Eluwak

House Projects Continue at Pace

Progress on my never ending plans for our home has continued.

• Tonight we ordered new carpeting for our entire third floor guest suite (excluding the bathroom) and the third floor staircase.
• We also ordered a Couristan stair runner for our main staircase. Both will be installed on March 14.
• I finished installing a remote controlled third-way dimmer and new sconce light for the third floor staircase last weekend.
• The room known formerly as the Office, and then as the Breakfast Nook, has been renamed yet again to the Conservatory - its original purpose 111 years ago when the house was built. While we have kept the table in there for less formal meals, it now contains five hanging plants, four flowering plants, a mixed potted plant, four cacti, an aloe plant, and a palm tree. We will probably be adding several more hanging plants in the coming weeks.
• I purchased the maple and other materials that I need to build a 4' long plant stand that I designed for the Conservatory. I am hoping to complete it over the next two weekends.
• I drew up plans to build new cabinet doors and facings for our kitchen cabinets. While the framing is all solid oak, the current doors and facings are a laminate. Over the next couple of months I will be build new solid oak doors and facings, staining them, and adding new hardware.
• The Office is now in our basement which is finished, but it is not divided from the main room down there. Before the end of the summer, I am going to build a partition and a full wall mahogany bookshelf. I am going to include soundproofing materials in the walls and in the ceiling.
• I am getting quotes from several artisans in town to get a custom stained glass window of our family crest created for the main door. My goal is to have it ordered, created, and installed in the door before cold weather sets in next fall.
• I drew up designs to create a second guest bedroom (12' x 14') on the third floor by removing the walk-in cedar closet and storage room. I have not yet set a timeline for implementation. 
• I am in the earliest stages of researching the costs and logistics of having stone or brick facing applied to our entire exterior. This will likely be close to a six-figure budget, so the timeline for implementation is probably 5+ years from now once both Xan and Alanna are both out of daycare.

Waiting for Godot, Errr, I Mean Baby

My wife and I are expecting our second child pretty much any moment / day now. Although I am not at all nervous about the actual birth or additional responsibility of another child, I am feeling stressed by the simplest part - waiting. When I was younger I was most certainly an impatient person, but I thought I had evolved beyond that quite some time ago. I am clearly a Type A personality with obsessive-compulsive tendencies in my personal life, so perhaps it is more the lack of control and ability to plan the minutiae of my life that is getting to me. Whatever the cause, I am anxious for our daughter to finally make her appearance.

I have passed the time the last several weeks by doing projects around the house. Four weekends ago I redid the ceiling and painted my son’s play annex. Three weekends ago I moved my office into the finished basement (it is the quietest floor in the house) and converted my old office space into a breakfast nook. Last weekend I painted the trim and walls in the basement staircase and redid the floor of the basement stairs landing.

Perhaps I am so anxious now because I have not focused my energy on a specific project this weekend and instead have been puttering around, clearing snow from the driveway, and cleaning? If I knew that the baby would hold off at least until Monday I probably would have wired a three-way switch for the third-floor guest suite staircase and replaced the old light fixture with a new sconce light. I am a restless person and having my energy unfocused is psychologically painful to me. Does that make me crazy, driven, or both?

Let us not waste our time in idle discourse! Let us do something, while we have the chance! It is not every day that we are needed. But at this place, at this moment of time, all mankind is us, whether we like it or not. Let us make the most of it, before it is too late! - from Waiting for Godot