On the Eve of Construction

Christmas Eve, 2008.

One day, that will sound like a long time ago.

I swear that in January I will begin to reverse the current process of demolish and discovery...but first there are a couple of things that need looking into.

One is the wood. Since I planned on painting it anyway, what would be the harm of sanding a bit first, right? Give the wood some tooth, loosen the loose stuff even more...when lo and behold there arose such a clatter--no wait, that's from something else--there arose from the dust some pretty nice-looking figuring. (Trust me, not the camera.)

So that made me wonder what the other panels looked like (under their heavy stain). I came up with:

Not too shabby (at least shabby chic). So now the thought is to lay bare the panels you see (along with the potty door's stiles and rails), while shooting the casework green (along with the kitchen). The drawers and doors will all be birch.

With that out of the way I turn to the cabinet between the bunkbeds. The top is bunged and plastic vintage 70s wood (i.e., ugly), so I removed it. The back and sides of the cabinet where they touched the floor were waterlogged and curled:


And it stank. This should be the last of the musty stuff. The cabinet, I decided in a flash, is forever gone. Now, to my delight, all of the rear-end wiring is exposed.


If you look closely, you can see water stains where the window gasket has leaked in the past. Bingo! I was worried about that leak. Now that it's found, it can be fixed. Next, a thought occurred as I lay athwart the two bunkbed boxes: neither my head nor feet touched a wall (unlike in the shorter bunks)! Eureka. I would build a berth athwart the bus and cushion it with an inexpensive futon, rather than pay $700 to reupholster the bunkbed foam. This would also provide us with less floorspace to recover, and more room for storage (not to mention access to the wiring). Win/win, right?

Then I finally got around to pulling all the rotted wood from the first step. Ugly, yes, but I know a good welder.


Afterwards I chopped some wood and took a nap with the boys. Now the Christmas tree is dressed and ladened with packages and, as I type, Jenna is next door in her office wrapping and wrapping and wrapping my gifts. And I guess a few for the boys. Our sitter is coming back Friday, Boxing Day, and that's when I'll be knocking about inside Molly again, trying to figure out what to do about that headliner problem (I mean opportunity)...

Have a great, sane, reasonably stress-free Christmas, to those one or two who are reading, as well as to all the rest.

Peace, y'all.