I'm Still Here

I think it happens to all bloggers, at least once in a while. That is, disappearing into... well, into reality, frankly. I'm not online all day, even when I'm keeping up with my blog, but lately I've been more than just "not online all day". I've been in the basement, mainly! And the kitchen. Well, I'll show you...

First I did this to part of my kitchen:

It was This:

And now it's This:

(Please forgive the shadow across the middle--that's from the window, not a dirty wall!)

And in between, in various stages, it was This:

I do not claim to be done with this, obviously. But I was able to get it to a point where we can live with it (cleaned up, painted, floor put down) until I get the trim cut and painted and the console table built that will hold my coffee pot, napkins, and whatever else I want to put there.

That's what I did when Nick was away for the weekend.

On to my most recent carpentry... the console table that is behind our tv.

It doesn't look like much--and it's not--but it's SO handy to have!

Our tv is ridiculous. It is huge and cumbersome, and I am terrified that if I elevate it, it will fall on one of the kids. It cannot be easily anchored to the wall, and we don't have appropriate furniture for it in any case, so there it sits in our awkward living room space by the front door, taunting me: "Look at me! I'm a big eyesore sitting on the floor, reminiscent of the days when you were fresh out of college, too poor to afford matching--or any--furniture! I'm going to phone my friends in the kitchen--you know, the mismatched plates and silverware and card table that you're still eating dinner on every night--and we're all going to make fun of you together!"... and so on. I am on my way to fixing our tv situation, and this console table is the first step. Like my liberated kitchen wall, it is also in limbo: it's done enough to use, but I plan to do more with it at a later date. Not only will I put a darker stain on it, I plan to build a short platform to stack the table and the tv on (maybe I'll put a drawer in it... hmm) so we'll have a small entertainment center. It's not that we can't afford to buy a big enough entertainment center, btw. We're just too frugal. :)

Another reason I haven't gotten around to doing this sooner, and opt to work on more pressing things (like a kitchen table), is that I don't know how much longer we'll have this tv. We've been talking about buying a flat screen to mount on the wall, and I don't want to invest time, energy, and money into something that we'll soon have no use for. My carpentry skills do not yet allow for selling my stuff, and who needs more... STUFF???

So, until we figure out something more attractive, here's our purely functional tv spot.
I'll say here what I'm sure I've said before: I DO NOT like tons of things about our house. One is the awkwardness of the space arrangement. The layout doesn't allow much open space, and the rooms are totally closed off from one another. It's too full of personal opinions. In someone's personal opinion, a cabinet system would be nice in the living room. In my opinion, they've just taken up valuable floorspace in such a small house and should have left it open. But it doesn't matter because the fact is: I'm stuck with all these cabinets and only a tiny wall to put the tv on, greatly limiting my options. Also, in someone's (probably the same "someone") personal opinion, a cabinet would really be good in the kitchen, where it was. Well, I had different thoughts. I'm so excited to finally be filling my house with my own personal opinions. Hopefully that'll open things up a lot. Lord knows, when you've only got 1200 sq ft, you can't have heavy, deep pieces around every corner. We have to live in here somewhere! All right, enough of that. Back to work. :)