a productive weekend

[kareina]

 On Saturday we drove in to do some work with the shire storage, which is a rented space in the the upstairs of a barn half an hour north of the city, so a full hour drive for us. The owner of the barn contacted the shire officers recently to say that our stuff had spread out of our assigned area and we should come deal with it.

There were four of us who went in for the project, none of whom had been involved with taking stuff back out there this summer after Skellefteå Medeltidsdagarna. Clearly the people who dropped stuff off last time must have been very tired after the event, as things were just dumped randomly, scattered everywhere, and it wasn't even possible to simply walk through. Keldor and I were the first to arrive, and we started by taking one pavilion at a time from the pile of canvas over to the other half of the barn, where there was open floor. There we were able to spread the fabric out and fold the pavilions into nice, neat bundles and tie them up with some of the ropes, which were also just in a random pile on the floor. Þórólfr and Viriya arrived just as we'd finished folding the shire pavilions, and started clearing out a corner to stack the benches into. It went pretty quickly with four of us working to sort things by type and find a place for everything. They had stopped on the way and bought a set of shelves to help organise things, so as soon as we'd cleared enough space to make it worth it, I assembled the shelves, and we screwed them to one of the beams and started filling them. Three hours after we arrived the job was done. We were all surprised that it went that quick, given the total chaos we were starting with.

After that we all went to Þórólfr's to play board games for the evening, which was lots of fun. We played a couple games of Unstable Unicorns, and one of Settlers of Cattan. Viriya hadn't played before, so she got lots of suggestions as to strategy, and managed to win the game, but not before most of us were also quite close to winning, so everyone had fun.

Sunday we decided not to drive to town for the shire crafts afternoon, as my crafts project for the day was to paint a second coat of paint on the living room ceiling, which is not a project one can take with one. Keldor slept in, and when he woke I had already done my morning workout, had a leisurely breakfast over a book, and started painting. He woke with a headache, so he took it easy all day. I also took it easy, painting a bit, then taking a break for more food, as I was hungry, then painting a bit more. By the time I was half way done the sun had set, and it was no longer possible to see the difference between the areas that have had a second coat of paint and those which still need it, so I decided to quit for the day, washed the brush, and put back the things that had been moved to make painting possible.

Then I walked through the little room between the kitchen and the living room, and was suddenly hit with inspiration on how it could all be rearranged to make that a much more useable space. So I called Keldor over, explained my idea, and he thought it was a good one, and I suddenly set to work. That was around 16:00. I fell into that headspace where one happily works on a project with no notice of time elapsing, and a "short time later" the room was done, and I was posting photos of the result to FB, and surprised to see that it was nearly 22:00!  Of course I didn't take any "before" photos (I am seriously impressed with how the rest of you remember to do that), 

but the list of what we did is:

• emptied all of the food off of the large cabinet that came with the house
• pulled the music instruments out of the back corner, and took down the ones which had been hanging on that wall, and set them all in the living room to get them out of the way
• cleaned the floor there
• shifted the piano out of the way so that the cabinet could move
• rotated the cabinet 90 degrees and placed it in the corner where the dulcimer and bas moraharpa had been
• cleaned the floor where the piano and cabinet had been
• moved the piano to the wall where the cabinet had been
• put the bas moraharpa in the gap between the piano and the cabinet
• installed the wall mounted shelves (that had come down from the wall in the living room when we painted the accent wall a week ago) on the wall above the piano
• moved the record player and CD player and their speakers (all of which came with the house) and the CD holder from the living room window to on top of the piano and shelves above
• screwed one of the wooden boxes we got from the Archives to the wall above the piano to hold the records 
• hung the instruments on the wall next to the cabinet and put the drums and small instruments onto the wall mounted shelves
• screwed the wooden box with a latch mechanism (that Keldor recently found at a second hand store and brought it home as it looked like it might be useful) to the wall next to the window to serve as a liquor cabinet, and put the humidifier that had been on the window ledge on top of that box.
• cleaned the dust off all of the glass jars of food and labeled them, consolidating the duplicates into a single container (gee, we have lots of dried mushrooms!)
• tossed foods that neither of us will ever eat
• found appropriate sized glass jars for things that had been in plastic bags
• organized all the food and put it back into the cabinet--it all fits much, much better now, and looks far less chaotic

We will still need to do more with this project, as the dulcimer didn't go back into that room, which now has lots of open floor space in the middle--so much there is room to set up the massage table, which means that we have yet another place to put guests if we have a party and lots of people stay over.

Next time I have energy for re-arranging we need to move the bookshelf of hardcover fiction in the old office about 1 cm to the side to make room for the white chest of drawers next to it. Then the single stack of archive boxes, which currently are stacked six high next to the bookshelf to hold the books that don't fit into the shelf, can instead be stacked on top of the chest of drawers, in two side-by side stacks. Then there will be room for the dulcimer in the corner where the bookshelf is. 

Gee that sounds easy, I am tempted to go do that now. However, since I didn't get to bed till 23:00 last night because that project went so late, I have been tired all day, so I am not certain that it would be the smartest thing to go work on it now...

Comments

[fjorlief]

I am always impressed with how much you manage to accomplish!

[kareina]

Thanks! but, please keep in mind that my output isn't consistent. Some days are more productive than others...