Surprisingly Motivated

Now there is a title to start a post with! But seriously, with number of ugly events of this past fall that hit my family, I've had little motivation to work on the house. Being unemployed at the moment, you'd think it would be the perfect time to get some simple work around the house done but I haven't (in part because the job hunt and small business side projects are eating up my day time hours).

Well, that lack of motivation changed a bit yesterday. For a while now, I've had a couple of projects on the back burner (projects that keep me from wanting to bring in an appraiser to look at the place for eventual refinance). One of them I don't have the aptitude to manage solely on my own (the bathroom) but the other I can easily get out of the way.

Yesterday I started work on finishing the hall closet. Its a small task but the cramped space did actually make getting in there and slapping joint compound on the walls daunting. Very little elbow room. All that remains for the first coat is the ceiling, which I might get to later tonight assuming I get the first floor picked up and vacuumed (preparing for a LAN party). Once that is done, I can do the second coat next week, sand it, prime it and see about putting in the floor (I had flooring left over from removing the adjacent bedroom's closet, which should be plenty for what I aim to do). I am going to try to get it done by the end of the week and, if my employment status does not change, I'll start in on finishing the bathroom closet.

This year was the first year I have had a Christmas tree as an adult. With Jay and his kids living here, it felt right to have one for the kids at least. I'll be picking up pine needles well into next year. It did end up looking good but I think I'll need to find a different spot for it. The corner it was in was the best place for it to be in the room but its proximity to the heat dried the tree out fast - if another tree is bought for next year, I think it will be placed next to the porch door, well away from the heat though less conveniently positioned.

While I was cleaning up the pine needles, I also decided it was time to put a door stop on the porch door. I noticed a dunch in wall from the door handle and figured it was time to install the stop, considering I'd bought it months ago.