Rocky Valley Living Room project

At the Anderson Estates, we have so many things we’d like to do, remodeling-wise, that we can jump around to whatever catches our fancy at the moment.  This is one of those things.

Our living room was a bit dull when it came to color and definitely not lit well enough for our tastes.  We also had a set of bookshelves that came with the house.  Nothing special, a bit weathered looking, with open backs:

Rocky Valley - old bookcases and paint

Track lighting that didn’t really give us as much light as we would like:

rocky valley living room lighting

The rug is also borderline horrible, in a first world problem kind of way, but that will be dealt with in a separate update.

Our focus was paint, shelves, and lighting.  Here’s an in progress shot- a bit of new paint can be seen, and the tired old shelving is getting prepped for a face lift:

rocky valley

Tangible progress- new lighting, paint, and the shelves are starting to come together.

The open shelf backing is fabric stretched over hardboard.  The hardboard is held in place with turn buttons like the kind used on the back of picture frames.  This will let us easily swap out a different pattern for the shelf backs.

rocky valley

Lighting, paint, and shelving complete:

rocky valley living room

The shelves cover an outlet, but we cut access panels inside the case and installed cord grommets in the lowest open shelf to be able to get to power without having to see a lot of cords.  We have some magnetic closers to add for the cabinet doors, but we are basically good to go!

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100 week flashback with CK

CK from December 2011:

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Charlie Kate loves the swing

Charlie Kate

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Graydon visits the River Market for a pumpkin

One of the nice things about having my kids attend school a few blocks away from my office is being able to come along in their field trips.

Graydon and her pumpkin:

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Hummingbird

A hummingbird got trapped in my garage and couldn’t figure out how to get back out of the 18 foot wide garage door opening from which it entered.

With a call to Lady Colglazier for strategy advice, I was able to catch the bird- beautiful and delicate little thing.  Click the image for full size picture.

humming bird

After a few minutes rest and recuperation outside, the bird took flight and flew up into a mimosa tree, from which point I’m assuming it lived happily ever after.  Graydon got to witness the hummingbird take off and was so happy to see it fly away she almost squeezed my head right off my neck.

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Graydon taking swim lessons

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More stool projects

With Charlie Kate turning 2 this month, I decided it was time to make her a stool.  Gabe (pics here) and Graydon have their own stools, so it was time to make one more.

I used Gabe’s stool, which has held up really well over the past 3 years of heavy duty service, to get my rough dimensions worked out.

I have two unofficial rules for building the stools- all scraps and little or no fasteners.  That first rule means that I have to stretch to find all the material I need or that the pieces will start out a bit mismatched.

I’m matching the cuts exactly here, but if any more stools are in my future, I am going to let the tops of the legs run long and trim them after glue up, which is what I am doing with the sides of the stool base in the third picture.

And when I said earlier that I had one more stool to make, I actually meant two- my father in law had requested that if I ever got around to building any more of these stools to make him one that was adult portioned.

I would have made the red one taller, but that was the maximum length legs I could get out of the scrap I had on hand.

Here’s a family photo of all the stools, in chronological order: Gabe’s, Gradyon’s, Charlie’s, and the red one is for Roy.

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Riverfest Amphitheatre gets a new roof

The Riverfest Amphitheatre got a new roof over the spring.  Slideshow (which apparently loads molasses slow) after the break:

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Last day on the beach

It was just Charlie, Graydon, and me this morning, so we walked down to the beach for the last time.

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Graydon and the lemon

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At Bubba’s in Virginia Beach.   Graydon decided she did not like the smell of the steamed shrimp.   I told her to stuff the lemon slice up her nose.   She didn’t actually stuff it up her nose, but she did use it almost like smelling salts the rest of the time we were in the restaurant

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