Extra! Extra! Heat Dish Allows Jo To Work Without Gloves!

I'd first like to apologize. This post (and probably many others) is going to have a really bad layout. I just started using my new desktop (thanks, Todd!) and everything looks pretty messed up on my new monitor. Between us, I think it's blogger's fault that it shows up differently on different monitor sizes and browsers, but whatever. It is what it is.

Anyway, we're on to the next project (kind of, I still haven't painted in the bathroom or put the light fixture up) which is my office! Over the weekend, we cleared things out and fell in love with the floor again. Yesterday, the cable guy came and, after much ado about not much of anything, hooked up our cable tv (yay, we get the CW again!! Luckily, Gossip Girl has been on vacation the past few weeks, so I didn't miss anything) and our internet. We now surf the web at 4.8 mbps. Buckle your seatbelt. AND it doesn't cut out randomly. If Charter will treat us like paying customers instead of criminals, maybe everything will be great. Keep your fingers crossed. (For those whom we haven't whined incessantly to, we had Qwest dsl, and it was slower than traffic on the 405 on Friday at 4 and about as reliable as Dan and Serena's relationship (seriously, why can't they just pull it together...)). And no, I'm not sure that's the proper way to end that sentence.

This is my newest addition to the office furniture. It's all "weathered" and "vintage," which we all know are nice words for "it really needs to be sanded and painted, but who has the time when you can call it 'weathered'." I nabbed it at Collectors Market this afternoon. Cute, huh? I needed something else for the lamp to sit on, other than a box. I don't really go in for the "cardboard can be furniture" design approach.

I also ordered the wallpaper for the office. This is a good time for me to discuss my plans for the office. Here are the main components:
-tongue-in-groove pine paneling painted white to a chair-rail height (which is 38.4 inches for our house)
-Wallpaper above the paneling. It's blue and white maps and navigational charts. Very nautical. Todd may have relegated me to one room, but it will feel like you're sailing when you're in it. I'm giving it the treatment.
-Three- or four-inch crown molding
-Built-in bookcases along the wall with the door. They'll be floor to ceiling, painted white, and also feature crown molding. I'm toying with the idea of having marble countertops on them, but we'll see how things go. I'd like to build said bookcases myself, but I kind of have to figure out how first. Trevor will more than likely help.

OOOH. I also got this today, which I have been longing for since the first time I walked past one at Costco. There is nothing more wonderful in the world. You may think I'm kidding, but that would simply mean you don't have one, or you've never walked past one at Costco. The office has many wonderful attributes, but maintaining a temperature habitable to humans (whose blood is thin from living in Southern California) is not one of them. Three cheers for the heat dish!!

I have bit hopes for the office, and maybe even bigger hopes for the yard beyond. I was working on the couch today (as in writing while sitting on the couch) and I looked out at the pool shack and the junk heap, and saw so much potential. Todd doesn't know it yet, but I'm planning on making the pool shack look like a lobster shack in Maine. Coat or two of white paint, a few lobster traps and buoys, maybe a lantern or two...it's gonna be great.

There's also great potential for beautiful raised flowerbeds. I'm thinking probably dahlias, because they'll get a lot of afternoon sun there. I can't wait to start working on the yard, but we have to get all the junk from the bathroom out first. We're thinking about burying some of the biodegradable stuff somewhere in the back 40 (which is what I've started calling the southeasterly quadrant of our lot). It just seems like a lot of wood to throw away, and I have my doubts about whether it'd really be good to roast marshmallows in the firepit over whatever fumes presumably lead-based paint gives off.

Lastly, I've been on this intensive hunt for baskets for under the vanity. Online, Michaels, Pier 1, Ross, TJ Maxx, Fred's, Bimart, I mean, there aren't that many places to check around here. Annoyingly enough, I found exactly what I was looking for at good old Target last night. I finally cleared out those boxes of bathroom stuff that were hanging out in Todd's parents' guest bathroom for months, then in our hallway for weeks. Ahh, it's good to be settling in.