Being a California girl, I naturally think that if the sun is out, it's time to hang out the sheets! Of course in the Rogue Valley of Oregon, the sun can be out but it can be 24 degrees! It's warmed up to the mid 40's so I figured the sun, even at its compromised winter angle, will shine on the sheets and do some good.
This view shows the cantilevered Canadian clothes line which folds down against the house when not in use. Come on sun!!
Another re-purposing...thinking outside the bookcase. This old skinny black bookcase fit and we painted it Creme Brulee to match the closet walls. Jack's side is on the right and mine is on the left. Happily, the double racks worked as designed and I got some dress and long skirt hanging next to the shoe cabinet.
Shoe storage complete with adjustable shelves allowing for seasonal variations in footwear.
So no excess expenditure...we had all the stuff for the shoe shelves. Jack also added some battery powered LED lights at each end of the closet.
And no animals were harmed or endangered species threatened during this construction. Chase the dog stayed well away from the bedroom but Isabella lounged on the bed watching the entire proceedings.
I call this $100 well spent!
Day One of the closet makeover.
Oye! That's Yiddish for Oye! Jack happily anticipates yet another honey-dooo! This one will take a couple of days, lots of work but not too much money! I've waited 5 years for this makeover!
This is the before. Shoes are all over the floor and on the top shelf. My lingerie chest is stuck on the bottom shoe shelf (a bookcase that we re-purposed and layed in there sideways. What you can't see is that I have another closet half full of clothes in the guest bedroom because stuff just won't all fit in our so-called master bedroom closet...we call it a stand-in closet because it's 36" deep.
Our plan? Take everything out, move up the top shelf to within 12" of the ceiling, replace the warped wooden dowel circa 1978 with a new powder coated steel dowel. Replace the dowel holder/shelf brackets (they're bent) with new ones and then decide about where to put the lower racks. Wood supports will be needed for the shelf and the dowel end holders as they were quite stingy with the 2x4's in the side walls!
A brief intermission while we go to the hardware store. Hubbard's Hardware is our favorite place for stuff...we did our best to support the local economy and spent about $100 for hardware and wood. Turns out that they had everything we needed!
By the end of day one, we had done much head scratching to figure out where we wanted the lower racks...we ended up making Jack's side (the right side) lower by a couple of inches than my side. His shirts are longer than my tops and we wanted to put those on the top rack. I finished off with painting all the new wood supports on the side walls.
Here you can see our new metal racks and the metal brackets holding them. The big white bracket is screwed into the 2x4 at the back of the closet. You can just make out the wood 1x4 that we used on the side wall to hold the dowel fixture. The back wall stud location dictated the width of the new racks. My side is wider than Jack's because of that. Seems right to me! Tomorrow we'll put in the shoe storage and re-install the sliding mirror doors.
Happy Holidays from us. We're celebrating with a mimosa breakfast before opening our gifts.
We make our mimosas with some fresh tangerine juice and some Amour de Paris sparkling peach wine. A delightful combination!
Actually, our present this year is a closet makeover...hard to wrap...but memorable through the coming year. We'll be attacking the closet between Christmas and New Year's. Mimosas will probably be in order! WATCH THIS SPACE!
NEW FAUCET!
Well, maybe not all...but I did get my wish thanks to my resident, if reluctant, plumber guy. The long sad story is that my last faucet was impossible to use with its spray feature without getting me, the window and the counter wet at the same time. So I saw an opportunity when the old faucet needed repair. A quick trip to Lowe's (Jack gets a Veteran's discount there) and looking at 50 or so models (who knew there were so many brands and styles!), we settled on this beauty.
Turned out that Jack had to cut out the old faucet (it had been put on the sink before the sink was installed), modify the new undersink mounting bracket to fit, and voila! or viola!...2 hours of swearing, contorting the body laying under the sink by Jack and about 25 tools later, we had the "faucet of my dreams!"
The black button on the spout is the spray feature. I can also pull the spout down and move it around without any kink in the hose!
Jack's chiropractor asked, "What have you been doing to yourself?"
Sometimes it is the little things that can make a big difference...
We woke up Sunday morning to 6" of lovely fresh snow. That means that the ski resort (Mt. Ashland) probably got much more and can open as soon as they clear the road up there. This is the most snow we've ever had since we've lived here at 1900' elevation.
I put out extra seed for the expected influx of birds today.
Here's an excellent photo of our pooch, Chase, in all his barking excitement, taken by our daughter-in-law Susan when we were visiting them in Chico. You just can't have too much cute in your life!
