Playing House

Are you kidding me?! I should actually start this post with the title... "REALLY?!"


And if it's not obvious to you, maybe I should clarify by adding the question, "Am I becoming a hoarder, or what?" How did this happen?! I am not a shopper, but I guess the act of removing anything that I MIGHT want to wear again is apparently too much for me.

My sister-outlaw has encouraged me to keep a box or a bag in there and pitch things as I come across them. As you can see, the box idea has only gone so far.

So anyway, I'm going to try to help myself out. The upstairs has wainscoting to about shoulder level, I think they call them Knee Walls, and behind them is space. Triangular space, but unused space, which is the point here. So I decided I'd try to make use of some of that space and sink an Ikea dresser into the wall.


Sounds easy, right? Yeah, sort of... this grand scheme didn't take into an account that I'd have to become an electrician to move the wires or Romex (I kept calling it rebar, which is the cement underlayment - duh! I hope you all were happy about picking on me for that one!) between two outlets in the wall. Some pretty straight sawing was necessary, by hand, in order to open the space for the dresser. I'd measured the depth, the height and the width about 18 times to make sure I wasn't going to suddenly have this big drill hole in the middle of nowhere.


As you can see, maybe I should've measured 19 times...

God, it was SO CLOSE! I just couldn't quite get it to pull forward enough and seat correctly into my precision opening.

Framed it in, so that it will not fall into the room when I load it up with all the crap I have hung on my railing... (all right, let's try not to be so hard on ourselves, now). As you can see, I tipped it in and out of the room a couple of times to get the fit right.

But finally, I got it snugged into the space, all the wiring was secured to go over the dresser instead of underneath it (access - hello.) and I put a little trim piece across the top, in case my carpenter friend wants to rip me for my not-so handiwork.

How's that, eh? Not so bad for somebody who only went to shop class because it was her home room. (Thanks Mr. Haugen, a little plug there for you...) I'm thinking I maybe should've chosen the birch veneer instead of the white stain oak, but online, you can't really tell how they're going to match up.


Well and look at these TREASURES! I found these in the crawl space and it looks like someone had lost track of a couple members of their beer can collection. [Whoever you are, if you want these babies back, you'll have to write me a letter and identify what ELSE you left up there.]

After that - actually about a week later - I felt I had to paint and trim up my basement steps. They were about to be classfied an OSHA emergency if someone had hit one or two in just the right way and sunk a five-inch splinter into the ball of their foot. Seriously, it was getting the scary on a couple of the stair treads.


It didn't turn out so bad, either. (Now watch me catch one of those new edges and go sailing down the stairs... No, strike that thought).

On a final note, I'd like to say a little something to my Grandpa on his birthday - Happy Birthday, Gordy! See all the stuff you taught me? Love you, Rest in Peace!