Project number 4,378

I have this weird quirky issue within the depths of my soul that makes me not want to share a project until it's finished. I'm trying to repent of that!

I want to be more like my brother in law and his lovely fiance and share the journey! They're the authors of The Grey House Revival, there's a link to their blog on the left there. 

ANY ways. My Christmas present from Caleb. This I must show you. 

So, we basically have two living rooms, which is weird. We decided to turn this one into a library, because having a personal library has been the dream of my relatively brief life.

See these awesome brackets? Caleb made them. As in designed, cut, welded, and installed. I lurve that boy.

See this awesome wood? It's from a 100+ year old building that we helped my Dad restore way back in the day. They were the rafters, and he let us have them for freeness. Because he's the bestest.

The boards were very long. 20 feetish long.

Caleb the wonder man managed to get some home, and then spent an afternoon chopping them to desired length out in the wintery driveway. Bless him!

 See all the nail holes? Those go down the edge of every single board. Who pulled all those nails, you ask? Muah. See?! I contribute!

I also stained every board, so I get so many points.

On Christmas day, he began installing them. I seriously like this kid.

This is that night, and he's still working away at it.

The big shelf is up! That board is heavy, man. The wood is incredibly solid mahogany. When the board was on the ground he lifted up one end, and it didn't bow at all. Solid. Like my abs.

*ahem*

So! Once those shelves were up, we turned our attentions to this wall. See how that other wall on the left has a beam going across the top? That beam runs the length of the house, it's a support of sorts. That's as technical as I get.

This wall doesn't have one, but we wanted the shelves to go across to this side of the room as well.

So Caleb framed in a wall. That double stud up there is for attaching the bookshelf once this little half wall is finished.

Then he put up some dry wall. I helped. The most.

Notice I didn't waste much time filling my shelves:) We have a lot of books, man, and they've been in boxes for six months on the library floor. I missed my friends.
Notice Claire somewhat subtly photo bombing.

And then not so subtly.

Oh, Hi Claire! Did you need some attention?

Have I ever told you that I love it when my kids are the photographers?

Bright and early the next day... no, actually, this was probably in the afternoon. We school in the morning. The next day at an unknown time, I started taping and puttying. Neither Caleb nor I had ever installed dry wall before, so it was nice to learn on a cute little wall like this one.

Caleb did a second layer that night.

Oooh, what flow! What finesse!

Three layers later, we were ready to sand!

One side of this wall is the hallway and front entry to our house. The other side is our library/music room. Neither of those places really wanted to be covered in white dust, so I built a plastic room. Because I'm nifty. Then I put on my grubbies and a mask and started sanding!

Amelia wasn't too thrilled about her Mommy being locked in a plastic chamber, so she dealt with it by removing all the books from the bottom shelves. And giggling all the while.

This is me being all Gangsta.

What?

Caleb arrived home from work when I was finishing up, which worked out awesome. The kids were ready for dinner and I was in no position to make some.
I very carefully made my way up to the shower, making as little movement as possible. That was tricky! I left some nice white footprints the whole way.

We decided to let the dust settle. The next day I took down my plastic room, washed the walls and ceiling and floor, and stepped back to view our handiwork.

Ta-Da!
I primed it this morning, and it's nearly ready for it's coat of yellow. Caleb has been digging the last boards out of the snowbank, and we'll get to work staining and installing those this week. Then some crown moulding, and we'll be finished!