I think I’ve gone about as far as I can on the room “makeover” today. I’ve unloaded and reloaded shelves, moved boxes, shifted furniture – and then shifted it back, in one case. I’m tired, my muscles hurt and I have a headache. That’s partly because I tripped over a box yesterday and fell. I had an armload of books and at least had the presence of mind to toss them aside, but I still ended up on my hands and knees. I don’t know how I managed to avoid real injury because not only is there an awful lot of me, but the floor is just carpet over cement and it is very hard. It was quite a jolt, and my neck is a little out of whack, thus the headache.

On the plus side, the heat wave broke and it was a comfortable 85-ish degrees outside (when I managed to go out there). Normally that’s too warm for me, but the past two weeks have been 90 – 100 degrees everyday, and we hit 105 on Friday. I just can’t take that kind of heat.

Does anyone else do this? I have scale drawings of most of the rooms in the house, with tiny scale furniture rectangles. I shuffle everything around on paper first, then move it for real.

Oddly enough, when my dad passed away I came across an envelope with the same little scale drawings that he’d done when he was a teenager. Years later when I was helping my grandmother write a book of stories from her life, she pulled out an envelope with – you guessed it – little scale drawings of rooms and furniture. My scale is different from anyone I’ve ever met, but it’s so easy! I measure the room and furniture in inches and draw the models in millimeters. Most rooms fit nicely on a standard sheet of paper.

I still have work to do in the basement, but I’m at the point where we could have the sewing day tomorrow, if necessary. I have a pile of boxes on the table to go through – lots of old papers to be shredded, old tech boxes, miscellaneous detritus, and even some – gasp! – floppy disks. “2002 Quicken Backup” – seriously!

I also have a double stack of CDs to stash somewhere convenient so I can get them on my iPod…

…a tote of books that need shelf space, and a big expanse of shelves that still need to be culled/sorted/rearranged…

…and fabric to sort and put away.

But MY sewing space (and Jeanne’s) looks good…

…bolts are neatly stored (and Buttercup wants to be in the picture…

…and again)

…and on the whole…

…it looks pretty good. Not too bad for two days’ work.

Now I want a hot shower and some wine.