Enough lollygagging - let's do some renos!

Skip: "You lollygag the ball around the infield! You lollygag your way down to first! You lollygag your way in and out of the dugout! Do you know what that makes you? Larry!"

Larry: "Lollygaggers!"

Skip: "Lollygaggers!"

Sorry, but pitchers and catchers reported on Monday, and Spring Training begins for real this weekend. Whooo! Go Jays! Lollygaggers!


Ahem... moving on...

First of all, thank you everyone for your kinds words both here and on Facebook as we mourned the loss of our dear friend. I couldn't help but notice that nobody sent any money to help us replace it, but hey: it's the thought that counts and we appreciate the sentiment.

Now that the maudlin is out of the way, we can focus on what everyone really comes here to hear: me hurting myself! Well, I didn't this week (yet) so how about I just post some pictures or something and stop prattling on about baseball, hmm?

Sadly - man, this post is turning out just disappointment top to bottom, isn't it? - the pictures I have aren't all that interesting. Well, they're interesting to us, and seeing the changes in person is pretty impressive (our drywall guy is an absolute artiste), but the pictures are kinda sorta mostly blah. It's white on white again, I'm afraid.

So, the backstory first: for our next project, we had planned to tackle the remaining two bedrooms upstairs - my office and the War Department's office-slash-guest-room (I think I'll start calling it the War Room - ooh, I like that). After some long discussions and due consideration given to schedules, plans, and the turning of the seasons, we decided to just do one room at a time, instead of both together. We didn't want to have to find storage for all of the bookshelves, books, beds, desks, and other assorted crap - not to mention setting up an office downstairs in the living room or something - and then having our lives all disrupted and shit for three months or however long it was going to take us.

Instead, we packed up all of the books and other detritus in my office, and set up a temporary desk in the War Room for me (the War Department is using her netbook instead of her desktop machine until this round of renos is over, so full props to her for making that sacrifice). Once all the crap was out of the way, we cut back the valance in front of the windows, scraped the popcorn off the ceiling, and called in Tony, the Master Mudder, to work his magic.

Now, somehow, in my multitude of pictures, I have absolutely none showing my office in its "before" phase - like, prior to us doing anything. All I have is a few shots of the office after we took everything out, and cut back the drywall in preparation for Tony. I don't even have any pictures of it before we took the carpet out - well, except for the one from the original real estate listing:



Looks... a lot bigger than it really is, actually. Must be the lens, obviously, as it looked a lot smaller when we finished prepping for Tony:



It took Tony four trips (and a broken ignition switch - don't ask), but he worked his usual magic, and now it looks freaking amazing.



I took a lot more pictures than that, but like I said, it's white on white, and hard to make out any details anyway.

So that's where the project stands now. This weekend we'll get started priming the ceiling, cleaning the walls, and filling and sanding a few minor holes.

Oh, speaking of which, it's time yet again for...

This Week In Mayonnaise

I don't have any pictures to share right now, but I thought it worth mentioning that Tony noticed the mayonnaise on the walls of my soon-to-be-office. Well, considering he IS the professional, and probably more familiar with all the different types of wall patches available, I asked him what it was.

He had absolutely no freaking clue. None.


He did like the fact that we called it mayonnaise, though. And so the mystery deepens...