Home Improvement

This post is a little overdue, but better late than never, right? The last weekend in June, I worked at a convention in Schaumburg with my friend Kate. It was pretty much an all day thing, so instead of leaving AJ home with Andy, I dropped him off with my mom and Dad for the day. The lovely effect of this arrangement was this: I made a few bucks, my parents basked in the grandchild glow, and Andy got to work on a few lingering projects that are HARD to do with AJ around!

The first was our bedroom lighting. Since we live in a loft, our bedroom has no windows and only gets natural light that filters all the way through our home. The existing lighting was more like accent lighting, so doing anything there that actually required "light" was difficult. Let's say I have not been thrilled with this situation for the 2 years we've lived here! SO, Andy wired and hung these beautiful paper lanterns and installed a dimmer switch for them as well. He needed to use a 12' ladder and take apart our bed to put them up, plus borrow a hammer drill to install the hooks in the concrete ceiling, but what a difference. They look great and are practical too! Good job on project #1, Andy!

Project #2 involved solving a storage issue...our building's bike room is off the garage, but it's very dirty, very hard to navigate (lots of things are stored there) and there are a ton of bikes hanging there that I swear gang up on me when I try to get mine up or take it down! I had a hard time doing it by myself, let alone bringing AJ with me. Since GG Marcella and G-ma Cheri bought AJ's seat for my bike, we ride a lot and so storing the bike in the bike room was just no longer feasible. So the bike lived in our bedroom. Lame! So Andy's second project fixed that when he used said hammer drill and ladder again and installed a hoist over our entryway. Yay! It was hard to figure out how to get a picture of it, but here's the view from our bedroom. It's super easy to get up and down, and AJ thinks it's fun to point to.

This same day, Andy also installed guides and a thumb-pull on AJ's sliding door, which make using and closing it much easier. That was project #3, but there was really not much to photograph on that one. It's unbelieveable how much he accomplished in one day, so maybe I'll have to set up another day trip for AJ and I on a weekend...what could be next???