Starting The Long Process Of Getting Settled

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It's been three weeks since we moved the last of our furniture into the new home.  Since then, we've been working non-stop to get all of the storage areas built and arranging everything.  We've still got quite a bit to do before we are finished, but here are some views of what we have finished so far.

Large guest room... our "Lincoln Bedroom"....  Steven and Sara visited last weekend just after we finished the room, so they "christened" it for us.  As you enter, an old oak barrister bookcase is situated between the entry door and the closet.  Great-great-grandpa Kaprelian's portrait taken somewhere around 1910-1920 hangs above the bookcase.  An old Persian carpet is on the floor.  The bookcase and rug were purchased at an estate sale in Grand Forks, ND around 1970.  They were old then.

The bed is framed by a small antique night table [hard to see here], an old tapestry, and a comfortable reading chair with a bright lamp for Great-grandma McIntyre to read her romance novels [or whatever].  The tapestry was found in the musty basement of an antique store near Milwaukee, WI in the early 70s.  There is a companion piece in another room.

The old oak dresser and mirror were salvaged in the mid-1990s from a house that was rented by my oldest son, Steven, when he attended the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor.  I think it had been left behind by some other student who must have considered it junk. Regardless....  The working pump organ was purchased from a potato farmer... that's right... somewhere in the middle of North Dakota around 1970.  I brought the base back in the trunk of our 1970 Pontiac Bonneville which was just slightly smaller than a moving van.  The top went in the back seat with the glass-ball, eagle-claw stool.

The second floor laundry-storage room is really quite a windfall for us.  The cabinets became available because they were ordered incorrectly by the salesperson... wrong sizes... so the store told us to just keep them as compensation for the several weeks of delay getting the replacements.

We put all of the cleaning and ironing supplies across from the washer-dryer at a height easy for Kathy to reach everything.  Above the washer-dryer, we put extra pillows in the cabinets and mats [for kids] above.  As you might have noticed, there is a small space available for my light weights that I can used for a workout.  I can throw down a mat for floor exercises such as sit-ups.

The washer and dryer are so quiet that we don't hear them operating outside of the laundry room... even the spin cycle of the washer.  Quite a change over our really old combo.

Around the corner in a little nook we have a cabinet with drawers for miscellaneous sheets and such.  There was a long, finished panel that was not used in putting together the kitchen, so I cut it on the table saw and caulked the two piece in place to make a 2' x 3' cabinet top.  Above that goes the extra blankets and comforters on the 16" deep wire shelves.

We're [mainly Kathy] working on selecting window treatments... blinds or honeycomb shades... so that I will have enough work to keep me busy ;-}

I'd show pictures of the pantry, but since it is 9 feet high and only 6 feet or so on a side, I can't get a good view for the camera.  Suffice to say that Kathy is loading it up from floor to ceiling.  We used combination of 16" and 12" deep wire shelves to accommodate both heavy and bulky items.  Kathy is also stocking up some of her "survival" food in there.  She keeps busy re-arranging it daily.

We still have to order the components for our walk-in closet so, for now, it is more of a throw-in closet.  

Meanwhile, I'm working through the piles of stuff in the basement and garage getting them organized or cleaned out.  Also trimmed a tree that had some branches too close to the house as well as cleaning up some yard debris.

That's why I've been remiss in posting recently.  As more gets completed, we'll add new posts.