Week ending 7/1/11

On Sunday, we did a big unravel in the den. We put a bunch of stuff in the garage and moved our big armchair in. This is a really big milestone for us - the chair has been sort of mythical for us and to actually have it in the house feels great and gives me a little bit of hope. We were glad to see it survived 5 years of being stored in the garage with no damage. I'll post pictures next week.

Our next big milestone will be to be company-ready, which includes:

• the last two window shades
• putting a curtain up to be a temporary closet door in the den
• getting the pile of things that belong in the house currently piled in the den put away properly
• get the pile of flooring stuff put currently in the den stored in the garage
  

There's still lots to do later, but just getting to this point would be great. We are talking about getting a tv set up in the den and looking to the future, which is great!

On Monday, I buffed the office door. It only took 20 minutes, but I just cranked it out without doing an A+ job. It's not a good investment of my time to buff really well - the difference between a half-baked job and a really thorough one is A LOT of time and not much difference in the appearance. I can always go back and re-do it when this becomes the most urgent thing in the house.

I also spent 30 minutes in the den and got more stuff put into closets. I think we need just a few more work sessions plus a big push push next weekend to get everything properly placed or moved. Today's session cleared enough space to start working on the window shades in the den. It looks like not much gunk on the windows so they may not take too long (yeah right!).

On Tuesday, I spent another 20 minutes buffing the bedroom door and I have just two interior doors and the back door to go. The back door buffing itself wont be too bad but there's loads of sticky stuff on the glass. My favorite - NOT!

On Wednesday, I spend another 20 minutes buffing the den door. I only have the bathroom door left and the interior doors are done. Can you tell I'm desperate to get these doors done? The bathroom is smaller than the other doors so maybe it will only take 15 minutes. I hope to tackle the bathroom door Thursday and then do the back door Friday when I have to be at home waiting for the gardeners anyway.

I spend a few more minutes unpacking the den. We're hoping to have it look like a real room by next weekend which is ambitious but do-able. C and I are planning a big work session over the weekend to get all the remaining flooring supplies out into the garage, so I'm working toward getting all the house items put away and the garage items into the garage pile.

On Thursday, I buffed the last interior door which means no more blue tape in the house! Just the worst one to go: the back door with it's mass of sticky tape residue. I also spent more time sorting out the den. I tried to put a shade up but there is still too much of the garage pile in the way so it will have to wait until the room is more sorted out. I was sorting out a laundry hamper in which we stored some things during the work - it held lots of little things that were laying around but had to be put away for the flooring. A can of shellac spilled in bottom and in the process of cleaning it up the shellac got all over my hands and I couldn't get it off. I still can't believe the crappy contractor we fired in 2006 is still giving us "gifts." He talked us into shellac and was supposed to do it as part of his work.