More of our Handiwork

Here's a picture of our new shelves in progress. We are putting up 42 shelves in the upstairs hallway. It is kinda biggish (14' x 8' wide), so we thought it would be good to turn into our library. They'll run around 3 of the walls, have an oak nosing to match the floors, base mould, windows and doors. Many shelves are super long, spanning across this or that door to connect two sections. I think they are turning out very nicely. Those heavy-duty standards and brackets were REALLY fun to mount to ye olde plaster walls. I found many areas where the plaster "tightened" down over the wood lathe, as I attached the vertical standards. Oh well, at least none of it fell down. It certainly is easier, and cheaper, than doing full millworked built-ins, and a little cleaner and more mod...someday when i'm in less of a hurry I'm hoping to make proper built-ins somewhere in this house...maybe in a basement level den when we get to work down there. I'll take some clearer pictures in a few days when it is all finished, and the books etc. are all unpacked and in place (if i'm still alive).

There is a big storm happening here right now, and Steven is outside gardening in it! He can't be bothered by a little rain...yesterday he and JingXia went over to our friend Roberta's, who lives in the glasshouseworks precinct of Stewart, where they took away a whole pile of bracken roots to plant in the front. Operation Grass Be Gone has begun!

This stuff is gorgeous. Not your typical fern, it thrives in heat, poor soil, full sunshine, and little in the way of water. We have a big patch of it at the farm where I work, and it thrives right next to boiling aspalt in our parking lot. Roberta is a sweetheart to help us out with our bracken needs... she has a business called Inner Gardens, and is Gerry's gardener at the farm. She comes to the office at least once a week to tend the outside stuff, and to handle all the big beautiful plants inside the barn where I work. On Tuesdays, she works at Glasshouseworks with Tom and Ken and the others. We have to figure out some way to thank her for all the Bracken (she insists we did her a favor taking it away).