February 2024 Projects

You know that one project around the house that you've tried to get up the energy to tackle multiple times, but just couldn't handle tackling? Maybe you've even attempted to take it on a couple of times but then decided that "out of sight, out of mind" was a decent mantra and tackled something else more pressing instead? Well, for us, that monster of a project was our kids' craft room in our basement, specifically their closet. It had been stuffed with discarded projects for a while, and I had gone down a couple of times with the intention of cleaning it out, only to be thwarted by the sheer size and mental energy needed for the task. It was a figurative monster in the closet! Finally in February, Brian and I metaphorically held hands for bravery and attacked the monster. It took so long to go through it, but we were finally successful.

Things we found in the wreckage of the closet: A shoe that Michael had made at one point. 

One of the airplanes he made back when he was really into making airplanes. 

The reason this taking on this closet was so hard is because the closet was chock full of our kids creative endeavors, and in some ways, it felt like we were throwing away pieces of their souls. We went through boxes that we had hurriedly packed back when we moved in 2020, boxes that contained coloring books and art stuff that we clearly hadn't missed throughout the last four years. We threw away or recycled so much stuff to bring order to that closet. We saved the best pieces of art, and got rid of the rest. It was incredibly satisfying! After we finished purging the closet, we finally attached the tree Rachel, Michael, and I did together back in our Fox Hollow house to the bottom of our Murphy bed. 

The closet looks so much better! 

Brian also got to work installing the French Barn doors that he got me for Christmas. He did drop something on his foot again, though I suppose it's been almost four years since he drew blood from his feet during a project, but to sort of quote him, you think he'd learn to wear shoes when working with tools! 

I love these doors so much! When we removed the closet from our downstairs entryway, I insisted we save the glass from the above door transom (all the interior doors downstairs have transom windows above them, and the closed door was no exception). The glass is a beautiful seeded glass, and I wanted to use it in these doors as a tribute. We took our saved glass to Jones Paint and Glass, along with the panels of glass that came with our doors and had them cut the old piece to the size of one of the glass panels in the door kit. They were able to find glass that matched our seeded glass and make five additional panels of glass to replace the original kit glass. When we put the doors from the kit together, we used the beautiful seeded glass instead of what came with it. I love how these upstairs doors now tie into our downstairs doors and really make these doors special. I can't tell which was our re-used piece and which ones are new. 

We did have to figure out a door stop that would keep the office door from breaking the new laundry room door. We finally landed on a door stopper attached to the office door. We were pretty nervous about breaking glass until we got that solution in place. 

I love that I no longer have a door blocking the cupboards in the laundry room! It feels so much more spacious in there without the inner swinging door. All that is left to do is patch where the old door catch hinges used to be.

Of course, Brian's always has a project or twenty going on at work, as well as a side app we're still trying to develop. Brian always has to be doing something, and usually that something is a project on the computer. 

While taking my studio architecture class in the fall, I decided we needed better lighting in the office, so I found a light that I thought would be better for that, and Brian switched it out for me. 

This decision led us to the goal to replace all the boob lights in our house, so I ordered a few more light fixtures to work towards that goal, and Brian happily replaced them. 

In February's episode of "Trying to Keep the Garage Organized", Brian decided to get better hosing for his shop vac. 

And organize this wall some more. 

I decided to pull out the quilt I started back when Rachel was a toddler. I had started this quilt as a way to support my friend Chelsi while her husband was going through treatment for brain cancer. I never finished it, and I decided it was time to do so. 

I pulled out all my completed blocks, took pictures of each kind and tallied how many of each kind I had, and then threw the photos into Photoshop on my tablet to lay the blocks out digitally and plan how to put them together. I think I decided that I needed a few more blocks, so I also got busy making those blocks. 

 I didn't finish the quilt in February, but it made for a nice reason to visit my craft room while I started working on it again.