One Year and Counting

Posted by Les

                                                             A Holiday Hiccup

     Well, hello again to our faithful readers.  It's about time that I wake up from my long "Rip Van Winkle" nap and bring you up to date on the house makeover.  In her last reports, Jeannette told you how busy I had been during the month of November, double-timing to beat the Christmas holidays that were kicking into gear.  But since the first week of December, I haven't done a thing on the house.  I haven't been exactly goofing off, however, because I've been busy with my new Guitar Life enterprise of repairing broken guitars.    
                                          P  R  O  C  R  A  S  T  I  N  A  T  I  O  N
          Since the house had gotten to a nice stopping point right before our Christmas Party / Open House, I decided to defer the rest of the work until January.  Now its halfway through January and I haven't started back to working yet.  I have been afflicted with another sinus infection since New Years Day . . . so in my defense, its been really nice of late not having to deal with making lots of dust and debris for a while.

                                                         My Favorite Spot
      Since the first day we took possession of the house, I've had my eye on what I call the "butler pantry" area just off the kitchen.  I was determined to keep as much of it in tact as possible despite all the demo that had to take place.  Its now my favorite part of the project so far. I had to build a custom door for the odd sized broom closet, so I made a frame and utilized the leftover weathered fence wood that we had used on the kitchen ceiling.  Finally, the built-in pantry shelves needed to be finished out, so I filled in the insets with leftover flooring planks.  This looked awkward, so once again Jeannette that I fill them in with the fence wood.  EUREKA!  Now the whole pantry area is a beautiful transition between the kitchen and the hall bathroom.  Now all my beautiful teapots have a lovely place to be displayed.

          

             

          

             

                                                           At Last a Headboard
     When we bought our bedroom furniture years ago, we chose not to get the headboard.  It was just too expensive, especially for something that had no real function like storage, etc.  So, we've been doing without one with the thought of making a unique headboard somehow, someday.  Well, someday finally came, as I was able to re-purpose a couple of the extra 104 year old paneled doors that were original to this house.  I painted them a nice Thurber Brick Red to match the color palette in the curtains, and bolted them together on the wall.  If you ever were at our previous home, you'll recall our affinity to wrought iron brackets and embellishments.  Having all kinds of this ironwork in storage, it seemed a natural conclusion to give those door panels a little pizzaz by installing a couple of pieces of the ironwork painted bronze to match our lamps.

                                                           Last But Not Least 
      To finish the doors (now a headboard) off, I framed them out with some more of . . . well, you know what . . . weathered fence wood!  This stuff is like the Elf on a Shelf . . . showing up in all kinds of places.  At any rate, I guess you could say its becoming a kind of trademark throughout the house.   :)

  

Next up . . . the Master Bathroom Makeover!  Then we'll be done inside.