Home Improvement

How many trips to Home Depot does it take before a project qualifies as "home improvement"? The current project has taken two trips to Home Depot (and there will be at least one more, as I didn't get some cedar planking) and three trips to IKEA (shelving), so I guess it qualifies.

After nearly a year, we are getting close to the end of the work done on the attic. It began last summer with replacing the attic stairs. The old stairs were in place when we bought the house in 1994; they were cheap and rickety, and too small for the space (the upstairs hall). Someone had extended the legs to make up the difference, but one side rail was cracked when we bought the house, and the stairs continued to deteriorate. I'm surprised they lasted as long as they did! The new stairs are the really nice rolling ladder stairs--they're pretty common on the East Coast, but rare here in California, and it took several months to find a contractor willing to install the stairs. We finally found one, and after several months, and two sets of rolling stairs (the first set was too short), we had our stairs.

After the stairs were complete, the "stair guys" decided they had done enough, and claimed they were too busy to do the next phase of the project: removing the blown-in cellulose insulation and installing a floor in the attic. It took 6 months to find another contractor willing to do the job for a decent price, but the work was started in late April, with immediate consequences: one of the workers put his foot through the lath-and-plaster ceiling in the guest room, leaving a 2x4-foot hole. A few days later, another worker did the same thing in my studio/office. Sigh. The contractor patched the lath where it was broken, and I cleaned up the broken plaster and lots of dust.

In spite of the floor not being completely installed, I simply couldn't stand the mess throughout the house (everything in the attic is currently in the upstairs hall, the library, and the dining room). We made a couple trips to IKEA to purchase their Gorm shelving units and assorted parts, and began building and installing shelves in the "finished" portions of the attic. Stephen also took the time to install some lights for us and we moved a few boxes back up and put them on the shelves. What a difference! I feel like I have some control over the project, and know it is only a matter of time until everything is back up in the attic where it belongs, neatly boxed and labeled.