Summer Projects and a New Rug

Thought I would show you my new thrifted rug in the kitchen. It's a wonderfully well made rag rug, good and sturdy, not the cheap kind. And it seems brand new! I picked it up at one of my local charity shops for $2. Please ignore the ugly mint green counter tops, someday they. will. go. away.
Since I am not working at present I have been busy with projects. The main one being to declutter and organize this little mobile home. One of the first things that needed to be done was to make more functional storage for crafts, etsy and shipping stuff. This is the closet I ripped open and the shelves I built in, 20" deep. As you can see, they are already mostly filled. I was toying with hanging a curtain but since we are only using this room for storage I don't think I will. If it gets turned into a guest room at a future date I definitely would. I picked up some organizational drawer bins at Wally world on sale and they work quite well. I still have some boxes to break down and store for shipping but it's pretty much set up now.

The next project was to make a sleeping bench. Charles has been sleeping on a cot for 3 years - his choice, there was a perfectly good bed in the spare room. So I sold the bed and took 1/3 of the proceeds to purchase 2x4's and plywood. We already had plenty of screws. I drew up a simple plan, cut my pieces and constructed it on top of my dining table. Why on the dining table you ask? Because it has been so @&%#$% HOT and HUMID that you can hardly breathe outside. So I only cut my pieces out on the porch and then brought them inside where it's air conditioned. It was pretty easy to construct and is very heavy and very sturdy. If he ever decides he wants a real bed, we can use it as a bench on the porch. You can't tell by my photo but there are two 2x4 legs at each corner for strength.

Of course Chaucer sleeps on it the most, especially since Charles is working out of town right now. By the way, the mattress is a doubled up futon pad that I covered in some terry cloth fabric I had for years. And there is room for storage underneath! as you can tell by my file box. This is in the library/study and that is a wall of books and notebooks behind the bed. One if the things I need to reorganize again.

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Next is the kitchen/dining/living room. They are all open to each other like a great room which suits me fine but painting is definitely in order unless I find that great job that's waiting for me. Somehow I think I'll have time to tackle it, at least I hope so, it's needed it for the 9 years since I bought the house. Only the actual kitchen area has been painted and that was done because the wallpaper was so hideous. HIDEOUS! OK, I'll calm down now.

At least you can see that I have the camera back in my hands for now.