I'm 'bout dead - part 4

Rearranging and reorganizing is contagious for us around here. If one room is affected, it'll probably spread through most of the house before it's run its course. About the only room that doesn't get hit much is the kitchen- and that's only because there's not too much we can change about that room.

So when we began rearranging the kids' rooms, it wasn't too surprising that our room got hit as well. In fact, its infection only lasted a matter of hours. Beth and I made a few general plans before she went grocery shopping on Thursday night and by the time she got home I had finished. So here's the classic "before" shot (I know, it's way out of date- we didn't even have the bed frame then, but it'll have to do):


And here's the after shot:


Beth was pretty happy because I was able to vacuum every square foot of our room. I just had to do it in 2'x5' strips.

In case you're curious, here's how it went.
I pulled the dresser from the wall by the door over to the wall by the bathroom and set up the TV table in its place. I stood my exercise bike on end and leaned it against the dresser. Then I removed the mattress from the bed and leaned it against the dresser as well. Next I pulled the bed boxes out from under the bed and stacked them in the doorway. I scooted the bed forward until it was right up against the TV (by the door), leaving nearly the entire back wall empty. I vacuumed the back wall and transferred Beth's sewing table to it. That cleared up the right-hand wall by the window. I vacuumed that wall and then maneuvered the bed into place on it, which required some pretty impressive use of physics to get the mattress to balance vertically on one corner without tipping. Then I put the mattress back in the bed and vacuumed under where it had been. I replaced the bed boxes (under the bed, of course) and vacuumed where they had been. I shifted the dresser so it was flat against the back wall next to the sewing table and vacuumed where it had been. I put the exercise bike beside the dresser along the wall near the bathroom and vacuumed all remaining open floorspace. I then rewired (corded) the electronics on the TV stand so that everything was organized neatly. As Kaitlyn would say: Tada!

Getting a head start on Arbor Day

Much like the one on the top of my head, we have a growing bald spot in our front yard. So instead of doing a whole bunch of work, we have been wanting to make use of what is essentially a landscaping toupee. We want to plant a tree right in that nasty bald spot. Not that it would FIX the bald spot, but grass doesn't grow under trees- so we would go from being lazy and cheap to being justified and chic within hours.
Well, I've got plenty of work in me but (as I mentioned before) I'm cheap and trees are expensive. Seriously, go to Lowe's or Home Depot. Trees are like $40 just for some little sapling that you have to nurture carefully and hope it doesn't keel over and die on you right away. Let's examine this phenomenon for a minute (this'll sound a bit like Bill Cosby here): Trees grow NATURALLY all over the world- with literally no help from human beings. But we brilliant, capitalistic, keeping-up-with-the-Joneses suburbanites go and BUY them from stores and then study books and web sites to learn how to care for something that would normally care for itself quite nicely.
No way- not this family. We are not about to spend money on something that grows in abundance within 1/4 mile of my house. In fact, there used to be a nice one growing in my neighbor's yard and now it's growing nicely in mine. Just kidding- I didn't swipe any trees from my neighbors. I bundled up the twins and Seth and we snagged one from a nearby forest. OK, so I didn't really "bundle" them up, since it was every bit of 187 degrees outside today- I put summer hats and loose shoes on them, stuck them in the wagon, and pulled that sucker about a mile total through some off-road sweetness.
Seth was so helpful- first he pointed out a lovely weed. When I told him that wasn't even a tree, he began to get the picture. He next pointed out the most gnarled, stunted little thing on the side of the trail- it would have made Charlie Brown proud. I told him we wanted a tree that would look nice in front of our house. So, he pointed out (I know, you see it coming a mile away) a massive hulk of a tree that might have made a Southern lumberjack cry. I told him I would have a little trouble carrying it, but he assured me I could do it. I can't tell you how flattered I was that he really thought I could just haul off some 2-ton mass of scrub pine. I therefore cleverly hid my ineptitude by telling him that I COULD do it, but he'd have to pull the wagon with the babies all the way back to the house so that I could get the tree. He decided we should press on and find something smaller.
And find something smaller we did. It was on the edge of the trail, which will make Grammy happy because I didn't "abandon [her] babies" while I chopped down the cherry tree. It had a couple of large roots which were a little tricky, but all in all the thing came along without too much of a fight.
We brought the thing back home in a bucket, but we had to wait for the babies to go down for their nap before we could dig the hole for it. And when Seth and I went to dig the hole, we discovered that the combination of "sandhills" soil conditions, coupled with the recent drought had conspired against us to create a close approximation to concrete in our front yard. I poured water on it and that loosened things up enough to dig down with a shovel and spade. We excavated, measured, excavated, and measured again until we had a perfect hole for our asymmetrically-rooted friend. Because it took so long to haul back and to dig a hole, the poor thing is looking a little parched at the moment. I fear we'll lose those nice leaves but we're hoping for a new set of buds in a while.
And here it is in our front yard:

If this works, we are SO going tree hunting again. Our yard will go from patchy to hair-plug heaven! But don't worry- I never will! I'm retired from hair.

P.S. Getting a HEAD start on Arbor Day... Get it? HEAD?! Ha! ;-)

Rob's dream car

This is actually Beth posting for Rob...if we're not rearranging the room, we're changing something else. After 6 years of the Dodge Neon (with the last year and a half having major problems) we finally bought another vehicle...my only regret is having spent $800 of our tax return this year trying to get the major problem fixed with no success!
This is a Scion XB 2005. Rob loves this car and it is perfect for tall people. He has plenty of clearance above his head, and room for his knees, and can even sit in the backseat with room for his knees (with the front seat pushed back all the way)! And we got it within our budget (Rob did a good job planning that and car shopping.)
Seth thinks the "x" on the side (see paint details) is cool!

The Den

This is one of the longest-lasting arrangements of our den. It's ironic that I started this blog- intended to highlight our rearrangement exploits soon after we chose this one. Anyway, we liked how open the room felt. Sure, having the TV in front of the window was a little weird, but all in all it matched our room well.
So the problem we needed to solve by changing things around is that Kaitlyn and Natalie have become more mobile recently by learning to walk. Kaitlyn is quite accident-prone in this adventure- she bumped her head on the cedar chest quite hard the other night.


I came home from work the next afternoon to find the room arranged like this (the chest is against the wall to the left of the couch):

Sweet dreams for sure!

First a funny story, and then the point of the post.

A few days before we were married, Beth moved into what would become our apartment. We bought a set of Queen-sized mattresses, which came with a free frame, and set them up in the bedroom with the beautiful quilt my grandmother made for our wedding. Beth's roommate Beth Shurtleff (Novak at the time) was still staying in the apartment until the wedding on Saturday. She was so excited about the new bed that she ran across the room, vaulted into the air, and soared squealing with joy onto our bed. That little stunt was accompanied by the sound of wood cracking. That's right- before Beth and I were ever able to share that bed, Beth S. broke the framing of the foundation (box spring, but without springs). We replaced that a few years later- around the time we moved into this house.

Now the point of the post: After 6 years and 2 months of sleeping on mattresses supported by a free metal frame (we did have a headboard for a while but that's another funny story in itself), we finally bought a bed. Here's a "before" picture:

And here's an "after" picture:

Room for living

Here's the latest arrangement of our living room. We must like it, because we haven't changed it in weeks.

Things to note:

• Blanket Chest we got from an antique place across town


• Wireless network - the modem is on top of the piano but the computer is back-to-back with the kitchen

Bathroom Painting

In our constant effort to improve the house, we decided to paint the bathrooms. Thankfully, all I really had to do was show up and paint. Beth chose the colors, researched paint prices, and basically arranged everything (as usual- I've been worthless around the house lately). The shade of yellow she picked matches both the rubber ducky curtain and the curtain in our bathroom. A big round of applause to Beth!

Here's the "before" for the front bathroom (also a lovely picture of Carolyn):

Here's the "after":

Here's the "before" for the master bathroom:

Here's the "after":