I just have time for a quick note, but it is an important one — we met with an architect!
Last fall, Roy had taken a course from Rice University's School of Continuing Studies. It is a course we had long considered, and with me freed from daytime obligations with my May layoff, we planned for me to take it, starting in September. Only fate intervened, and I began working at a client site in downtown Houston in August! Drats!
So, we considered our options. Since Roy works from home on Tuesdays, we decided that he'd just take the time (10am-12noon for 6 weeks) to take the course and "reteach" it to me in the evenings. (Since he's paid hourly, he can do things like that.)
The whole point of that story is that this morning we met with the architect (also a Rice grad) who teaches that course each semester. We walked through both houses and he will start on a "big picture" design of the old house, with a few alternatives. We'll select a design based on "overall feel" (or something) so that we can get rough estimates from a few general contractors (to get an idea of the price we're looking at). Then we'll go back to him for a detailed plan (which type of cabinet goes where in the kitchen, etc.) that can be built from.
So, woohoo! Progress!
Tuesday, January 29, 2013
Saturday, January 12, 2013
Out of Chaos...
We all have one.
You know, the drawer that starts out in life mostly empty, but over time and laziness (and possibly a bit of space-time continuum issues) begins the accumulation of "stuff".
Stuff like the spare set of house keys for the pet sitter, the address book (and all of those business cards), the badge and key to the office you no longer have, the rubber band from the head of broccoli (plus the next 16 heads and let's not forget those bunches of asparagus!), the twist-ties, paper clips, binder clips, pencils, notepads, address labels, pens you permanently borrowed, coupons, etc.
The largest drawer in our kitchen is a giant one that spans the 36-inch wide pots-and-pans cabinet. It started out tidy and fairly empty. Over the past year and a half, however, it had gotten to where you could never find what you were looking for in it and to get it closed sometimes required a bit of "shoofing" of contents. I'd been wanting to take everything out for some time now and get it organized, but I hadn't had the time (or energy) since returning to the workforce full-time back in August (as a contractor) (some of you knew I'd returned to work, but probably not all of you).
Sometimes, though, the great universe hears such grumblings and takes it upon itself to see just how much you really meant it. So on 1/2/13, my latest contract was abruptly terminated when the company we were auditing discovered they had no need of auditors for 2012 as their lender decided not to audit them. (I suspect the lender's thought process went something along the lines of "well, they are in bankruptcy, all of their assets are up for auction or sale, we're already not going to get everything we're owed, do we really want to throw good money after bad?!?!")
So I suddenly found myself without scheduled work for an unforeseeable time period, which could be a day or two or seven or more. Friday marked seven work days, but I also found out on Friday that I have a new contract for 3-4 weeks beginning on Monday.
My proudest accomplishment during my unexpected time off has been to completely overhaul that drawer and get it organized. I am sorry to say that I forgot to take a before picture, but find your fullest junk drawer (or better yet, one of your parents' junk drawers), open it, and then imagine if it were as big as ours, and you'll probably be pretty close to visualizing how ours looked at the start.
Most of the bins came from The Container Store. I cannot remember where the white "desk" organizer on the upper right came from - it could be TCS or it could be from someplace else entirely. (The top of the white organizer slides down to reveal even more compartments in the lower level!)
Eat your heart out, Martha Stewart!
(PS For those who didn't catch the pun in the title of the previous post about our new door, "Lovin' a Door", it's a pun on "love and adore" from the hymn "Come Thou Almighty King". One guess who titled that post! :) )
(PPS Almost everything was returned to the drawer - the only exceptions were 6 napkins that aren't everyday so didn't belong, the 2nd calculator, the dead mini voice recorder, the mini multi-tool that was a gift (and needs to go to the car), and a pen/USB drive from my defunct company. I even put Roy's badge and key back in there - they now inhabit that empty white rhomboid next to the orange-handled scissors. Into the spaces you can't see in the white organizer, I'm continuing to move things from our bedroom and the bookcase that would really serve us better being closer to the cars, such as spare keys.)
You know, the drawer that starts out in life mostly empty, but over time and laziness (and possibly a bit of space-time continuum issues) begins the accumulation of "stuff".
Stuff like the spare set of house keys for the pet sitter, the address book (and all of those business cards), the badge and key to the office you no longer have, the rubber band from the head of broccoli (plus the next 16 heads and let's not forget those bunches of asparagus!), the twist-ties, paper clips, binder clips, pencils, notepads, address labels, pens you permanently borrowed, coupons, etc.
The largest drawer in our kitchen is a giant one that spans the 36-inch wide pots-and-pans cabinet. It started out tidy and fairly empty. Over the past year and a half, however, it had gotten to where you could never find what you were looking for in it and to get it closed sometimes required a bit of "shoofing" of contents. I'd been wanting to take everything out for some time now and get it organized, but I hadn't had the time (or energy) since returning to the workforce full-time back in August (as a contractor) (some of you knew I'd returned to work, but probably not all of you).
Sometimes, though, the great universe hears such grumblings and takes it upon itself to see just how much you really meant it. So on 1/2/13, my latest contract was abruptly terminated when the company we were auditing discovered they had no need of auditors for 2012 as their lender decided not to audit them. (I suspect the lender's thought process went something along the lines of "well, they are in bankruptcy, all of their assets are up for auction or sale, we're already not going to get everything we're owed, do we really want to throw good money after bad?!?!")
So I suddenly found myself without scheduled work for an unforeseeable time period, which could be a day or two or seven or more. Friday marked seven work days, but I also found out on Friday that I have a new contract for 3-4 weeks beginning on Monday.
My proudest accomplishment during my unexpected time off has been to completely overhaul that drawer and get it organized. I am sorry to say that I forgot to take a before picture, but find your fullest junk drawer (or better yet, one of your parents' junk drawers), open it, and then imagine if it were as big as ours, and you'll probably be pretty close to visualizing how ours looked at the start.
Most of the bins came from The Container Store. I cannot remember where the white "desk" organizer on the upper right came from - it could be TCS or it could be from someplace else entirely. (The top of the white organizer slides down to reveal even more compartments in the lower level!)
Eat your heart out, Martha Stewart!
(PS For those who didn't catch the pun in the title of the previous post about our new door, "Lovin' a Door", it's a pun on "love and adore" from the hymn "Come Thou Almighty King". One guess who titled that post! :) )
(PPS Almost everything was returned to the drawer - the only exceptions were 6 napkins that aren't everyday so didn't belong, the 2nd calculator, the dead mini voice recorder, the mini multi-tool that was a gift (and needs to go to the car), and a pen/USB drive from my defunct company. I even put Roy's badge and key back in there - they now inhabit that empty white rhomboid next to the orange-handled scissors. Into the spaces you can't see in the white organizer, I'm continuing to move things from our bedroom and the bookcase that would really serve us better being closer to the cars, such as spare keys.)
Friday, January 4, 2013
Lovin' a Door
On Christmas Day, we sat down to make our charitable donations for the year. In sorting through the myriad request letters, we discovered that the Houston chapter of Habitat for Humanity celebrated 25 years this year and had created a special project in honor of their anniversary - 25 reclaimed doors were decorated by local and national artists and local student artists. One of the pictured doors in the flyer was created by the middle school to which we are zoned, Johnston (yes, with a 't') Middle School.
The doors had spent the fall on display in a museum or two and then were displayed at Habitat's fall gala. Some had been successfully auctioned off or otherwise found new homes, but there were still some doors available for "adoption" (for a donation above a given amount). We looked at the check we had already written and went "hmm. We qualify for a door - wonder if the Johnston door is still available?"
So we e-mailed the project's contact name, Bronwyn, on Christmas Day, and very surprisingly, received a response that evening. She was pretty sure the JMS door was still available!
Fast forward to today, after several phone calls and e-mails back and forth with Bronwyn, we were set to visit the Habitat office and look at the available doors. We took the 2nd row of seats out of the minivan, tossed in some cardboard and other stuff to protect the seat rails, and off we went.
The doors were very neat - we forgot to take a camera, so we don't have any pictures of the other doors. There was an ordinary-sized door that had been painted by The Kincaid School which was stunning - a 6-panel, burgundy ground, with groupings of pears in each of the panels, all done in 3-D acrylics. It had been adopted, just not picked up. It was very lovely.
The JMS door, I have neglected to mention, is HUGE. It is a 96-inch tall door. Yep, 8-foot tall! While we have no place for it in our current 8-ft tall ceilinged home, we can certainly make room for it in the new house's expansion, perhaps in the pool room, or perhaps in the garage/workroom. We loved it just as much in person as we had on paper - in the flyer, we had seen the side with the sun. As a surprise bonus, the other side of the door is painted entirely differently, so we effectively have 2 different doors.
We believe this to be an interior door (based on thickness), but it was never used, apparently, as there are no mortises for the hinges or core drilled for a handle-set. Right now, it is mounted on stand braces (for display), so that is how we have stored it in the new house's garage (which has no ceiling, so the door can stand upright on some bricks until we are ready for it).
Rugen Cat is checking out the door in the pictures.
Happy New Year, everyone!
The doors had spent the fall on display in a museum or two and then were displayed at Habitat's fall gala. Some had been successfully auctioned off or otherwise found new homes, but there were still some doors available for "adoption" (for a donation above a given amount). We looked at the check we had already written and went "hmm. We qualify for a door - wonder if the Johnston door is still available?"
So we e-mailed the project's contact name, Bronwyn, on Christmas Day, and very surprisingly, received a response that evening. She was pretty sure the JMS door was still available!
Fast forward to today, after several phone calls and e-mails back and forth with Bronwyn, we were set to visit the Habitat office and look at the available doors. We took the 2nd row of seats out of the minivan, tossed in some cardboard and other stuff to protect the seat rails, and off we went.
The doors were very neat - we forgot to take a camera, so we don't have any pictures of the other doors. There was an ordinary-sized door that had been painted by The Kincaid School which was stunning - a 6-panel, burgundy ground, with groupings of pears in each of the panels, all done in 3-D acrylics. It had been adopted, just not picked up. It was very lovely.
The JMS door, I have neglected to mention, is HUGE. It is a 96-inch tall door. Yep, 8-foot tall! While we have no place for it in our current 8-ft tall ceilinged home, we can certainly make room for it in the new house's expansion, perhaps in the pool room, or perhaps in the garage/workroom. We loved it just as much in person as we had on paper - in the flyer, we had seen the side with the sun. As a surprise bonus, the other side of the door is painted entirely differently, so we effectively have 2 different doors.
We believe this to be an interior door (based on thickness), but it was never used, apparently, as there are no mortises for the hinges or core drilled for a handle-set. Right now, it is mounted on stand braces (for display), so that is how we have stored it in the new house's garage (which has no ceiling, so the door can stand upright on some bricks until we are ready for it).
Rugen Cat is checking out the door in the pictures.
Happy New Year, everyone!
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