stripe where the eggshell finish paint on the walls meets the flat finish paint of the closet. Since I've now decided to take the doors off, I'll be looking at this stripe every blessed day. I'll be painting this afternoon. Talk about mission creep.

Sickly

I don't know if it's the crud or allergies, or both, but Scoob is outta commission. And between taking care of the sickly man, trying not to get sick myself, and keeping up at work, I'm finding fewer and fewer minutes to blog.

Interestingly, I ran across an article on Monday that said allergy season was starting earlier here in the Bay Area due to the warm-ish and dry winter we've had so far. It's supposed to rain a bit this weekend, so hopefully that'll get some of the pollen out of the air. Scoob has year-round allergies, and spring is usually just brutal. I revisited that herbal cough remedy from November and whisked up a batch for him tonight.

We ordered a closet organizer thing a week or so ago--it was one of Amazon's deals of the day, so we got it on sale. It arrived today. Depending on how Scoob is feeling this weekend we may tackle the project. My goal is to take two nearly useless closets and make them useful again. I'll let you know how that goes.

One thing I did notice was that Blackwater security forces have been banned from operating in Iraq. Hopefully, now that Cheney is out of office, this ban will be more effective that the banned issued in September 2007. Clearly, this is not a new issue.

This video is very cool. I think it's a music video, but it's a unique take on sleepwalking. I wonder if the cat dreams like this when his legs twitch.

Also, I like the video-jokes here. The "Broccoli" joke made me laugh out loud. And the purpose for making the site and videos is interesting. Note: There are a couple f-bombs, so turn down your volume or put on your headphones if you don't want little ears to hear.

Paint Party, Party of 1

We've been doing some home sprucing the last few months. Nothing as drastic as a complete gutting like Becca's family has done (I still say kitchen envy is a valid psychological condition); we've pretty much limited ourselves to painting, minor DIY repairs, and replacing old college era hand-me-down furniture.

When we first moved in I wanted a sagey grey-green color in the bedroom, but what had looked good on the color swatch did not look so good on the walls. I ended up with what I can only describe as Crayola Seafoam Green. It took about a month for me to realize I completely hated the color, which, of course, by that time we'd already put away all the painting supplies and had moved in the furniture.

So I have opened my eyes to Seafoam Green (I think the actual color swatch was called Pond. They forgot the Scum.) everyday for the past 5 - 6 years. Each morning I would inwardly cringe with the knowledge that I had no one to blame but myself because I chose the color.

We finally repainted the bedroom in July and I love the new color. Knowing that we plan to move in 1 or 2 years, we knew we wanted to paint in a more neutral color. I went back and forth between a few choices but kept coming back to a swatch called Cookie Crumb. Sweetie swears I only chose it because of the name. But I love it, and I chose it. Woot! I now wake up in the morning and smile when I see the walls. (Well, I do when there's enough freaking light in the mornings to see the walls.)

In July we also replaced the old futon with a new bed frame and mattress, the old broken down sofa with a new sofa, and purchased an entertainment center. Our local Linens n Things was going out of business in July so we took advantage of the inventory liquidation sales and purchased a bedding set, new sheets (550 thread count!), a shower curtain and liner, and new bath towels.


That's Tank and Dozer inspecting the new sofa.

All the painting and lifting and moving of furniture in July sent my back back into muscle spasms so we've been off the home improvement bandwagon for a while. We got back on today. Well Sweetie got back on. Me, I'm blogging him my emotional support.

Now we're working on the bathrooms. Again, nothing drastic. We replaced the faucets last summer and now we're going to paint and replace the rest of the hardware (which we completely purchased with credit card point rewards). Hopefully we'll do the light fixtures too. We've got those blessedly hideous fluorescent bar thingys.

Anyhow, I helped Sweetie empty out the water closet (that ridiculously little room for the shower and toilet) in the master bath, he stripped the caulking from around the shower and then I wiped down all the walls with an ammonia solution. He's in there priming the walls right now while I'm comfy at my desk with a cup of coffee.

Dude, primer stinks. I've opened all the windows and doors and have a few fans going to help ventilate. I need to go into the bathroom and check on Sweetie every 15 minutes or so to make sure he hasn't passed out from the fumes. There are no windows in the bathroom. Sweetie is so getting a meat and potatoes dinner tonight.

Once we're done I doubt anyone else will even notice we've done anything in there. But we will, and we'll be happy with it. And we'll be happy with the knowledge that we did it ourselves. 'Cause we love it when we rock the frugal like that.