We're still cranking on house projects while dodging the daily thunderstorms. The main one this week was a bit of a redo. When we first moved in, there was a hall closet that was seriously misconfigured. The rods were too close to the wall for a standard hanger to fit, and were so close to the floor that Debbie's long dresses were all puddled up on the carpet. Simple enough to fix, thinks us. We decided we only needed closet rod on one side anyway, so we ripped everything out and put up a rod and shelf on one side and pantry shelving on the other. We've hung hundreds of feet of
Closetmaid, so this should be easy, right? Heh. The "walls" are only 2x2's and the thinnest paneling that you can buy. No way the paneling would support the vertical rails once we started loading things up. That meant we had to position the rails on the studs, but that put them too far in from the ends. It worked as long as we were careful to keep things balanced. At the time we had about 100 other things to do, so we just decided to live with it for now and fix it when we got a round tuit.
A mere two years later:
We pulled everything back out, screwed 1/2" B/C plywood right over the paneling, slapped on a bit of paint, et voilĂ ! Now we have a wall sturdy enough to put things together correctly. And while we had everything pulled out, I decided to do something about the nicotine-stained ceiling:
When it's all done, we now have and extra four feet of closet space:
And repeat on the other side:
And rehang the shelves and fill with Stuff:
A neighbor somehow acquired a display rack from the local Sweetbay when it shut down. She thought she would use it for something, but never did. She gave it to us a couple months ago along with a bunch of cuttings from her plants. It fits perfectly on the back wall and makes a great can shelf:
We now have enough space to do mega-Sam's-Club shopping and have a place for everything. Even the super-giant-sized tub of animal crackers!!
Speaking of new plants, the rain is really making everything jump:
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Lantana planted a year or so ago. |
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My parents' hibiscus that we are plant-sitting for the summer. |
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No clue what this is. Even the googles couldn't help. |
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One person told us this was angel wing begonia, another said it was dragon wing begonia. What came up on the googles for either of those looked nothing like this until I added the word "spotted". This is a spotted dragon wing begonia. |
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Variegated kiwi vine? A bit upright for something called a vine. We'll see. |
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Some random plant from Home Depot. It was stuck in a pot with other plants and wasn't looking too healthy, but we planted it anyway. Now it's going like crazy. |
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Gardenia. |
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Variegated philodendron. |
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Hollyhocks, recently relocated. These should have set flower a long time ago, so I relocated them to a spot with more sun to see if that helps. |
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Some sort of miniature iris that pops up all over this part of the park. |
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Coleus |
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Rose bush of unknown type. |
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Ginger, growing a couple inches a day. |
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Spider plant |
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Agave, plumeria and aloe. |
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American beautyberry. |
We also managed to kick out a couple outdoor projects as well:
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One dumpster-dived rusty wire rack + one can Rustoleum navy blue paint = one serviceable end table-ish dohicky. |
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More Rustoleum navy blue paint applied to the peeling, multicolored light pole, and it now goes with the siding. |
We got a bit of a surprise when we began seriously cleaning up the light pole: the glass was clear, not frosted. It took about a half a bottle of Windex to find that out, but the scum eventually came off. Now I just have to find the little rod with the dingleballs on either end to go through the hole (like
this), and the light pole will be good to go.
Well, off to start work on the next project.