Don’t Strain Yourself

Remember last week when I told you to use your imagination? Well, if that activity taxed you, have no fear… pictures are here!

Patching....

Surprisingly nothing to patch here. See that big hole? It took a lot of work, but the entire door and frame were removed. It's a beautiful (surprisingly large) 36" opening!

Primed. Looks so much better already, right?

More primed.

Wall built, pocket door hung, and framework for built-ins started.

Isn't that a beautiful door? It will look even cuter when it's painted white (it's a good thing we're painting it - the bins we used to prop it up for cutting it down - about 3" in height - left some ugly marks on one side).

Sorry that the pictures aren’t the greatest quality, but even during the daylight hours we’re lacking in light in the basement. Why?

We had a small snowfall this weekend. Ahem. Blizzard.

Surprisingly, 16+ inches of snow quickly fills up window wells, especially when the plastic covers you bought to protect them are sitting out in the garage, uninstalled. We're smart like that.

It's hard to tell exactly how much snow fell at our house because of all the weird ways wind whips around our property. But, we're 5 minutes from the airport, and they reported 16.5 inches, so I think that's a safe bet.

The deck is even stranger. There's a small strip on the side there with no snow whatsoever.

...but most of the deck looked like this (until we raked the snow off of the roof - now there's a pile that almost touches the roof, because there was a ledge of 2+ feet up there that needed to be dealt with - ice was already starting to form).

From the front door. Where'd the stairs go? (The other front door was even worse, but the pictures did not turn out.)

So, as you can see, we were busy this weekend. Friday night we went to the Timberwolves game, which was actually really good. For first quarter it didn’t seem like it would be that way, but then people started to show up (the stands were probably 1/2 full at tip-off), and then we started winning, and it got exciting for the next three quarters.

Saturday we started to hang the pocket door frame (the wall was already up), and then we tackled some of the snow in our driveway so we could go out to Home Depot for more supplies. We stopped at REI for more winter gear and the grocery store for firewood, so we made the most out of our short trip. The Rav performed beautifully.

After cutting down the door, we installed it, and discovered a rookie mistake we’d made in our initial framing (of course one of the walls wasn’t straight). So Sunday morning we took it all down, fixed the part of the frame that wasn’t plumb (importantly, it was the part that the door closed up against, so there wasn’t a nice seal between the two pieces before fixing it), and re-installed everything. Then we built the two side walls for one of the built-ins (this one will hold the electronics and DVDs, and who knows what else – it’s a big space).

After lunch, we spent an hour and a half shoveling. Our bobcat-driving neighbor (not the next door neighbor with the chainsaw, but a different one) had stopped by on Saturday once it stopped snowing and plowed for us, but there was still the front walkway, the steps, and some pile-up in front of the garage. Oh, and many, many feet of snow on the roof that needed to come down. I was very thankful for my new winter hat and mittens, because it was 5* outside, and that was as warm as it was going to get. (It was -8* this morning while I waited for the bus.)

is on jury duty this week, and I’m feeling quite tired from the shoveling, so we may or may not make progress tonight. Maybe we’ll give ourselves the night off. Maybe not. In my off time this weekend, I did a lot of reading and a tiny bit of ironing, and four loads of laundry. Not exactly the crafting I had in mind. I decided that I need to set the ironing aside and do some actual sewing (perhaps that sounds strange, as most people would procrastinate on ironing, but I like to have it done and out of the way, and it makes me a bit twitchy thinking about that pile sitting there, wrinkly, waiting for me).

Stay warm!