I just keep making it more complex

I decided that since I have SOOO much time til a week from Saturday when Rafael can build the new bed and paint that I was going to paint the two bookcases in the small room before I move them to the big room.  Since I can't move them til I disassemble the bed, I figured that I will just empty them in place and paint them to match the walls in the big room.  One is a very neutral cream, but the other is some sort of yukky blue.  You can see them both here.  I have emptied one, the other is still staring at me.

I labeled where on the shelf each stack came from.   

Of course, having done this, there is nowhere to put the bed once I disassemble the big bed until I get the bookcases moved and re-loaded.  I may be sleeping on the couch. 

 I could never be one of those people who renovate and live there while it is being done.  I need me a comfy bed and a place to sit that is clean and welcoming.  I joke that Sienna doesn't do chaos well.  I have found that I don't either.   Also, this is living proof that I am avoiding clearing the second bookcase.

for each overly full place ...

There is a corresponding empty space.  Or at least so one should wish.  I have emptied one side of the small bedroom and moved the wardrobe into its almost final space.  I am going to put it a bit catty corner so the whole room doesn't look so sadly rectangular.  But nothing is final til the painting.  Rafael can't do anything til a week from Saturday, so I have 10 more days of this chaos, alas. 

The other side looks like this... not been touched as far as moving goes, though it is a bit messier than it was before this all started. 

To move this stuff I have to disassemble the bed.

To disassemble the bed I need to be stronger than I think I am, but I am going to give it the old college try probably Thursday or so.  The bookcases in the picture above go where the bed is now, so it has to go away before I can move them. 

The new mattress has been purchased and is supposed to be here 30 minutes ago.  Nothing in NY happens when promised.  They will take the old mattress away with them, so I will be sleeping on the new one tonight somewhere  somewhere  ... sounds like a song from West Side Story, no?

I know.........

It is not exactly that I have been keeping you in the dark about the insane idea to swap the studio (the small room) and the bedroom (the big room).  It is that I have been keeping ME in the dark about the insane idea.  

If I could just wiggle my nose and have it be done it would have been over long long ago.  It has proved to be a real feat of engineering and strategy that is just exhausting me and turning the animals into zombies.  

So this is where we are.  I have the biggest bookcase, the one that goes around the corner in this picture of the little room......

MOVED!!!  That means the wardrobe in the big room had to be emptied and moved off the rug, the rug rolled up, and the pastels taken down and stored and the wardrobe stashed in a temporary corner. (Don't think about that too hard, all the corners I am aware of are really permanent)

Then the corner bookcase had to be emptied and the bookcase had to be moved and re-assembled in the big room with the corner turning the other way.  I LOVE these bookcases, and Container store doesn't sell them anymore, alas.  The only problem is that to do the corner shelves you have to screw in a metal piece and you can't just lift them out once the piece is attached, you have to UNSCREW EVERY SINGLE CORNER SHELF!!  I didn't know that when I started, so that was a fun day.  Then you have to SCREW EVERY SINGLE CORNER SHELF BACK into the bracket once you have repositioned them.   You don't have to do that with the straight shelves, thank heavens.  

Then I had to put the stuff back onto the shelves.  I really wanted to clump things together in some sort of a logical fashion, so eack piece sort of went back in with thought, that also took for freaking ever.  NOW.  It isn't perfect, but at least it is all off the floor and on the shelves.   

The rug is spread out because Sienna insists on jumping off the bed, and I wanted her to have a safe place to land.  She is mildly psychotic.  It seems that herding dogs have some sort of high internal need for order.  Stuff as big as furniture moving around makes her crazy and she attaches herself firmly to my leg and won't move.  She sits outside the studio, which is a REAL mess, trust me on that, and whines for it to all go back into place.  It ain't happening sweetie. 

Romeo and Clementine long ago learned to just get out of the way.

Can you tell from the big boy's wide eyes that he doesn't like the trend either?

SO the next step is, I think, to buy the mattress and get it delivered and to take the big tall bed apart.  There are parts of it I think I can use for the new bed, so once I have a sort of place to sleep and the bed down I can move the other two bookcases from the left side of the small room.   Actually, I have to move the two heaviest pieces of furniture I own  ....  the two flat files filled with paper before I can put the other 2 bookcases into the big room since they are in the way of that.  SIGH  I guess they have to be emptied also before moving.  Do you think I will be done by the end of March?  I was hoping for February, since I can't do much else til it is done but I am losing heart here. 

Stage 2 is harder

No drawing yet, what should be easier -- bigger room -- is actually harder, so I am still pondering how to get it all in so that it is logical.  I'm thinking books together, sewing on one side, painting, printing, etc on the other side.  It just doesn't quite fit right.. sigh.

Ok, I am about thru with stage 1 thinking..

It is hard to take a picture of what is going on in the inside of your mind... have you noticed?

I found a mattress called a three quarter mattress.  It is bigger than a single, smaller than a full and designed chiefly for vintage beds.  Since it is just me and Sienna in the bed I think it is big enough.

It is going to be mine.  

It is 48" wide and 75" long, so the bedframe, which will be just a wood constructed flat thingee like the current one, is going to be 48 inches wide and go across the full width of the room under the window.  It will be 24 inches high and so with the mattress on it, it will be 32" high and just clear the bottom of the window. 

The two flatfiles will fit under the bed in the middle with the backs together so I can slide them open, and there will be room in front of them for my yarn stash.  I am clearing out my stash, and will be putting some skeins up on Ravelry in the next couple of days.   The room, by the way is 8 feet wide and the only other things in the room are going to be the wardrobe that you can see in the "current bedroom" picture and the mirror that is leaning against the wall.

I am becoming a monk  ... it is a cell ... maybe I am practicing for incarceration?

Refinements:  

I am repainting the room the same color as the current bedroom.  I like that color and I have a lot left.   

I am going to complete the molding in the room.  We ran out of wood and time when I moved in so I thought I could do without molding in the studio, now I am getting it done. 

I may get the bars cut off those windows.  I hate them,  Sienna stands between the window and any intruder and besides, who is going to break into a monk's cell????

Well, Flu makes your brain run fast..

As my 'dutiful reader' knows, I have been sick and spent a bit of time lying about on the couch pondering ways to get Sienna out to pee without actually walking all the way to the front door of the building and then as far as it took her to actually produce something that would allow us to return to a horizontal position. 

Since that line of pondering didn't do much in terms of results, as I began to feel a bit better another idea began to obsess me, and this one has come to be "real" in my mind. So you are invited in on the ground floor of my next insane flight of decorating nuttiness.

I have a 2 bedroom apartment. A big bedroom, by New York standards, which looks a good bit like this:

Most of you have seen this before, and know it looks exactly like this much of the time.  The bed is high because it is a frame that is built to allow 2 stacked flatfiles to be housed under it.  The files are 42 inches wide, 30 inches deep and when stacked are about 4.5 feet high.  They are "artfully" covered by that bed skirt thingee. 

If you pan right from the previous view of this room, you see that I have installed a table at the top of the bed where my sewing machine sits, and the wall to the right of that is covered by bookcases, top to bottom.

I am not a "bedroom" kind of person.  I have thought about it.  I don't read in bed.  If I am sick I lie on the couch.  I crawl into the bedroom when I just can't keep my eyes open for 10 more seconds, crawl into the bed, invite Sienna to join me and go instantly to sleep.  

I do the process in reverse in the AM, by lying there til I can't do it anymore, kicking Sienna out and getting up, dressed and leaving the room, not to return til it is way dark.

On the other side of the wall is this little room, sometimes euphemistically called "the studio".

Now there is a bit of space in here but I can't find it anymore, nor can I find the metal expanding measuring tape I know is there or about 100 other things I know are there.  

Also, I recognized a thing I have known about myself but I forget sometimes.  I read an article recently about a woman who works in her bed.  I work in a chair.  Not a chair at a table, a chair with arms and a soft seat and maybe equipped with a footstool to put my feet up on while I draw, cut, glue etc in my lap.  It is how I work, people, and I don't have much place here for a chair.

I did stuff one in here, you can see a bit of it on the left just inside the door, but it ain't pretty.

So..... the rooms are going to swap.  Stay tuned for details, I am making lists.  It CAN be done.

Anatomy of the Flu

I have had the flu with a vengeance.  However, as usual, there is humor even in despair.  I spent a lot of time in contemplation of how to lower Sienna out the window onto the ground 5.5 feet below the window and, even more interesting, how to get her back inside once I had done that. 

Hmm, I could maybe lower the folding stairs out the window and entice her to climb up them and then somehow grab her and drag her back through the window that I just threw her out of?  

This deep pondering took place at 2 AM while lying on the floor thinking about how I was going to have to get up and take her out if I couldn't get the window option to work.

The other choice is the "maybe she will pee in the bathtub" solution.  However how to explain to her that I wanted her to do something she has only done about 2 times in 4 years is not exactly an easy thought. 

I finally walked her out and back and made it, somehow.  At two in the morning, however, dropping her out the window and enticing her back in sure did sound interesting!!

I'll be back in another day or so.  We all 4 survived.