Sunday, October 20, 2013

Adam Borrowed A Sawzall - I Decided Our Closet had to Go!

Our house looks pretty much like it always has.
A drab white exterior, peeling paint on the windows and trim.
Over a year of home ownership has passed and we are the only ones that know that things are changing ever so slowly.
It is a constant balance of doing those things that need to be done and doing projects that are temporary but increase the immediate functionality of our house.
While Adam had in his possession a borrowed sawzall, which he was using to cut through the old steal sewer plumbing under the house, I casually suggested that this might be the perfect time to cut away the wall of our closet.
The opening into our bedroom closet was less than twenty inches and those clothes that hung in a neat row in it's confines simply stayed hanging.  It was too much of a pain to retrieve anything. The ceiling panel was a mysterious few inches lower than the rest of the ceiling and I had long decided it all had to go.
The wall went, the ceiling panel went, the old layer of fabric wallpaper that contained a frightening quantity of black dust went, and we were left with a tongue and grove ceiling and three walls.


Adam painted. 


I decided to take a cue from those who came before us and I dug through my stash of fabric until I found a piece that matched our room and was large enough... and we simply covered the ceiling back up with fabric and a staple gun. 


Adam made custom trim, and after a week of all of our clothes laying in a pile on the floor in the kid's room, everything got put away.  Finally.


Since then, our house has been sported by a net work of 6 strong beams.  The bathroom floor has been redone and for the first time since we moved into this house we have a properly seated toilet (don't ask me about the details on that project.).

As the flowers fade and leaves flutter off of the trees the climbing vines that screened our porch in a vibrant green and once were dotted with bright purple flowers are brown.  Our house is melting into drab.  The heater is turned on.  All the access points under the house are closed. We are hunkering down for winter.  The peeling paint on the windows and trim will have to wait till next year.

4 comments:

  1. I mentally walked through this process, including all of those unwritten details required by a project like this, and I felt in the space with you. So happy for you that you now have a more accessible closet! Love your fabric ceiling covering, too.

    Love,

    Grandma

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    Replies
    1. We didn't get quite as far as hoped on the house this summer, but we will be able to accomplish a lot next summer. This is going to take years and we have no illusions about that. I just wish the exterior of our house would look nicer sooner. It still looks so very sad.

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  2. That's a really neat idea with the fabric covering on the ceiling closet! We are hunkering down here, as well. I brought my plants in on Thursday night....I always do this with some regret. I miss my porch plants!

    Love, Mom

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    Replies
    1. I always have to re-arrange our entire house to get our plants in. Your porch did look amazing. :)

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