Matt attended another protest, with this new sign: If there’s money for raids, there’s money for Medicaid
He found out that using the dollar sign for money and the numeral four in succession caused confusion. People read it as four dollars rather than money for.
This sign was from a previous protest, but you don’t want to leave a blank side.
It’s been almost 15 years since Chris and I panted the walls blue. It wasn’t my favorite color, but it was my favorite color of the Metro Paint colors. Rereading that post, I was reminded that I once had an idea of installing shelving so the cats could hang out up top. I have no memory of that plan, though I do remember the plan to stencil Hungarian stars on the wall.
Anyhoo! I’ve grown very tired of this blue and am very excited for a new era. Here’s a corner by corner view.
To prepare for painting, I pushed my desk into the middle of the room, put my bedframe in the back yard, and my mattress in the front room.
To prep, I spackled over holes that I wouldn’t be using, and removed all of the extraneous things like switch plates and shelving.
In this picture, you can see that the second mirror on the wall was installed before the room got painted, and we didn’t bother to remove it when we painted it. It won’t be coming back, so I spackled and texturized those holes.
The big texture spot on this wall was where the folding desk was. That desk only lasted two years; I have other desk plans for the new room. The person on Buy Nothing who came to get it was thrilled. And also named Patricia. And was younger than me. Weird!
Both the postcard display and the drying racks on this wall will be coming back.
All the shelves are down from the desk area, but they will be back.
And here’s an interior of my very empty closet. The front room is stacked with all the many things I efficiently stored in my closet. It’s kind of a lot.
And here’s the view from the closet floor.
I’m excited for the changes.
What occupied this spot in my closet?
It’s my Ikea shoe holder. I took it out because the closet is being painted (and wallpapered) so I needed to strip down to basics.
Look what has been accumulating from my shoes over the last decade.
This wasn’t me being lazy; the shoe holder is affixed to the wall. So the only way to clean under it is to remove it.
Anyway, super gross, but it cleaned up fairly easily.
Friends Burt and Laurie have been getting together once-ish a month to do 90 minutes of some sort of project at one of our houses. It’s been pretty fun, and it’s also motiving. When there will be four people working, those backburner projects tend to come to the forefront.
This month, I had a variety of things ready. Laurie dug out our old worm bin while Burt drilled holes in a trash can that will become our new worm bin.
Burt put in two-by-fours that Matt and I cut to size. These will be used to hold hangers for all the yard tools.
Matt, Laurie, and I put together an object. The three of us assembled the wood that Matt and I cut into a box, and then Laurie and Matt added dowels while Burt and I measured the yard.
The final yard object. It’s main use is to keep me from tripping over the pole for the clothesline. It’s removable, and I can set it to the side while the cloths are drying.
A very fun day of work!
I spent a good chunk of allotted room transformation money at the Swedish flat-pack store and have been in my happy place: assembling Ikea furniture.
The cat tree that was in the bedroom so that the cats could get to the windowsill and perch has now moved out to the living room in preparation for moving to a new home. In the meantime, it’s corralling the cardboard of the items I did and didn’t assemble.
My new table! One of my goals was to have a place where my sewing machines could be easily accessible. They will sit on top of this table, which has drop leaves that will let me have space to sew when the bed is put up.
The wall with the window will have three Billy bookcases. This is the biggest one, it will be flanked by two smaller ones. It has a rolling drawer.
I also bought a new duvet cover. It’s not as orange as it looked in the store, so it might not be the final iteration. We will see.
When I was looking for a new coffee table, I was hoping it would have storage and be the height where I could comfortably put my feet and legs on so I could lounge out. Julie informed me such a thing was called a storage ottoman.
I ended up going in a different direction, storage ottomans being in short supply, but what should I find at Ikea, but a very small storage ottoman for thirteen dollars!
It nicely matches the chair that has always needed a footrest.
From the future, I can report that I went back and bought two more of these storage ottomans and they sit at the end of the coffee table. I put them against the couch and can now lounge out, like I always dreamed.
They will also be a great place to put scraps of fabric.
Thanks, Ikea!
For the first time in many years, we headed out to watch the fireworks. Specifically the Oaks Park fireworks from across the river at Willamette Park.
You can see that it was not a particularly warm night. Also, check out the very dead grass we were sitting on.
From later in the evening as the sun went down. That stand of trees to the left of Matt’s head was where the barge with the fireworks was.
This meant that we saw most of the fireworks through the leaves of those trees. This was clearly our first rodeo at Willamette Park.
A subpar fireworks picture (taken with my fireworks setting on)
People near us brought glowing balls to swing around. They were fun to watch, and photographed a tiny bit better than the fireworks.
I’m always happy to watch fireworks, even on a not-warm night with trees partially obscuring my view.
I moved my bed around, and taped off where the Murphy bed will be. Plus where the additional storage I have planned will be.
I think it will be good, and I’m looking forward to having a big open space in the middle of my room.
Battleship Cinematic Universe had such a good first round! 76 points! Amazing! We only missed 4 out of 40 on the grid round, which was a feat, especially because my handwriting had me thinking the word was “Bayan” rather than “Bryan.”
And then the second round had too many horror films and we tanked.
Favorite names: Baby Fish Mouth, Eternal Sunshine of Midsommer, and Tom.
Gnocchi was sitting in front of us. They had a similar experience with the rounds as we did.
As we did last year, we ate Matt’s birthday dinner at Ya Hala in the Fairuz Room. This time, though, I didn’t have COVID. As last year, the food was delicious and abundant. The seasonal dessert was a slice of pistachio cake. Wonderful!
