And Now For Something Completely Different; or, Home Improvement

I've been talking a lot about the work we've been having done in my apartment the last two weeks, and I thought it would be nice to show you some of what's been going on (and it's always fun to give a little peek into my secret life). It is taking much longer than I thought it would, but I believe that's a hazard of this kind of project so I'm trying not to get upset over it. As long as things are mostly taken care of before we leave for Scandinavia a week from today, I'll be fine.

First, we had a built-in bookshelves/media center constructed:


I really love the way this turned out! Being a literature student, my book collection is out of control and constantly growing, so we really needed some additional book storage space. Having this built allowed us to remove one tall bookshelf from our living room and to get rid of a crappy dvd stand Lawyer Guy bought at Cost.co or something years ago. This is so much more streamlined and adult! I love the staining of the maple and the wavy glass door (so we can use the remote without opening anything). The glare to the left is the morning light coming in our bay window, and to the right you can see our teeny-little fireplace. Oh, and the painting hung over the mantel is a wedding gift from some friends of my parents. It's a watercolor of the chapel at my high school where Lawyer Guy and I were married.

Our second project is a complete overhaul of our storage/utility closet. We have a large and rather deep closet near our bedroom that was being completely wasted. There were two little metal shelves in the back, and that was it. We piled crap on the floor willy-nilly. It was terribly unsightly and also impossible to locate anything we needed.

This is how the closet looks as of this morning:


Very much a work in progress, as you can tell. We had a second storage compartment cut into the space above the closet doors (the closet extended all the way up past the doors to the ceiling, but that was basically unusable space before). The drywall installer has been impossible-- not showing up when he's supposed to and taking far longer to do everything than he implied he would--so getting that hole cut has been the primary time suck of the last week. And his tools are what you see sitting at on the floor in there (all the crap that usually resides there is currently hanging out in the second bedroom).

After he's done sanding and painting (which, pray to God, will be Monday), our woodworkers will install shelves in a U-shape to make a pantry and storage space and doors on the cubby above. We'll have all our random crap so much better organized and will also be shifting non-perishables from the kitchen cabinets, freeing up storage space there as well.

So there you have it! A little glimpse at my tiny, space-free apartment and a run-down on the activities that have kept me confined to my home for the last week. I will be so excited when all these projects are over.

(I've also got to mention--for completeness's sake--that I finally got my peak reading this morning. So my doctor was right and that follie was ready to blow. LG and I are off to Shelter Island to stay at some friends' rental place for the weekend. I'm hoping we get a bedroom with a lock on the door!)