Lovin' That Paint Smell

After the last posting, I suppose I should clarify that this time I'm talking real paint. Latex, in fact. Interior paint.

We've done such a good job recently of clearing out, sorting through, and organizing all the stuff crammed into the third bedroom - aka library - closet, most of which has been sitting there since it was moved in way back in October of 2012. Several trips to Goodwill have found much of it new homes. Reorganizing the shelves has made homes for other stuff. A bunch will be transported up north if/when we manage to clear out of here. And some we keep there.

The "we" of course means Rich and myself. Steve is in no way up to moving his back around in all the contortions that would take. Rich is making good on his offer to help up out once he came down here. And now that my health is basically normal again, I've lots of energy combined with a strong itch to put this place into the order we actually want to live in.

Part of that is the wish to turn that closet in the library to a computer office. Now not everything will come out of that closet. Some space is still needed to some of what was in there.  But that itch pushed for something not so inconvenient as what had been. Besides three walls of bookshelves, we have a table holding my old laptop and printer. I had to replace the laptop when it decided it wasn't going to connect to the wifi anymore. It still worked otherwise, and turned out to be the only thing which still coordinated with my old faithful Hewlett Packard 1200 printer. My computer skills have increased to the point where I can convert (most) files into PDFs, pop them onto a thumb drive, pop that in the old laptop, and print away. Oh, and all the cleaning and sorting revealed the existence of nearly three reams of paper for it.

So in principal it all worked. The drawback is that the table they sit on is always in the wrong place, blocking access to two columns of shelves no matter how it was laid out. It probably got relocated every couple of months. Clearing out the closet revealed there was going to be more work needed than just rearranging the furniture. While we had taken off the broken closet doors when we moved in, the bottom track they slid across had not been removed. There just was not enough time to get everything done while we had the family crew down here. It was ignored while everything got stacked up behind it.

After the recent sorting out, I decided that the closet could still hold its smaller amount of stuff and still allow the back legs of the table to recess into it a small amount, enough to make it convenient for use and not disrupt the flow of the rest of the room. It's light enough to be moved if something behind it needs to be accessed. I should know! But for now it had to be completely cleared...
       And painted...
       With wall holes spackled first...
       And illogical wood braces (we think) removed...
       And those strips holding long-removed carpet in place with all their nails pointing up removed also...
       And the occasional nail driven into the concrete floor which still remained with a bit of carpet attached pulled out as well.

Now everything could be cleaned and prepped for painting. Another coat over the concrete floor would cover the white paint drips from the shelves being painted back when they were installed, custom made by my other son, Paul. Of course, his short visit didn't leave time for simple repainting, and we hadn't made any ourselves.

Now, however, I'm loving the smell of the paint drying. White inside the closet captures the light and tosses it back into the room. The grey is simply practical, and I was kicked out before any of it went down. I'm still banned. It may be a few days before the rug I just picked up goes down to add its touch to the mood and we can start putting everything back in that's supposed to go in.

So while we all wait for the paint to dry, I'm loving that smell. It's the smell of making a house our home. If I need something else to do, I can still wonder what on earth happened to that box which contained all those wind chimes we've been waiting to put back up out over the patio.