Today is my first day back at my DayJob in nearly a week, well, 5 days anyhow. IT seems longer, perhaps because I was working non-stop, often until 10 or 11 at night and waking at 9 to repeat he process over again. My hands are stiff and sore from sanding and ripping out carpet, the process of pulling out staples with vise grips is strenuous, particularly since it’s easier if one is standing and bent over- you get better leverage than if you sit on the floor and pull, but its easier on your back if you sit. Catch-22?

Anyhow, we managed to finish the kitchen, almost last night. We did a glazed ragging technique to give it some depth of color and some interest. We also did it because it’s old 1970’s paneling and we wanted to cover it. It took more work than anything else we’ve tackled, except the carpet.

Needless to say, thus far the place looks great and I can’t wait to get our stuff in there and start actually living there. I hate half being here in Wakefield and half being in our new home.

My next project is the upstairs bedroom. Some of the walls are a mess and eventually need to be removed. However much of it is in good condition. So I’m torn between the coolness of the old fashioned walls and having them ripped the hell out.

After we get the bedroom in order I can then start thinking about the studio. It’s going to be less work than the other rooms, especially as I’m not finishing the basement I’m just making it workable. The hardest thing is going to be mounting the paper storage areas. I’m not sure what I’m going to use for it. I want to reuse as much of the existing materials as I can. There’s a workbench down there that I can rip the front off and mount some shelves to store large quantities of big paper. I also want to rip the doors off the cabinet and cut the doors to size and make shelves out of them that I can store my smaller boxes of paper on. The workbench itself is very rough but I like it. I need to do something so that the top of its clean and workable, otherwise the century of ground in dirt is going to mar every book I make. Perhaps I’ll fill in the major holes with wood putty and then cover it with some glossy finish. IT will be a work in progress.

Anyway, just a quick update on the house and the stuff that goes with it. BTW, I’ll post pics as I finish rooms.