Sharon Arrives Tonight - State Fair Awaits

I was busy yesterday. I cleaned/finished cleaning the upper and main levels of the house. Today I tackle the lower level. The very lowest level is on hold until after Sharon leaves, we are awaiting some storage bins that DH had me order for him last night. I have photos to share, so this will be a photo blog today, and tomorrow through Labor Day I'll be off-line. It's vacation time with Sharon and it's time for the Minnesota State Fair - YIPPEE. So ... photos. Here we go. 

Sharon's room is complete and ready for her. The
sofa bed is pulled out and made (I have a air mattress
on top of the skimpy, icky spring mattress of the
sleeper). Her robe is folded and ready for her use. 

From another view, everything is in waiting. The TV
works, the clock radio is set properly, I did add one
more pillow to the bead after this photo was taken,
as well as a small gift for her. 

The craft room is on hold until new storage bins have arrived. Apparently
the grey top bins of mine will fit DH's space (the far left section), but
the new bins will be less than an inch too large. We'll trade bins
after they arrive and he'll be happy. This is the lower left of the new build. 

The upper left is also starting to come together. The six leftmost
alcoves are the newest construction and they're for DH's stuff.
Magazines in their holders take up a good portion of the left of
my section, and then I move on to books on the right. 

So that's half of the new construction in the craft room. Here are the right hand sections. 

The right section on my side drops to a long credenza/work space
with a centered light and room for my materials in multi-compartment
bins above. You'll get a better view of the upper right in the next photo. 

I still have a lot of organizing to do in the upper right, the area that
will be directly over the credenza. Behind me is my original work desk
that is piled with WAY too much stuff and works in progress. I will
start to clear and organize that after Sharon's visit. 

Two more photos of where we are at now. Here's the breezeway. We only have the soldering table up so far, but just look at how wonderful those new blinds are. They make the dark room so light. He also mounted a shop light directly over the table to increase the light. I have two photos to share with you. 

The table is up and both shades are now installed. They aren't
perfect (slightly short for the width), but they are a VAST
improvement and lighten the room a lot. 

For even more light, he mounted a shop light above the table. We're
getting a plug strip which will be mounted at the far left to make turning
on the light easy, and allow for other items that need power. 

There are times when I'll have TOO much light in this room, but that might be a really nice change. So ... we always look at Sharon's annual visit and the State Fair as the bookend of a summer that starts with my trip to Bead & Button in Milwaukee. What did we get done this summer? A LOT! Almost everything is due to DH's single-minded dedication to getting things done. We'll continue to work on this room and move over as much as possible, but winter is coming and I suspect, because we've had a colder spring/summer than usual, that our winter might be longer and colder than usual. I hope not, but it's a possibility we're all whispering here in the Frozen Northlands. 

So - I'm on radio silence for a few days. Don't post too much - LOL. I'll be back to posting next week Wednesday, so have a wonderful Labor Day holiday here in the USA, and enjoy your extended weekend if you're from elsewhere. *Hugs* to all and I'll share food and people photos when I return. 

Breezeway Furnishings and a 3-Word Address

I had to run a quick dryer load through this morning, so today's post is a bit short - on time and content. I received a package yesterday of three pairs of sweat pants, two turtleneck shirts and a button up Henley from Kohl's (all for less than $80 with free shipping) and wanted to get them washed, along with DH's shirt from yesterday which was fusty from having moved and assembled the soldering bench (photo below). I knew I had to get the rust off the shirt right away or it would be toast, thus a washer load last night, and a dryer started at 3:00 am this morning. 

The solder bench is assembled. We still need to put the
top into the frame, but that's easy. Notice the new
height of the shutters. He raised them up approximately
four inches so that they can be opened to let light in.
Blinds would be much easier to handle though, since
the table depth is four feet. 

The solder benchtop was a total PITA to get up the stairs of the shop, out the door, and into the back of the pickup. DH had to get it into the breezeway on his own, but that only entailed a single shelf. After getting everything reassembled, and raising the shutters so that I could open them and the windows if I wanted, he spent last night searching on-line for inexpensive narrow blinds that we could replace the shutters with. The least expensive would fit, but not easily. I could actually get the dimension I need, but it would cost $60+ (vs under $15 for the least expensive). Whatever we choose, we'll need two sets, so economy does play a role. 

Remember this photo from August 1st? Here you can
see where the shutters originally were positioned. He
raised them quite a bit to clear the tabletop. 

Sorry to be so short today, but on the positive side, I've got a website for you to check out. What3Words is an address app that can accurately pinpoint any address in the world - on a street, or on a mountaintop. It is already being used in untraveled parts of the world to rent yurts and forested tents for AirBnB uses. Check it out when you have a chance. Every address receives a unique three-word designation. I found my three-word address, although I had to move across the pond to the USA and then start moving into my city, street, neighborhood and finally house. It was easy and rather fun. What's your new 3-word address?   

I'll be back tomorrow, have a wonderful day and enjoy your Friday! 

Wednesday Was So Busy!

Yesterday was a very busy day. I did my errands, managed my usual three loads of laundry plus one extra one, and took three hours and cleaned the breezeway the best I could. DH even noticed (comment: "Oh, you cleaned up a little bit") - OUCH! But yes, I did indeed clean the breezeway, taking off an hour for my weekly convo with Aearwen, but then returning to wrap things up while getting dinner into the oven and breaking down some boxes for recycling. I wish I had a "before" photo to share with you, but here's the "after". 

The two rugs are in front of the door to the house
and I'm standing in the door leading to the
garage. The windows are covered by those
ridiculous shutters. There had been a valence
above them which has been removed and is
now in the trash. I swept, vacuumed, and
washed everywhere I could reach. 

I swept, then vacuumed. I washed the walls - they were FILTHY! I beat the two rugs in front of the door where we wipe down before entering the house, and I washed the glass windows and door panels. I'm supposed to allow my arm to rest for Wednesdays, it didn't happen yesterday. This was a ton of work and I'm really pleased I got something accomplished. 

We had three antique Pendleton shawls from the 1920's-30's in a
bag, trying to protect them from moths, etc. We had to take a
chance and launder them. Although the fringe ended up worse
for wear, the blankets themselves actually survived the
washer and dryer pretty well. Now they're protected in a
blanket bag until I decide what to do with them. 

Another thing I did was that fourth load of laundry. Originally I had taken three antique Pendleton "shawls" to the dry cleaners in May, but they refused to clean them because they had fringe. After discussing the possibility of just undoing the fringe, DH said to just wash them, so yesterday was the day. My final load of the day might well have killed my washer and dryer, but I took the chance - I stuffed them into the washer and washed on hot (they were shedding pieces of fringe everywhere), then followed that up by an hour in the dryer on medium heat. The fluff in that dryer was immense - 
a carpet of lint in the catcher as well as throughout any surface that could catch it. What a mess. But I got it cleaned out and ready to go for the next load later this week. 

I ended up with a basic wired mouse for $12. I really
didn't need anything super high powered, and wireless
doesn't always do well for me. It seems to be
working just fine. Yippee! 

So I start my August out with a much cleaner platform, oh ... and a new mouse for my computer. I didn't get anything high end, but the new mouse works MUCH better and I'm much happier. Now to return to cleaning at the shop during the day today. Have a great Thursday and a wonderful first day of August. I'll be back tomorrow.