Summer Projects... June & July

PAINTING
Shanna painted the hall downstairs (walls & ceiling) a bright white to bring more light to the library. Our hall is long and five feet wide and we've lined both sides with varying sizes of bookcases. The white really helped lighten it up. She also painted the back stairwell with Nick's help. This was really tricky because of the woodwork and the heights involved. Again, we went with a bright white to bring light into the dark space. Between that and the recently (2 years ago) installed back door with window you can clearly see the stairs. Meanwhile, Nick was painting the trim around the outside of the house. He changed it from the 80's cornflower blue to a classic black. I couldn't believe the difference it made. We'll have to finish repainting the outside pieces next summer. He managed to finished all of the windows on the main floor, the outside door trims, and the garage doors and windows. The big garage door had been painted blue and it showed all of its flaws. He painted it white to match the house and the trim black and it looks like a whole new door.

Nanette and Sydney, while visiting decided to help us move our library. We had to move it into Nick's office so that Shanna could paint the downstairs hall. It was quite an undertaking but moved quite quickly with their assistance. During the painting, Shanna got marked by the white hand. It took a lot more effort to put it back with just the two of us.

ROOF & TREE
I arranged for Randy Stone to come and replace our roof. We went from an asphalt tile to a light gray steel. I chose the light color for its reflective and energy saving properties. I couldn't bear to go with straight white. I wanted a neutral that would not stand out. Our white clapboard style ranch needs to remain lovely but neutral. It doesn't have any architectural finesse and so it needs to blend into the background and let the gardens and greenery steal the show. You really can't get worked up about light gray, for good, or for ill. It was perfect. It was fun to have him here. He had lots of suggestions for improving the place and with any luck we'll be able to hire every year for a project. (Don't forget the tree dude showing up to trim tree back so they could roof - Shanna) That's right. He left small stick debris everywhere, but my tree in the back looks much better and he cleared the limbs from hanging over the house.

MOVIES
A confluence of events triggered buying dvds on an enormous scale. First, the tv/vcr/dvd combo in my office died. Instead of replacing it, I bought a new computer. This computer has a big screen, a dvd player and a cute little adapter that allows me to view my cable tv on my monitor. I completely lost the ability to play vhs movies in my office. This is a problem since most of my collection is in the vhs format. C'est la vie, or so I thought.

Second, Nick took off for Rawlins with his computer, no tv, no vcr, only the built in dvd player. And we had about 15 dvd movies.

Third, I really wanted to simplify my living room. I began by cleaning, and cleaning out. As Shanna and I worked I realized that the big barrister's bookcase holding videos was, if not an eyesore, a clutter station. It needed to go. What would enable its removal? We needed to condense our movie collection. We'd weeded it earlier that year so that wasn't an option. Soooo we decided to replace the vhs' collection with dvds.

I started small ordering our favorite dvds used from Amazon. It was going to be a slow process. Then we found out that the local pawn shop sold used ones for less than the shipping price of Amazon. WOOT that made us buy a few more. Finally the last piece to the marathon buying was the closing of Hollywood video. Every weekend for many weeks Shanna and I would go to the Pawn shops, and Hollywood snapping up dvds for $1-$3. As the weeks wore on the prices at Hollywood got cheaper. Other Hollywood stores were closing and shipping their remainders to the one in Pocatello or Chubbuck. It was a bonanza. We were able to replace a large chunk of our existing collection and pick up quite a few others that we had wanted to acquire.



On the last day of the Hollywood closeout the pickings were slim but only $.25 per dvd. I called Nick and he okayed us spending his money. Shanna and I began by alphabetizing the horror section. It was the largest collection left in the store. Then we picked out one of every title. We piled movies and piled movies and then left the store with 400+ horror dvds. I did call Nick and asked him if he was really serious about buying them, and he was. We brought them home and serpentined them across every surface in his office. He now has enough movies to last a few years. Shanna and I had a great time laughing and buying and so did the rest of the people around us, when we told them we had been tasked with buying every one they had left, excepting the duplicates.

GARAGE SALE
By the end of July we found ourselves in possession of several hundred vhs movies that we didn't need or want. It seemed a shame to give them to the DI. So we started setting up for a garage sale. We sold quite a few to friends and then more at the garage sale. It was awesome. We used these funds to reinvest into the project. This was our first garage sale and Shanna and I realized that it was pretty easy to set up and this triggered a couple more such activities. (We also let our friend join in and bring and sell some of their stuff to)-Shanna

MY BEDROOM
I have wanted a summer white bedroom for a long while and this summer I made it come true. I found the most delicious white comforter set with a lovely little green border at TJMAXX. My room was airy and white and lovely. We set the bed to four posters and hung the white sheers on it. Shanna and I found two green palm leave paintings to hang on the wall where the red Persian rug had been. The decorative pillows were all white and it was awesome.

The green is much less yellow and more leaf green in person...