In Which I Build All the Furniture
Feb. 2nd, 2020 09:55 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
shannon_aI have successfully built all the furniture in the house. On Saturday, I built the two remaining chairs for our dining room and the shoe bench for the mud room, and then on Sunday I put together the two additional shelves for the garage that I got from Home Depot.
(I never thought I would be visiting Home Depot so much in my life, but then I'll be visiting a Mercedes repair shop for a tuneup in the near future, which was also on my I-never list.)
Disposing of all of those furniture boxes would have cleared our front room of junk if I didn't have a few boxes of games sitting there (plus a box of linens and a box of miscellanea and all the files that don't have a file cabinet yet ... but we're getting there).
Mind you, there's still lots of work to be done in this house.
The Living Room. This is our most perfect room. We've got an L-shaped sofa from CostCo, a coffee table and two end tables and an entertainment center from Wayfair, a TV from Costco, and a rocking chair which came with us from Berkeley because it was Callisto's favorite. (She's barely touched it since we arrived, of course.) This room was a top priority because we really wanted some place comfy to collapse, and though it took us weeks to piece this all together, we had the couches on day two. The only things really missing here are putting up some paintings (we've got a space selected for my Grandma's painting of St. Louis at the MIssissippi) and possibly a cat tree.
The Kitchen. I suppose this is a perfect room too because there was not a lot to be done. It's a great kitchen, much smaller than our one in Berkeley, but that was all wasted space, while this is nice and compact without being crowded. And it's got a billion cabinets. We've actually got totally empty cabinets in our kitchen. We still need a toaster or toaster oven and we have to better clear the counters and breakfast bar, which have been used for clutter since we got here.
The Dining Room. This is actually a big open space that connects with our Living Room and our entryway. But we've got a big table here which came from CostCo, also on day two, and five chairs. It's a little empty right now. I'm hoping we can put a huge armoire on the west side of the room to hold and protect games. Kimberly seems open to the idea.
Entryway. It's a little hard to know what's entryway and what's dining room, but there are a few empty spaces around the door and stairs. We've got a console table near the door (from Amazon, and a pretty crappy production, but it looks nice), and we've talked about moving Kimberly's cedar chest here and/or putting in a small bookshelf. We'll have to see how it fills out, because there are boxes here right now. My dad is also helping to rehabilitate some nice coat/hat racks that Kimberly brought to our marriage, which will go right by the front door. Not that I've worn a coat out of the house more than a few times in the last month, and only because of rain.
Bedroom. Alas, our bedroom! We have a mattress. We have a bookshelf full of Kimberly's clothes (which will eventually go to her officette: the bookshelf, not the clothes). And we have my old, but good-looking chest of drawers, which we're not really sure goes with the room. With the furniture, that is, which we ordered sometime during week one, but which has been on its way ever since, crossing the country then hopping on a boat. Wayfair has pushed the dates back twice for our bed, end tables, and Kimberly's chest of drawers. They're currently saying both that it'll arrive in our area on February 4th and 11th (for different pieces) or February 25th or March 4th (for those same pieces), depending on which numbers you believe. (Our original promise was February 28th.) I see that they just claimed "Incorrect customer phone #" on an update today, though Kimberly has been receiving texts for a month. Great. Anywho, it's going to take a while to put our bedroom in order. Surprisingly, of everything we ordered online, this is the only stuff that got sent on a boat (despite the fact that it had the most exorbitant shipping prices).
Our bedroom also has a master bath and walk-in closet, which is all kinds of luxurious for us, after living in a 100+ year old Victorian/Arts-and-Craft for the last decades. We've got a smaller dresser and a cedar chest in the walk-in, under clothes, where they fit great. We do need some dirty clothes storage that fits better here, though. Maybe we'll think about it after moving the cedar chest (assuming that happens).
Lanai. We have a nice little table and three chairs here, all from Wayfair, our Christmas gift from the Appels. We've only eaten out there once so far though! And the biggest home improvement project that my dad has helped me with so far was a screen door leading into the upstairs. It was a total pain! When he pulled out the hack saw and mitre box, I told him it was beyond me, and let him do the hacking (as opposed to working under his mentorship, as I have on most of the home improvement projects.) But we have a screen door! Now we need to get up the gumption to repeat for the door to our bedroom!
Moving downstairs ...
My Office. No love here yet. I've got a desk without any real space for stuff other than my computer (but it was what CostCo had, and much like with the Living Room furniture, I felt that I needed a desk immediately) and I've got a 50% glare reducing film on the window. I feel like the office is usable now, where it was a strain (literally) before the film. I still need to figure out the positioning of my desk, though, as I'm not convinced its current location, next to the window, is going to work. I've got a low shelf coming, which will help me with holding work stuff, and I've got a file cabinet coming, which will help too and clear up clutter all across our house, both of those items coming from Wayfair (supposed to arrive next week, but the UPS shipping numbers have never been valid, so we'll see). So that'll be the next building project I have: the current state of having everything built is a short-term one. I'll still need a printer stand, I think, and then lots of built-in shelving. I think it's going to take a while for this to come together, along with all our other downstairs rooms.
Kimberly's Office / Guest Room. Kimberly's art desk, easel, and chair all showed up from the shippers, as did a variety of plastic storage containers, so she's got a start on her office. We still want to get a murphy bed for said guests, and that's an expense that we're punting until we have more money after our Berkeley house sells. And she wants to get a comfy chair. We'll maybe see what CostCo has Monday or Tuesday. So, this one is taking shape too, other than the (ever problematic) lack of places to put stuff.
Kimberly's Officette. The center of the downstairs is another big, undefined space around the stairs, near the back door, and leading back to my office and the downstairs bathroom. Kimberly decided to use the area around the stairs for another, non-art desk. We're also going to move our big shelf down there when Kimberly actually gets a chest of drawers, and then she'll have a nice little nook.
Family Room. The area by the backdoor is actually bigger than our Berkeley dining room, so we'd considered it as a game room, but now we're leaning to just gaming upstairs at our normal table, and turning this into a family room / library: book shelves built onto the two walls, and then maybe a comfy love seat and chair. This is a super-low priority.
And I'm not sure if we're going to do anything in the space leading back to my office, other than build some bookshelves. It's too big for a hallway and too small for a room. But there is definitely space there, since we've got pretty much all the boxes I packed in that area. I dunno. Maybe we could actually put a double-sided floor-to-ceiling shelf right in the middle to define a corridor of books? Not sure if there's enough room ...
Mud Room. My dad prefers to call this the laundry room, but I love the name "mud room". It's the space between our garage and the rest of the downstairs, and has the washer and dryer and (now) the cat box and a shoe-bench. I dunno if we're going to do more with this. Other than maybe putting a cat door in the door, so that we can close it and keep the cat box smell out of the rest of the house.
Garage. I love, love, love having an attached garage. Our garage in Berkeley was semi-attached: technically adjoining the house, but with no access. I didn't like that, especially not in Berkeley where it got cold and wet and you did have dangerous people about sometimes. (So I dreamed of how we could construct crawlspaces to get into the garage from the house, but of course we never did that.) But here I can just walk into the garage and it's part of the house, albeit stuffy and hot. I'd originally thought we could fill this with storage and cat boxes, but then we got the beautiful lady, Julie the Benz. But it's a two-car garage, so there's still plenty of space for storage. I've got two Sterilite tool shelves near the door and then I've got four Home Depot Exclusive shelves on the opposite wall, whose shelves each fit two 16-gallon tubs. So that should all be great for storage. (Alas, we obviously had to leave the great wooden shelves that Bob built us back in Berkeley, but hopefully they'll find use by the next owners, as that garage wasn't big enough to fit modern cars except the new miniature ones.) And there's room for other assorted stuff like my old bike (now working again! And I did a 30-minute bike ride today!) and our new lawnmower. And I left enough spaces on the far wall to put in a work bench if I ever decide I need one, because that's the sort of thing that manly men have in their garages.
So, that's our house a month later, with some stuff settled, but lots more to do.
(I never thought I would be visiting Home Depot so much in my life, but then I'll be visiting a Mercedes repair shop for a tuneup in the near future, which was also on my I-never list.)
Disposing of all of those furniture boxes would have cleared our front room of junk if I didn't have a few boxes of games sitting there (plus a box of linens and a box of miscellanea and all the files that don't have a file cabinet yet ... but we're getting there).
Mind you, there's still lots of work to be done in this house.
The Living Room. This is our most perfect room. We've got an L-shaped sofa from CostCo, a coffee table and two end tables and an entertainment center from Wayfair, a TV from Costco, and a rocking chair which came with us from Berkeley because it was Callisto's favorite. (She's barely touched it since we arrived, of course.) This room was a top priority because we really wanted some place comfy to collapse, and though it took us weeks to piece this all together, we had the couches on day two. The only things really missing here are putting up some paintings (we've got a space selected for my Grandma's painting of St. Louis at the MIssissippi) and possibly a cat tree.
The Kitchen. I suppose this is a perfect room too because there was not a lot to be done. It's a great kitchen, much smaller than our one in Berkeley, but that was all wasted space, while this is nice and compact without being crowded. And it's got a billion cabinets. We've actually got totally empty cabinets in our kitchen. We still need a toaster or toaster oven and we have to better clear the counters and breakfast bar, which have been used for clutter since we got here.
The Dining Room. This is actually a big open space that connects with our Living Room and our entryway. But we've got a big table here which came from CostCo, also on day two, and five chairs. It's a little empty right now. I'm hoping we can put a huge armoire on the west side of the room to hold and protect games. Kimberly seems open to the idea.
Entryway. It's a little hard to know what's entryway and what's dining room, but there are a few empty spaces around the door and stairs. We've got a console table near the door (from Amazon, and a pretty crappy production, but it looks nice), and we've talked about moving Kimberly's cedar chest here and/or putting in a small bookshelf. We'll have to see how it fills out, because there are boxes here right now. My dad is also helping to rehabilitate some nice coat/hat racks that Kimberly brought to our marriage, which will go right by the front door. Not that I've worn a coat out of the house more than a few times in the last month, and only because of rain.
Bedroom. Alas, our bedroom! We have a mattress. We have a bookshelf full of Kimberly's clothes (which will eventually go to her officette: the bookshelf, not the clothes). And we have my old, but good-looking chest of drawers, which we're not really sure goes with the room. With the furniture, that is, which we ordered sometime during week one, but which has been on its way ever since, crossing the country then hopping on a boat. Wayfair has pushed the dates back twice for our bed, end tables, and Kimberly's chest of drawers. They're currently saying both that it'll arrive in our area on February 4th and 11th (for different pieces) or February 25th or March 4th (for those same pieces), depending on which numbers you believe. (Our original promise was February 28th.) I see that they just claimed "Incorrect customer phone #" on an update today, though Kimberly has been receiving texts for a month. Great. Anywho, it's going to take a while to put our bedroom in order. Surprisingly, of everything we ordered online, this is the only stuff that got sent on a boat (despite the fact that it had the most exorbitant shipping prices).
Our bedroom also has a master bath and walk-in closet, which is all kinds of luxurious for us, after living in a 100+ year old Victorian/Arts-and-Craft for the last decades. We've got a smaller dresser and a cedar chest in the walk-in, under clothes, where they fit great. We do need some dirty clothes storage that fits better here, though. Maybe we'll think about it after moving the cedar chest (assuming that happens).
Lanai. We have a nice little table and three chairs here, all from Wayfair, our Christmas gift from the Appels. We've only eaten out there once so far though! And the biggest home improvement project that my dad has helped me with so far was a screen door leading into the upstairs. It was a total pain! When he pulled out the hack saw and mitre box, I told him it was beyond me, and let him do the hacking (as opposed to working under his mentorship, as I have on most of the home improvement projects.) But we have a screen door! Now we need to get up the gumption to repeat for the door to our bedroom!
Moving downstairs ...
My Office. No love here yet. I've got a desk without any real space for stuff other than my computer (but it was what CostCo had, and much like with the Living Room furniture, I felt that I needed a desk immediately) and I've got a 50% glare reducing film on the window. I feel like the office is usable now, where it was a strain (literally) before the film. I still need to figure out the positioning of my desk, though, as I'm not convinced its current location, next to the window, is going to work. I've got a low shelf coming, which will help me with holding work stuff, and I've got a file cabinet coming, which will help too and clear up clutter all across our house, both of those items coming from Wayfair (supposed to arrive next week, but the UPS shipping numbers have never been valid, so we'll see). So that'll be the next building project I have: the current state of having everything built is a short-term one. I'll still need a printer stand, I think, and then lots of built-in shelving. I think it's going to take a while for this to come together, along with all our other downstairs rooms.
Kimberly's Office / Guest Room. Kimberly's art desk, easel, and chair all showed up from the shippers, as did a variety of plastic storage containers, so she's got a start on her office. We still want to get a murphy bed for said guests, and that's an expense that we're punting until we have more money after our Berkeley house sells. And she wants to get a comfy chair. We'll maybe see what CostCo has Monday or Tuesday. So, this one is taking shape too, other than the (ever problematic) lack of places to put stuff.
Kimberly's Officette. The center of the downstairs is another big, undefined space around the stairs, near the back door, and leading back to my office and the downstairs bathroom. Kimberly decided to use the area around the stairs for another, non-art desk. We're also going to move our big shelf down there when Kimberly actually gets a chest of drawers, and then she'll have a nice little nook.
Family Room. The area by the backdoor is actually bigger than our Berkeley dining room, so we'd considered it as a game room, but now we're leaning to just gaming upstairs at our normal table, and turning this into a family room / library: book shelves built onto the two walls, and then maybe a comfy love seat and chair. This is a super-low priority.
And I'm not sure if we're going to do anything in the space leading back to my office, other than build some bookshelves. It's too big for a hallway and too small for a room. But there is definitely space there, since we've got pretty much all the boxes I packed in that area. I dunno. Maybe we could actually put a double-sided floor-to-ceiling shelf right in the middle to define a corridor of books? Not sure if there's enough room ...
Mud Room. My dad prefers to call this the laundry room, but I love the name "mud room". It's the space between our garage and the rest of the downstairs, and has the washer and dryer and (now) the cat box and a shoe-bench. I dunno if we're going to do more with this. Other than maybe putting a cat door in the door, so that we can close it and keep the cat box smell out of the rest of the house.
Garage. I love, love, love having an attached garage. Our garage in Berkeley was semi-attached: technically adjoining the house, but with no access. I didn't like that, especially not in Berkeley where it got cold and wet and you did have dangerous people about sometimes. (So I dreamed of how we could construct crawlspaces to get into the garage from the house, but of course we never did that.) But here I can just walk into the garage and it's part of the house, albeit stuffy and hot. I'd originally thought we could fill this with storage and cat boxes, but then we got the beautiful lady, Julie the Benz. But it's a two-car garage, so there's still plenty of space for storage. I've got two Sterilite tool shelves near the door and then I've got four Home Depot Exclusive shelves on the opposite wall, whose shelves each fit two 16-gallon tubs. So that should all be great for storage. (Alas, we obviously had to leave the great wooden shelves that Bob built us back in Berkeley, but hopefully they'll find use by the next owners, as that garage wasn't big enough to fit modern cars except the new miniature ones.) And there's room for other assorted stuff like my old bike (now working again! And I did a 30-minute bike ride today!) and our new lawnmower. And I left enough spaces on the far wall to put in a work bench if I ever decide I need one, because that's the sort of thing that manly men have in their garages.
So, that's our house a month later, with some stuff settled, but lots more to do.