The Great Library Project

The Great Library Project has actually been complete since sometime last Fall I believe. However, now, there are some pictures. The first is a picture looking toward the outside corner of the house. This section contains all the hardback novels, the reference books, and all of Tina and my text books. The second picture is looking toward the opposite corner into the house. This section is made up of less deep shelves that house all the paperback novels.

The Great Library Project involved 17 sheets of plywood, six coats of finish, and about two weeks of free time all told. I learned many things building the library. If I were to do it again, I think I would avoid using any water-based finish. It's just too difficult to get a hard enough finish. With the water-based finishes I'm always worried about books sticking in the paint. The library shelves all have coats of water-based lacquer as a top coat. That hopefully takes care of the sticking problem. But all in all, given the effort that goes in to something like this, the added effort of an oil-based finish is probably worth it.

Home Owner's Insurance

About two weeks after we moved into the new house, Allstate cancelled our homeowner's insurance. They sent us a form letter where they said that our siding had dry rot. The next day, they sent us a check for the balance of our policy. This caused me a little worry. I called our agent (who was great throughout the whole process) and she said she would find some details for us. While we were waiting for that, we panicked. We started trying to get estimates on residing the house. Tried to find another insurance company that would cover us. Residing the house would cost at least $10,000. State Farm said they would not insure us if we had dry rot. They also said they would not insure us if we fixed the dry rot because they don't insure anyone who has either filed a claim or suffered a loss in the last three years. Repairing the siding would have counted as a loss. Finally, (again our agent was very supportive throughout the whole process) the insurance inspector came back out to the house to point out the problems. He wanted us to replace about 16 square feet of siding. Our insurance policy was cancelled over 16 square feet of siding. Our agent says that if we fix it, she will be able to reinstate our policy. I fixed it this afternoon. All that's left to do is a little painting.

New House

We've successfully gotten a contract on a new house. That's good. The days of not knowing where we would live are, pending a house inspection and an appraisal, over. I really like the walls of glass. I'm a sucker for a big window.

Painting The Nursery

Painting in the nursery has been completed. The project involved painting a landscape of mountains under a cloudy sky and a mural with all sorts of funny storytime characters. Because of the close quarters in the room I had to stich these pictures together from several shots. You may note some digital artifacts in the pictures that are a result of stiching process. The actual window in the room is a little less Dali-esque. The whole project took about three weeks of my free time. The walls are Duron Minor Blue. The mountains were painted freehand with colors I mixed. I was inspired by my time on the A.T. The mural was a kit that we found online.