The William Morris Project, Year 2, Week 10

"Have nothing in your house that you do not know to be useful, or believe to be beautiful." This is week ten of the William Morris Project*, happening again, every thursday in 2013.

*Pancakes & French Fries started this whole business a while ago, and I have been trying to keep up ever since!

If this is the only regular posting I get around to, at least it's something! The last 4 weeks have been a chain reaction of flu symptoms and fevers at our house. I am still carrying a package of halls with me everywhere, and the peppermint tea is running low again.

Time marches on.

Thursday waits for no one, sick or well, so I'll tell you what I've been up to. I have made some progress in my list, crossing a whopping 3 things off of it, and not documenting any of them. I leveled my tv. Wow! I know. When I put it up, I did it badly, and it was really crooked, but I honestly haven't had much time to care. Now that I am not extra sick, and it isn't feeling like the Mystery Spot in my bedroom, things are looking up.

In the hall closet, or 'Harry Potter closet', the hanging rod was held up by two wonderful plastic caps. I took them down, and replaced them with my favorite brass closet hanging rod hardware. There were even little holes in the woodwork from where something almost exactly the same used to be, so I didn't add any holes to the house. {That is for the record} Another whopping big project crossed off the list!

There are a few things I began, and didn't finish, but did document. The dishwasher that came with the house was having some trouble. Technically, it did work. By work, I mean that it wasn't leaking water, or catching on fire, falling out of the cabinet or electrocuting anyone. But, it wasn't doing it's job, which is to wash dishes. It merely spread dirty water around with an amazing amount of noise. Plus, the top rack fell off the track every time I pulled it out, scaring me and dumping dishes everywhere. Our wonderful landlords did so much work here before we moved in that I didn't want to ask for a new appliance right off the bat, so I asked if we could replace it ourselves. Yes! {Thank you!} I found a one year old dishwasher on {you guessed it:} craigslist that was being upgraded in a kitchen remodel, and bought it for $700 less than it was new. I am pleased with that figure. It is fancy, and metal inside, and...... I have no idea if it works. The old dishwasher had to come out, and there was a wonderful mouse house underneath it that had to be lysol-ed about thirty five times, which is where we are today: a cabinet cavity in the shape of a dishwasher.
The new hoses and parts are arriving tomorrow from amazon, and hopefully, it will be up and running before company dishes pile up on Sunday! Meanwhile, I have two dishwashers hanging out in the halls here, looking good. Who doesn't like an insulation wrapped box to place mail on? It's appliance chic. Just wait.

The next project I began and didn't finish was to build a new chalkboard for the kitchen. My giant $5 chalkboard was in fact, too long for the big empty wall in there, so I decided to make a smaller one. You know, so I can be corny and write out what's for dinner, or a shopping list, or whatever. I'll draw chalk portraits of horses or the carnies in the park across the street..... Anyway, I bought a big piece of slate. Real slate. It is HEAVY! I only had second thoughts about it as I heard my knees popping while we carried it up the stairs. Some engineering will have to go into the frame of that sucker to keep extra holes from ending up in the kitchen wall. I'll be building in my sleep and doodling tomorrow. I hope to have it all done by next week because the idea of a hundred pound sheet of rock combined with a couple more mischievous members of my family is kind of scary.

Making tea and heading to bed, Alice