One Step, Two Step, Next step- Canoe Step?

This year we embarked on the task of trying to complete one of our big landscaping feats on the hillside... the stairs down to the pond. Our conservation requirements gave us three years from the time of the original permit -November 2010 - to complete our original mitigation and close it all out.  Early this year, with time flying by and first hand knowledge of the speed of procedures in our town, we realized that we needed to get going on it if we were going to do anything at all.

The first step was drawing up a plan, which Anthony did on top of our original site plan. He ran this by the conservation agent in February and then gave it to the site engineer, who submitted it to the conservation commission in May as an amendment to our original plan. Spring planting season looked like it was turning into summer planting season. 

Wouldn't you know, our meeting date fell in the middle of a week in June when Anthony was bouncing back and forth between conferences in Maine and Rhode Island, and me alone with my big pregnant belly and toddler on a school night was not going to be able to make it. Not that we needed to, after all, we were paying our engineer to do it. At 7:00 that night I sat back grading papers on the couch watching the conservation commission on tv. After some rather contentious cases interspersed with the cons com members checking in on the Bruins game, our case finally came up at 9:41. It was peacefully agreed to by 9:46. While I'm obviously pleased by the lack of drama, I wish it could have happened before my bedtime.

With builder John standing by, we awaited the official word from the committee. And waited. And waited. And waited.  Anthony finally checked in on the progress (or lack there of), only to find that apparently it had been stuck on the admins. desk for a while. Really though, we know what speeds things up for us construction-wise... it's having a baby, right?

Our second child was born (!) and with Anthony's nagging gentle reminders to conservation, we got the word we could build our stairs. Juggling our new life, here's where we're happy we hired someone to build them instead of attempting to do this ourselves. 

It took us a while to get everyone home from Boston, and now our summer planting season has turned into a fall planting season, or more likely, moved back to a spring planting season due to a new state-wide ruling - which we still don't really understand - that we could have an additional three years to complete any work from the original cons com permit.  

Stairs to pond: check. The neighborhood cat already likes to lie out on the upper landing. 

Next up: figuring out the planting (can we just finish this already?), and getting a canoe to hold our family of four. I'd include Zippy, but let's be honest. He would have more fun barking at us from the shore.

-J&A

Builder 1, Inspector 0.

Well, maybe builder -32 (up from -33), inspector 435 would be more accurate, but we'll still take the win. I'll spare you the dramatic build up...our house finally passed inspection. But, as per usual, even try #3 was not without its own drama.

With Natalie at "school" for the day, Jody and Zippy spent Monday, inspection #3 day, out of the house to accommodate a visit from the town. She returned mid-afternoon to find a cryptic note on the permit where the signature should have gone, saying only "thermostats not programmable?" Hearing of this at work from Jody, I relayed the news to John the Builder via a phone message. In truth, I also though it might be good to have fancy thermostats. We started with programmable thermostats, but they didn't work, as someone installed the wrong wires during rough in. Last week the plumbers replaced the non-working ones with old school dial thermostats. Apparently, with radiant floor heat, dials are just as good...so there you go.

10 minutes later John called back, hopping mad, and read me the appropriate line from the current edition of the Mass. State Building Codes that said programmable thermostats were required with forced-air systems, but made no mention of other heat sources. He followed up with some choice words about the inspector's level of competency. The next morning at 8am, he was at town hall to figuratively - and perhaps literally, I don't know, I wasn't there - throw the book at them.

Relaying the conversation to me later, John said that both the inspectors and the building commissioner insisted that programmable units- at least one per house they said- were required. Sliding his copy of the building code across the counter, John challenged them, "Show me where it says that." Apparently the office effectively shut down for some time, as the group of them searched the very code they are supposed to follow for something they've been requiring for years.

Finding nothing but the line John read to me over the phone, they quickly signed the permit and shuffled him onto his next stop.

So, what remains? A signature from Conservation -which could get interesting- and finalizing the loan paperwork, but occupying the structure is no longer an issue.

Stepping back for a moment, it's been surprising to me how much the events of the last few weeks have seeped into our daily lives. Yesterday I caught Jody and Natalie playing a game I now refer to as Building Inspector. They had set up little fabric block buildings on the floor (see below) and as Natalie would knock them over, Jody would call out things like "No permit for you!" or "Failed! This railing is an inch too low." or "Your bottom step is not at grade!"

Natalie playing building inspector with mom. "The roof on this one looks a little loose!"

-A

Dirt

It all comes down to dirt.

Fancy, nicely graded dirt apparently.

That's what currently stands in the way of our official occupancy permit. The temporary front step and grading that our contractor fashioned were just not of equal height and has failed the inspection twice. Both us and our contractor tried explaining that our official landscaping with our expensive conservation-required loam and even grading would be happening in a few weeks and the problem would be resolved then, so couldn't we just hold off on this one little thing until after that? Nope.

Anthony put on his landscaping hat tonight and gave it a try himself. I think it's lovely and takes the same amount of thigh muscle power from both legs to ascend to the porch, but I'm not the one signing off on it, so we'll see.

Natalie and I have been advocating for a stroller ramp instead of steps all along.

Final inspection, take 3?

- J

Six

The railings were added to the front porch last week, along with a temporary step.

We're hoping to be able to get in without having to do the front grading and landscaping right away.

That's on the docket for later in the summer.

Plywood cut, numbered and ready to cover all of our windows if a big storm should hit .

This is a requirement.

Anthony grumbled a bit about giving up this much space for these.

The house was inspected on Tuesday and six things were found to need additional attention. They were things like the height of a railing, an issue with the dryer vent, the thermostats not working, insulation plans that were needed, and the level of grading leading tothe front step. (I know that's only five- I can't remember the last one off the top of my head.)

So six things between us and an occupancy permit.

Add to that our growing punch list of little things we would like to have happen before we move in.

We have deliberately been staying away during working hours so that we aren't in anybody's way. It would all be fine if we would see some solid steady action during the day. I'm sure then all the "to-do's" could be "dones", but the action has been limited and sporadic.

One of my evening tasks this week- painting.

On another note- we are in need of an Energy Star refrigerator- if anyone has one they're not using. We would be happy to trade it for our non-energy-star-but-clean-and-works-fine fridge!

-J

Homeless, again

Once again, we have found ourselves pseudo-homeless. This seems to happen to us a lot when planning to move. The timing just never quite lines up exactly. Of course, this time we get to be "between homes" with a very active 11 month-old and an over-anxious dog. In the past, it always worked out...eventually, so I have faith that this one will too.

This time we had to be out of our rental by the end of June, so throughout the week, before and after work each day, we incrementally moved all of our belongings into the bedrooms of our own house - the parts the were fully complete. July 1st rolled around and our house was not finished and livable, so we headed to New York to visit the fam for a while and hopefully give the workers a bit more time to pull it all together.

The risky part about this is that without us there checking up on daily progress (ahem, micromanaging... and yes, we feel it helps), things just might not happen. Or, of course, they might happen, but in a not-the-way-we-intended way.

So what has happened and what remains? The stair guy has been working at pace that Anthony politely describes as 'quite un-feverish' for the past few weeks to complete was has become (according to the stair guy) a very unique set of steps. This has resulted in piles of debris, saws, tools, compressors, cords, and cups that have covered the entire main floor.

The large amount of tools, saws, etc. required to complete the stair trim.

The side entryway was also done. Of course, in typical construction fashion the decking material we used on the front porch four months ago is now no longer made and was not to be found anywhere so we had to settle for a slightly different product (sigh).

The new side/mudroom entry deck.

The rest of the electrical work was finished. The faucets and tub/shower trim were all connected, and the earlier water leak resolved without much issue.

The glitch that did occur was that the wrong bath/shower trim was still installed, despite our efforts back in March to correct our trim order from an earlier mistake! We're beginning to wonder if they're just trying to wear us down. While I realize this is a minor issue in the grand scheme of things, as we'd been here before with the builder, it made it all the more frustrating to have to ask once again to have the mistake fixed.

Towards the end of the week, the stair guy(s) finally wrapped up their work and cleaned up their mess, leaving a nice clean set of stairs and clear floor. It was great to see the 'almost' finished product.

The stairs to the basement, finally!

View of the stairs and kitchen from the living-room area.

We realized our refrigerator is pretty small. Plenty of room to grow...

Natalie enjoying the clean, clear main floor for the first time.

So, now we're ready for the floor guy to come back and finish up the connecting areas. All the doorknobs are in the house ready to be installed. Some trim work needs to be finished and a few things, like some uneven dry wall work in the upstairs bathroom, need to be fixed.

The big hold-up however seems to be that the plumber cannot get the boiler to work. The current plan is to have the company rep. come out on Wednesday to take a look at it. Hopefully then we can check that off.

The boiler, mixing valve, and indirect water heater complex, currently at rest as the boiler will not start. Who really needs hot water?

-J

The Good, the Bad, and the Crapper

Evidence of the plumber's work on Friday

A trip to the house on Friday revealed water in the toilets. Pretty exciting, I know. However, Friday night also revealed water coming through the kitchen ceiling (bathtub above). Not so joyous. We marked the spot and it doesn't seem to be spreading, so we hope it's not anything serious. I did stop packing things in the nearby cabinets in case they have to come down to fix the issue.

Stairs to basement- shelf along back wall finished

Other evidence of work showed that Rob and co. also worked on the stairs, balusters, railings, and the trim around the stairs, and John sealed part of the floor during the day. John was also over Saturday morning setting the footings for the side entryway. Plenty of happenings, but I kept feeling like it was all things that should've been happening last week, or perhaps Thursday at the very least.

No more worries about falling off the upstairs landing

side entry footings

I have to say, my master carpenter, Anthony, has been doing stellar work in the middle of the night. He cut a beautiful hole for our new sink and secured all the counter tops. I think he likes the fact that the new sink has such right angles- easier to cut the top for it!

Kitchen sink in and ready for the plumber

We've also started moving things over as much as possible. As I previously mentioned, we have to move out of our rental by the end of the month. We may not be ready, but at least our stuff can live in the new house in the rooms that are done (like the upstairs bedrooms).

Anthony and Kevin moving our stuff.

Kevin is a major trooper to help us move out in December and then back in again now.

He even brought his own beer this time.

After moving the washer/dryer out in December, Anthony and Kevin decided it was pretty heavy and called in a third helper, Dave.

It's a little extra work on both ends with this move because we have to be careful to keep our stuff at the new house out of the way of any workers, we have to restore the rental house to its exact previous glory, and we have to keep out a set of items for us to live off of wherever we end up until we can really move in. Fortunately this will be our final move!

Kevin has his own dolly.

I think that pretty much pegs you to help people move.

We're very grateful for this.

-J

The Kitchen Sink is Our Fat Lady

I think with house building it can't be over until the kitchen sink is in and plumbed, and ours is sure toying with us enough! Let's recap yesterday (Thursday 6/23):

This is where we left off two days ago.

The stairs are stained and ready for their railings and balusters.

Again the day started promising enough with a truck in the driveway. Rob, our contractor's "guy", was supposedly in the house doing his work on the stairs. Then *poof* he was gone by 9:30, although he did leave all the lights on. (Apparently he didn't have my parents growing up-always asking who pays the electric bills and reminding him to turn the lights off.)

So nothing happened for a while and then he came back an hour or so later, turned off the lights and left again. We later found out that he was taking himself to the ER because he hurt his ribs.

Since the house was empty I spent part of the day moving kitchen wares over to our new cabinets so that I could reset the rental kitchen to the way it was. That's the hard part about renting this "summer house". It came furnished and we had moved all of "their stuff" out of the way to use "our stuff". Resetting it involves studying the pictures I took when we moved in and trying to return it to its original state.

The DPW guys came back in the early afternoon and told me they'd pave their patch of torn up sidewalk/driveway near the street today or tomorrow. That would just leave another little patch that we would be responsible for repaving. I shared some brownies with them.

Anthony had some phone conversations and discovered that the kitchen sink and faucet had indeed not been ordered by anyone and that the upstairs bathroom faucet had been ordered with the wrong finish. Yes, we have tried to let other people take on tasks and do their own jobs, but really it comes down to if we want it our way we should just do it. Sooooo off I went to pick up the kitchen sink and faucet.

This picture was taken today (Friday 6/24/11).

Our new classy driveway.We are thankful for the whole thing being patched.

Yes, there are workers at our right now, including a plumber! Rob is also back to work.

Lots of activity over there, so although this post may be dismal, we can sill be hopeful.

We returned home to the entire hole in the driveway repaved and some pinkish floor stain around the edge of the utility room on the basement floor. It wasn't supposed to be pink. It was supposed to be tannish-gray. Also, concrete floor stain is nothing like wood stain apparently. It went on more like paint. It was not what we had intended at all. So we back-pedaled and went back to the idea of just sealing it and calling it done. Anyone need two cans of concrete floor stain?

Note the stain around the edge of the utility room. Even Natalie looks bewildered.

We spent the evening both moving things over and prepping the sinks and counter holes for the plumber. The first sink (a round one for the basement bathroom) went together so nice and easy. (That's why we were doomed...)

Round sink for downstairs bathroom/laundry area

Our just-purchased kitchen sink of course couldn't be simple. It was going to be really big in the space. Do-able? Probably. Ideal? Of course not. So we decided that a tomorrow morning run to Lowe's (they open at 6!) was in the works to try to find a more suitable fit, while still holding onto our criteria of me being able to hide dishes in a deep sink.

So with exactly one week before we have to move out of our rental house, I feel great strides were not made yesterday. Perhaps I should head to the basement of the rental house and see if I can find our tent so we'll have somewhere to live.

-J

Water Valve Wednesday

Somehow I knew in the back of my mind that ending the previous blog post with "full speed ahead" would just make us come to a screeching halt. You know, the kind where you're frowning at a huge hole saying to yourself, "I thought I was done staring at holes on this property" and wondering if it would make more sense to just go get what's left of your money, toss it in the hole, cover it up with dirt and call it all done. I don't think that would help get us any closer to actually getting into the house though.

The day started off promising enough. The stairs had been stained yesterday and there were floor people milling about this morning, although they weren't here long and I'm not really sure what they did. Then the Department of Public Works (DPW) came by to switch out the water valve, and that's where things got more complicated.

A full driveway first thing in the morning always holds such promise.

Apparently, a lazy predecessor neglected to follow the rules and bring their line the entire length under the driveway as everyone previously assumed. (Huh- more corners cut in the previous shack- imagine that!) Options were discussed, sympathies expressed, but really the only choice in doing it right was to call back our faithful excavator, George, to dig up more of the paved driveway to find where the other guys left off and correctly tie into that, so that the entire run would be the proper one inch plastic pipe.

At one point there were no fewer than 9 of us staring at the hole: the DPW guys, George's guy Mike, myself, John the contractor, and a couple of neighbors.

Fortunately George was just around the corner and was over within the hour with his cute red "digger".

George in the hole. John and 2 DPW guys look on. The blue is the new 1 inch pipe we're supposed to have (and thought we had), as opposed to the copper 3/4 inch one that's hidden under part of the driveway.

As our contractor, John, said today, "Nothing's ever easy." Not when you want it to be anyway.

Apparently the DPW guys will be back on Friday to pave their section over the sidewalk. I'm not quite sure what that means for the other section. To think, we had originally debated about moving the driveway, but changed our minds because it was fine and in good shape.

So that's that. It's switched. We've now got what the town considers a proper water line and a more-current-than-1940 valve, so we're ready to go. If there is a plumber at our house tomorrow, I will be very happy.

-J

Who's Choreographing this Dance Anyway?

I was on the T last year when it was stopped for quite a while underground. I kept thinking I should've just gotten off at the last stop and walked a little farther (you gotta love hindsight- the only time I can claim perfect vision). The frustrating part was that I was in the front car and I could see the light at the end of the tunnel, but I couldn't do anything about the delay to help us get moving and on our way. Such are our feelings about our house right now. There are little things that are happening, but then there are things that we want to happen that aren't. We just need to get all our ducks in a row.

We'll start with the bright side for a run-down of the latest...

The view came into greater focus when the plastic came off the windows and the screens were put on.

Master Bedroom

The plumber has been in hooking up a jumble of pipes in the basement. I think Anthony's glad his part of the plumbing is over.

Stair parts are finally in and scheduled for the middle of this week. We've been told that part will go quickly, but we were told that about the trim which took FOR EV ER.

We've spent our time doing what we can to get things done. My favorite Anthony-project was crafting a stand for our vessel sink and faucet for the "Kamp bathroom". (Yes, if you give us things for our house we will name a room after you too.) I absolutely love how it turned out. The top is actually the old floorboards from the basement of the house we tore down.

View of mudroom entrance and "Kamp bathroom" with homemade vanity.

Our GE (plug for Jason) range and microwave arrived for the kitchen and Anthony is finishing the cabinet trim and toe kicks and getting things ready so that they can be installed. Apparently this will involve changing the plug on the microwave so it can go into Massachusetts' fancy outlets.

There is still one piece of missing temporary countertop. Remember about two weeks ago when I said the missing piece would be in stock in a week? Yeah, that didn't happen, and like a comedy show we have been running ourselves mad trying to figure out a temporary solution for our temporary top. We were set to go check out a craigslist option tomorrow when Ikea called and CONFIRMED (whatever that means) that it would definitely be in by next weekend. So we're taking our chances and waiting it out again. Which holds up the sink/faucet... But that's okay because it's already held up by the water issue.

Ahh, the water issue. The town won't let us have water until they change a valve. Apparently we're in the "queue" for this. I wonder when that will happen. Therefore we have toilets both in our dining room and our shed waiting to be installed as well.

Dining room with toilet parts and stair parts

It's okay, we can't really put the one in the shed in yet since the basement floor has not been etched or sealed yet anyway. That's why the vanity and washer/dryer for that bathroom are still in the rental house.

I'd be lying if I said we weren't getting anxious.

-J

The Beginning of the End

As both of our readers must surely know by now, we've had some issues with our floor. Over the past 4 months these issues have at times prevented us from knowing what types of wood floors could be installed over radiant heating, prevented us from planning the stairs and stair railings, and preventing us, our builder, the stair guy, the floor guy, the other floor guy, and the other floor guy's installer from having an enjoyable time talking about this process. I've not even mentioned the poor girl from Home Depot that we put through the ringer.

So, when a pallet of boxes containing 1400 square feet of lightly-stained, eco-core, engineered tongue and groove hickory arrived at the house yesterday morning and were quickly opened and utilized...it was very exciting.

Thankfully, the flooring installers did a great job: showing up early, leaving late, finishing a floor a day. Below are some pictures of the job in process and finished.

The Night Job

Oceanographer by day, amateur homebuilder by night, and enough grace and stamina leftover to take a time-out and care for Natalie when she pulls her first fever (no worries- she's better now). The glow next door reflects the many nights spent working next door (and highlights the need for shades/curtains).

Sometime in the middle of the night

On Thursday most of our light fixtures were installed by the electricians. Apparently we had lost count of how many lights we actually had, as we ended up being short three fixtures...the master bedroom closet, the washer/dryer area, and the mudroom (after all the problems it's caused us, we just forgot all about it). A few others, like the ones over the island, were deferred until the island was actually secured in place with a countertop. Still, it was fun to see some of the rooms take shape with the trim work nearly complete and the lights up...some of the lights even have temporary bulbs.

Anthony and Natalie checking out the sconce in the bathroom.

We are striving for a Energy Star HERS rating that will require at least 80% of the lights to be something other than incandescent. As most electricians and 'lighting experts' abhor CF or similar energy efficient bulbs because of their un-incandescentness, most of our bulbs will be supplied by a energy rating company (the same people who will pressure test our whole house), and are yet to come in. So the electricians left a skeleton crew of bulbs in place, perhaps to show us that they all actually worked. Again, much of the house, really just the simple rooms, feels like it is almost there...and just waiting for the floor.

These little button lights are our go-to easy fix for many areas of the house.

Which brings me to the rest of the weekend - after another trip to our Swedish hardware/furniture/solution store - we came home with the three remaining lights as well as our temporary solution to a kitchen countertop. Sunday, Anthony finished putting together and securing the cabinets and placed the temporary countertop. There is still one piece of the temporary top that we'll have to pick up, but it was on back order until this coming week. We're using temporary tops in the kitchen and bathrooms so that we can complete the project enough to move in and then focus on making the real ones at our leisure.

Island with butcher block top

We also finalized our door hardware on Friday, which took a dramatic switcheroo right at the end. Many of our selection 'issues' seem to occur when we have some entrenched design preference or idea or concept fixed in our heads that, over time, becomes untenable. Of course once you've decided to go a certain direction, it takes so much longer and so much more effort to change to a direction you'd previously discounted for some, previously iron-clad reason. (Perhaps this is what our builder was going through with our stairs). We were originally heading in one direction with cool handlesets and deadbolts and fancy rectangular rosettes from Emtek, when it occurred to us we wouldn't be able to leave and lock our doors without a key (which in hindsight, everyone should be able to do). After a too-long struggle to find a workable option with Emtek, we ended up changing lock and lever style as well as manufacturers completely. Writing this, it sounds like trivial issue, which I totally agree with, but for 'frugal wafflers' this is a bad scene.

Finally, it's felt like we've been hemorrhaging monopoly money for the past few months, but we think we now have everything ordered, planned out, or waiting to be installed. Everything, that is, except the kitchen sink. We'll have to get on that.

-J

Something Under Our Feet

Our tile is in and finished: the mudroom floor, the wall around the tub, and the bathroom floor.

Mudroom tile- It's called "Ayers Rock Cobalto Blue", which I find funny. I've been to Ayers Rock (yes, I did just work that in) and nothing about it reminds me of this tile, nor do I think that the tile or Ayers Rock have much to do with "blue". Maybe that's why we got a sweet discount on it.

Upstairs bathroom: "Stoney Point Grigio" on the floor and white subway tile around the tub.

The floor in the rest of the house was scheduled to be installed Monday, but now that's pushed back until Wednesday. Why? It's complicated. It involves stair guys, floor guys, us, "experts" on the phone in Georgia and the whole-like. What it comes down to is that our people here have been doing things a certain way for thirty years and if we throw them even the smallest design curve ball they balk and spend their time and energy trying to get us to change our minds rather than spending their time and energy embracing the new challenge (even if we're trying to get them to do something that's actually pictured in their own catalog). You would also think stair guys and floor guys had worked with each other before. This does not seem to be the case. This is difficult for Anthony and I to deal with, and I think it's because we both work in professions where learning something new (and collaborating) is celebrated.

So I'm holding my breath until Wednesday now.

-J

Anthony the Scandinavian Carpenter

Cost-saving measures require that we acquire new personas. Ikea requires that we find some freetime in the middle of the night for a few weeks and can understand diagrams with little quizzical cartoon guys.

Anthony has been putting cabinets together whenever he has a "bit" of time since we picked them up flatpacked back in April. Last weekend we also started to install them so that they'll be in place before the floor goes in. There was some initial worry about making sure we were certain where the studs and a pipe were hidden, but the purchase of a stud finder confirmed our measurements and we were set to drill into our new walls and start hanging.

Cabinet One (note the daylight)

Two

Three

Four... right side uppers all hung (while the rest of the world sleeps)

Of course, even with all the planning and measuring and wall moving, Anthony discovered that the architect had not accounted for picky little things like the width of the window trim, or at least the window trim that the builder had put on, and so we had to rethink how we were going to handle our new odd-sized space on the left side of the window. I think we've figured out a new plan that should work. We shall see as the installation continues...

-J

Shim the Trim, Paint the Shelf

The past week or so, John's workers have been busy finishing up the trim around the window, doors, and closets. Painters have been appearing randomly to prime the trim that is done, and returning again later to prime others. I think it is safe to say that we are starting to get close to the end...of what seems like the long, twisty path to completion. It's been interesting to see each of our decisions come to fruition.

Basement trim completed. We love the shelves that resulted from our thick walls.

Along the way we have turned to various people for advice. Sometimes it just happens to be an innocent friend/family member/acquaintance/random person on the street who was unfortunate to offer us a polite, "hey, how's your house coming along?" and sometimes it's people we actively seek out in the middle of decision-making panic attacks. I guess we figure that if we follow their advice and don't like it we can blame someone besides ourselves. However, in other cases we have to give credit where credit is due.

Windows at the top of the stairwell

Jamey got the window trim phone call late one night. He has art degrees and Urban Outfitters cred so we figured he knew what he was doing. His design input was to look at white like the matte of a framed picture. Now that the white (which is way cheaper) trim is in we can really see what he means. Especially when that "picture" is of the pond or the trees. Bright, clean, pretty...

Living room windows

There are other parts of the house that have turned out surprisingly nice, especially those that we didn't really think about ahead of time. Along the edges of the thick basement walls, we let the sash of the window extend and create a shelf. For many of these items, it's been a struggle to get our builder to find the joy in doing something creative and unique, so when we end up with something like this it's extra exciting.

Checking out the view from the room in the basement

In addition to the trim, the carpenter has been busy installing shelves and rods in the closets and pantry. We had to peer into the crystal ball of our future lives and try to figure out what belongings we were going to put where and what the arrangement of shelves and rods should be. We won't really know how we did on that until we move back in.

Upstairs linen closet with shelves

I guess if it doesn't all fit we can always store our extra stuff in my parents' barn or my in-laws' basement (just trying to see who's reading all the way to the end...).

-J