Painting the Kitchen…

how quickly I forgot how much work that is. Here's the before picture of what will become the blue wall. The pantry is already turquoise. And it's beautiful! The rest of the kitchen will be white, and on a whim I went to the Free Library and picked up a bunch of books of art nouveau and Islamic design clip art for a border I will stencil up there - later. So far I haven't found quite what I'm looking for.
But back to how much work it is:
I spent yesterday supporting the economy. I will, once again, personally ensure that Home Depot will not go under. (sigh) Let's see - I bought more primer, four rolls of insulation (to do the basement), staple gun and staples, turquoise paint, plastic, spackle, masks, and bull nose shelving. At Christmas time, my dad shared with me the secret of their beautiful shelves. They use stair tread for the shelves which has a beautiful bull nose on the one side and is natural wood so that they can stain it. Ha-HA! This was the plan for the replacement shelves in the "pantry." However - I found something better (for me anyway). There is bull nose shelving made of compressed wood that is actually lighter than stair tread. Since I'm painting it and it's half the price, its a win-win situation!
Last night I started prepping the walls. Man-o-man this is the worst part of painting. Holes have to fixed, stuff has to be removed, stuff has to be primed, then there's drying time - it's never ending!
Turns out behind the refrigerator there was a lot of damage. I had to rip down this fabric stuff that was holding the plaster up. I hope to god it wasn't more asbestos paper. It didn't look like it. But it ripped off half of the wall, so now there is more spackling to be done. However, yours truly has finally found the right tool for that!
Lookit that putty knife! Doi - if you use the right tool it makes everything easier. I was watching Bo do some spackling on my walls last Wednesday and he was using an enormous putty knife. When I was going through my painting stuff trying to find paint brushes last night, what to my wondering eyes should appear? but this beautiful putty knife. Holy cow the official "piece of crap" plastic 1.5inch putty knife I was using has been fired. I think I will try using this on the doorway downstairs. Maybe it will get the job done the way I want it done. :)
I was trying to be efficient by priming then spackling, then priming again, then painting shelves, then sanding drywall compound, then sanding spackle. The end result is that I did get the pantry finished. Then I was so excited this evening to put the shelves back in, that I did that before planning ahead. I've still got to paint the archway blue, which will be much harder now that there are two shelves in the way. And the shelves are just that much too long to be able to get them in easily. I think an eighth of an inch shorter would make them perfect. Ah well, that's what rubber mallets are for, and these shelves? are never coming out.
It looks particularly beautiful in daylight, I'll be sure to get a picture tomorrow before I paint the blue wall.

New Door on the Second Floor

Oh - they installed a new door on the second floor. Isn't it nice? It's so quiet too. You can't hear the mechanisms in the locks moving. Amazing. That Jeff has good taste, no? It's much better than that ugly thing I had before.
I also yanked up more of the kitchen floor. It's starting to look really great. The best part is it's starting to feel really great. Everything feels right now. When I walk across the floor it feels better, there's a better sound. It's strange to describe. I've only got a bit more to pull up and then I'll be able to sand it.
I'm going to try doing this on my own because, get this: Philadelphia has a Tool Library. I checked out the website and there is a $20 yearly membership, but then you can check out tools to use for projects! Hot diggity! I don't know how long one can check them out for, but I'm going there on Saturday to get the details. I can get other stuff like table saws, routers, jigsaws, and tile saws (which I'll need for the bathroom). Talk about exciting.
Working on the house during the week I think will be a good thing. I got the second heating bill of the season… Let's just say I'm going to call the Gas Company tomorrow, congratulate them on the joke that must be my bill, and ask them to tell me what I really owe them. My heating bill? Doubled from last time. It hurts just to say it. So the heat has been turned down, rooms closed, vents closed, more clothes pulled on including hats, and then yanking up the kitchen floor isn't so bad - I was actually sweating for a bit there.

Snow Day!

Well, I don't even know where to start. So we'll just start with the funny one. . . Jacques met the wet drywall compound (spackle) - this is the big white streak on his fur.
It's amazing this sort of thing hasn't happened more often. But to explain how funny it actually was I've got to back up a bit.
So Jeff is just the best contractor ever and I think just a genuinely nice decent human being. On Monday they brought drywall up to the second floor - instead of me having to order it at Home Depot and having them drop it off on the front porch and I could see how I would get it upstairs. I called to say thanks for bringing it up and he offered to have his assistant Bo, come in and do the drywall for me, for less $ because Bo didn't have anything to do anyway and Jeff had other things to do. That way I could get going on the painting in the kitchen. Really!? Yes. It was such a generous offer, and really the thought of being able to paint the blue wall in the kitchen this weekend? - was overwhelming. So of course I took him up on the offer - after asking him if there was a big infrared "sucker" tattoo on my forhead.
Looks great! Much better than if I'd done it. About mid afternoon, Bo comes downstairs and asks me if I have anymore compound. I don't even know what that is so I guess its spackle, which it's not, but at any rate I don't have any and Bo asks if I would go to the hardware store and get some. I'm gone for maybe 20 minutes, when I get back, Jeff (who has stopped by to see how things are going) opens the front door and who shoots out with the big white streak on his side? Jacques. So Jeff, who's already a bit irritated with Bo for sending me out and for not being further along, starts to laugh, but then quickly says, "Sh - don't say anything." - meaning "I don't want to hear about it" knowing full well, that I'm going to give him shit for allowing spackle to land on my cat. Jacques doesn't seem to notice his new adornment and since he likes Jeff too - and isn't scared to death of him, let me pick him up, bring him back in and Jeff took this picture. I tell ya . . . never a dull moment. Jacques came upstairs a few hours later with most of it gone.

And so yes! I love snow even more than ever because we had a snow day today! The radio said Philadelphia schools were closed and therefore, so was HSP! Yippee! Now of course since my alarm went off at 6am - I was up, and I was excited. Snow and ice was covering everything. It's the most beautiful in the morning before everything gets ruined. And since I've never had to do it before - I was excited about shoveling my sidewalk! … that was fun for about five minutes. But I did it, the last thing I want is anyone to fall on the sidewalk in front of my house. Since I was up, I shoveled a bit in front of Mr. El's house too. I kind of felt obligated you know? Karma gave me a day off, but I felt I had to give a little bit back.
Jacques wanted to go out at the same time. He left his little kitty prints all over the snow. They are so cute in the fresh snow. But he doesn't actually like it. After I shoveled, I gave the dogs a little treat so I could walk on the snow which had a layer of ice over the top, Jacques had to come out and show off in front of them, but he went howling back to the porch pretty quickly. It was quite an indignant meow. As though I could do anything about the snow.
I got lots done today - including cleaning the studio. That is a real relief.
I've also been meaning to blog about last weekend, but I never got around to it.
Friday and Saturday I lesson planned. Finally got a good handle on what I'm teaching. I'm so excited about my Advanced class - and the basic class is going to be fun - I think. They are excited about the class and that helps. Sunday I made Lime marmalade, I always forget how long that takes, with limes that needed to be dealt with. I went to see a gallery talk for Julianna Foster's work. It's really great. Katie and Mary came along for the ride which is good because it was VERY cold. We then trekked to Home Depot because Katie needed a space heater for the meat locker she calls her basement that she'd like to call her studio. And I got to see her new house. It's beautiful. Perfect for her and her family! Lots of beautiful features. I'm so thrilled for her.
Then it was off to Moore to do all of the final prep for class - lots of xeroxing and dropping off of stuff. I'm still not in the classroom I'm supposed to be in, wonder when that will happen.
Came home, dinner blah blah wind down, bed at midnight, only to be awoken by the garbage truck at 3am, slamming the dumpsters. By 4am I knew I was wide awake and I could either get up and be productive, or lie there until about 5:45 when i would fall asleep again and not be able to get up and go to work. So I got up - watched Saving Grace on YouTube and finished this lace hat:

The second floor

Started on the kitchen floor last night.
I decided to give myself a half an hour to work on the kitchen floor last night. That of course turned into an hour and a half including clean up. But I'm getting the hang of this floor removal thing. This is a good thing because let me tell you, the back of my legs really hurt this morning! All that bending over to yank stuff up. But all you have to do is get the thing (oh, what is that tool called - the one that is long and you pry stuff up with - it has escaped my mind), well, get that thing forced under the plywood and then step on it and it comes up and sometimes brings nails with it. Most of the yucky old linoleum is pretty easy to get up too.
And Jeff came today to put in the beam! Yippee! but it's crooked! It's off by 3/4's of an inch! We're going to have to discuss this.
I can fix it with the drywall but they didn't bring that either. Don't know when that will happen. He did bring insulation for the giant gaping hole that was left and shoved it in there. He's also going to put in a door for me. He said he found a nice one with glass in the front :) - on sale even. Let's see if he actually remembers to get it. I'm not going to stress out about a door though. In the mean time - I'm going to continue prying up my kitchen floor and maybe I'll even get to sanding it. Nicole and Mat sanded their floors, so I think I'm going to give it a go. If it doesn't work out, I can always call Henry Sanding floor.
I'm supposed to be visiting Melanie this weekend in the Berkshires. :( But with all the madness of last weekend, I bowed out because I need to do to much prep for school, and as we discussed today - I'm just trying to get ahead on a few things. But I'm bummed because I can't be there and bummed because Melanie was so looking forward to us being there. Hopefully I will get to see her new place soon! :)Here she is in front of the Rocky statue that got moved to the Art Museum recently. Go Melanie!

Karma

I'm not sure how I earned this karma, but I am grateful for it.
In all of the drama on Monday of trying to find my car - I made a huge mistake. I only discovered it today when I went to UArts to pick up my bike. When I went to lock it to the bike stand on Monday, I missed the bike frame, locked the lock to the stand and left the bicycle standing there alone (kickstand down). I discovered this today (two days later!) as I reached for the lock and had a hard time registering why on earth the lock could just be lying there, flat on the ground, on the other side of my bike. I pushed at my bike a bit and it practically rolled away from me. I am amazed that it was still there.
My grateful thanks to whatever powers that are - that made my bicycle still be there.

President Obama

It is something I will always regret - not being at Obama's inauguration.
I watched it online, listened to it on NPR, came home this evening and watched the speech again. The man had only been president for a few minutes and he was already making it clear - heads are gonna roll. He very elegantly slapped Bush in the face, thanking him for his service and then continuing to to say, but we are not putting up with this BS anymore. My favorite line was that we have to "pick ourselves up, dust ourselves off, and get to work." It was a very serious speech. After so many years of fluff, of stuttering and stumbling, of the simplest sentence structures - we got an ear-full from a man who speaks to us with the understanding that we are intelligent people. He believes in us - and has high expectations of us. Finally we have a leader. Someone I am willing to follow. He has a big job ahead of him but he made it clear that we have responsibility in fixing the mess too.

Only in Philly - part deu

This afternoon I found myself in the back of a Philadelphia PD squad car.
Here's what happened.
Around noon I needed to head to Moore to xerox course books and do general prep for my classes that start tomorrow. Guess what it's doing outside? Snowing. I decide in the interest of prioritizing my life I should go to Moore first, then search for car - on bike. The snow was just quietly falling straight down. The snow from last night had melted and this snow was lightly covering everything, it looked so beautiful, and really, how bad could it be? On a bicycle, snow is not fun. Those sharp little ice points in snow flakes really hurt when they land in your eyes. And one of my brakes was completely frozen. Coming over Spring Garden bridge by the Art Museum, I had to use my feet as brakes or go shooting out into the wrong traffic.
I got to Moore to find there had been a water main break on the third floor, right outside my office. Not only could I not get to my office, but I was not going to be able to put anything in there, or teach in my designated classroom tomorrow. Okay - instant plan B: Go find car, worry about what to teach the darlings later. (I'll be fine, the advanced students get to make a box, and the beginning students will make a single section pamphlet. It's all under control).
So I rode my bike down Bainbridge, 10 blocks (just in case) then I back tracked on Fitzwater and Christian, came back on Catherine. I'm a little past the four block radius thing now. It occurs to me that the PPA (parking authority) would have put my car someplace where it could sit for a while without getting a ticket, so I sort of whizzed past the 2hour limited parking sections. After an hour and a half of snowflakes in eyeballs, I'd had enough. I went to UArts, the nice guard let me use the phone, (I'd left my phone at home - of course), and I called the PPA again.
Then the circus really began.
I asked if they could tell me where my car was. She asked what my tag numbers were, I told her. She said, "We don't have a record of that car." She then proceeded to tell me the PPA had not moved cars from Broad on Sunday. !!! She said I should call the police, 911, and talk with them. Can you believe that the only way to contact the police in Philadelphia is with 911? That should be an emergency number, right? Oy! Well, I called, apologized, and told my story. The operator told me to "call this number." It was the number for PPA. I told her I'd already talked with them and I was supposed to call her. She said, "Well, I guess you'll have to report it stolen." !!! Ugh. I couldn't believe it. Who would steel my 10-year-old car from RIGHT IN FRONT OF UARTS! No one. But I played along, and an officer came to UArts so I could report it stolen.
I have to say, she was very nice. I've kind of decided that if one owns up to screwing up - people are a lot more willing to help. I flat out said, "I blew it! I had the dates wrong in my head, looked at the temporary "no parking" sign and thought I was okay because of the times." She was very nice, took my info etc. and told me she'd see what she could do.
Half an hour later she came back in and said, "Get your stuff, let's go see if your car is where they said it might be." That's how I ended up in the back of a police car. Did you know there's no upholstery in the back seat? I had no idea. Just hard plastic. Probably easier to clean - ew.
As we drove she railed about people not doing their jobs etc. She also told me there were several cars missing that had been in the same situation I was in. She put 2 and 2 together and figured my car was on 13th and Washington, no where near a four block radius. Well, by the blessings of I don't know who, there it was, sitting right on the corner of 13th and Washington. Thank goodness!!! I thanked her profusely and must say, I'm so glad my car wasn't stolen. Let's hope it wasn't a premonition. . . .

In other news: I finished covering the book and got the peg in only to discover, I don't have the right size drill bit to rivet the peg in place. Must remember to pick up 1/16th size bit tomorrow.
The only thing that irritates me is that I didn't get the front and back covers centered on the boards. They are too far to the left. Maybe I can do some more blind tooling to even things out.

I also needed to do a small, quick, knitting project. At the Stitch and Bitch last weekend someone introduced me to ravelry.com. Oh dear. This site is amazing. They have a ton of free patterns and this one was on there.
This is 1 1/2 balls of yarn I got in Germany. The pattern is SO easy! Knit a 7"x22 rectangle. Knit seed stitch for 1 inch on the edge and knit stocking net in the middle. Use five buttons on the edge. This yarn is thick enough that there are big enough holes for me to just push them through so I didn't need to make button holes. Ta-dah!
Okay - I'm going to bed now. Eyelids drooping…

Only in Philly

Only in Philadelphia can the city plan for the non-existent. Since they under-planned for the Phillies, now they over planned for the possibility that the Eagles would go to the Super Bowl. There was a 'no parking' sign in front of UArts when I go there this morning in anticipation of the riots that would happy if the Eagles won or lost. Only in Philly. But there were other cars parked, and I didn't really think the date through. Well, okay - so it was for today 3pm-6am on Monday morning, no parking on Broad. My fabulous workshop ended at 6pm, and guess what? No car. So I called the Parking Authority and the nice operator (read - Philly nice-dripping sarcasm) says, "All cars parked on Broad street were moved within a four block radius of where you parked. You'll just have to go look for it." Now, initially this seems like a blessing in disguise. Four block radius, how bad can that be? And I don't have to pay $175.- to get it out of impound. So I start walking. I've been hoping and wishing for snow all winter. Guess what it's doing tonight? Snowing. It's not bad snow, just light, just a little dusting. But I'm gettin' the dusting too. Snow in the eyes isn't really that fun. An hour and a half later, I've waked 8 square blocks from where I've parked, and I have not found my car. :( I decided to call it a day. I go back to UArts and pick up my stuff and head home. And the blasted Eagles didn't even win! Guess what I'm doing tomorrow? I'm going to go riding around on my bike until I find my car. I'm going to be really peeved when I find out that they actually did impound it. :(. I have so many other things I could be doing tomorrow.

Okay okay - other than that, I had a great weekend. I took a Coptic Binding workshop. Coptic bindings are most likely the precursors of our books today. Books that have pages that turn rather than scrolls. This book was really really cool to make.
One starts with a pile of papyrus:Then, one laminates them together to make the boards.
All of this gets sewn together.
We put an endband on. This had to be the easiest endband ever.
The book gets a peg and leather thong to hold it shut. We filed ours out of brass stock. I know why I'm not a jeweler! This was my very least favorite thing of this workshop. Hands down.
The leather work is done off the boards. All of it is blind tooled, leather inlaid, (sort of behind the base leather), stitched together, and then parchment (the white stuff) is woven into the leather.
I really loved working on the cover. It was very hard to decide when to stop.
I managed to get the leather on the boards, but haven't managed to finish.
I got the leather on the boards, intending to finish once I got home. Nope. The saga to find my car began. When I finally got home I had a dirty martini - and knitted. I'll have to finish the whole thing tomorrow. Don't worry, I'll post.

We took the whole wall down

Yes we did!Leah and I worked like bandits today to get this wall down.
After much deliberation and serious evaluation of my personal limitations, I asked Jeff what he would charge to put the beam into this wall. It's quite reasonable, considering the nightmare it would be if I put the thing in, and so he came this morning to tell us what to take down (all of it) and we did. It's ready for him and Bo to frame the wall in on Monday. At first I was a bit concerned that I might like the entire wall gone, but really, I don't. The room is too big. It needs that little break of a wall between what used to be the kitchen and the living room. It will be very nice to have books up there - out of the way, but there. Books hanging in every available space is a comfort zone for me. What a surprise, eh?
Leah and I took so much of the wall down last weekend, it was quite shocking for me how much more stuff there was to actually take down. Let's just say tons, okay? We worked our tushies off from about 10am, to about 3:30 when it was time to eat! (Breakfast burritos, hmmm)
Look at how much debris the second round left us with!
Leah had to leave at 4pm, so she helped me clean most of the stuff out, and then after dropping her off at home, I came back and cleaned for another three hours. How can so much dust magically appear. It's just amazing. I used the shop vac and got quite a bit up, and then thought, well I'll just try my super-dooper vacuum on the rest of it. Wow. It really does the job. But it's still dusty in the most unlikely places. Someday it will all be cleaned up. Whether from use, or Jacques rubbing himself on stuff. He is looking a sort of dusty grey lately, as compared with his usual sleek black self.
Here he is checking out the hallow that allows the heating vent to exist. Now this is a good thing, but I do have to stick some kind of insulation in there - I think. Also, the bigger problem is that when I look up this shaft I can see daylight, inside my house. The eves are not completely closed! I've got to get someone out here to fix that asap. No wonder the squirrels have decided to live with me. Easy access!
My sweet baby is not sure what to think of all this. It was 22° today for the high, a bit too cold for him to be outside for long. He came back in relatively quickly. But he wasn't thrilled to be in a house with so much noise and debris flying everywhere. Poor little guy, so much craziness in his castle.
The next thing to tackle will be the floor. But first - I've got to finish my syllabus for my advanced students. And right now I need to take a very hot bath and go to bed! I'm freezing and I have a workshop tomorrow morning. Should be fun!

Bathroom Diaries; Day 11 - Electrics

Lee the Quaker electrician came today. A few weeks ago I asked him if one could still get the glow-in-the-dark switches. One can! These are really wonderful. No searching in the dark for the light switch. We had them at my house in California and I figured they were an antique '70s thing I'd never be able to find again. Lucky me - Lee said they are still available. He put one it in the bathroom,… and also installed the light over the shower.

Bathroom Diaries: Day 10

Oh Dear.
Things are just not going my way with this bathroom.
I got the mural in the mail today - that is, I got four copies of the mural in the mail today !? Now what? And I unrolled it and it looks terrible. Sure it looks beautiful in the image, and it looks great from 8 feet away, but up close, at two to three feet? The image is completely pixelated. Boo hoo! It looks really cheap. I am so bummed. AND I went to order tile today - which I did, but now I don't want that tile anymore because it's to simple and plain - I want the green rocks that I saw there. Oh boy! But if those are special order too - then forget it. So I'm going to call the nice lady at the tile shop again tomorrow and see what can happen there.
At any rate the plumbers were here again today and Jeff put the last of the drywall up. I will give him a call tomorrow morning after I talk to the tile lady.

Bathroom Diaries: Day 9 - The Door

Jeff got a fabulous door!
I asked him about the door last week and he couldn't tell me fast enough that he already had one. And it's fantastic! Look and the handle!!! Isn't it beautiful?
He said the door is from a closet from another job, it's fits perfectly, and he even has a matching handle for the other side. I think that's what he said...
The molding is up too. Too bad it wasn't primed before he put it in - but maybe there's a method to his madness - who knows.
I'm starting to have second thoughts about the wall I took down yesterday. I'm not regretting taking it down - it's just that I don't think my brilliant plan of being able to put books on it is not going to work. I'm not sure I can get the beam up the way I want to/need to. Bummer.

Knockin' down another wall

We took down the wall between the kitchen and the living room on the second floor. "We" as in Leah and I. That Leah - what would I do without her? I think I can get her a sledge hammer for her birthday and she would be thrilled. She'd be running around Philadelphia looking for walls to knock down.
It was a very successful day. As usual, I had visions of being completely finished today. Perhaps someday I will learn that enthusiasm for a project does not necessarily correlate with the space time continuum - as in, the more enthusiasm for a job one has, the faster the job will go. In fact it seems to be just the opposite. Does this make sense? Or am I just that pooped out that it only is perfectly clear to my little brain?

This is the before wall from the living room view:This is the before view from the kitchen:
And here is the first wall taken down: (which we did in 2hours. :)
I did have a little moment of panic towards the end of this. I'm not sure what the construction guys were doing, but at the bottom of the wall was about five inches of plaster piled up. It was quite a job getting that loose - I tell ya! But we did it. My panic was over whether or not the floor really does extend all the way through to the kitchen, and whether this was might actually have been a support wall. But it's not, the floor is perfect underneath the wall where the plaster was. Yippee!!! Can't wait to get the HIDEOUS linoleum up.
The inspector had to take a look at our handy work:
We cleaned up, had lunch, then attacked the second wall.
Lookit! Leah with a sledgehammer! We did a much better job taking this wall down than I did taking down the one downstairs. Talk about learning on the job!
It was so exciting to see daylight through the lath! It was a preview to keep us going. And look now:
Look how you can see the orange hallway all the way from the living room! Won't it look spectacular next to my blue wall? And the sunlight comes in the kitchen windows now and lights up the entire living room in the afternoon. I could type a million happy-faces here now, but I shall refrain. Needless to say I'm pretty excited about this.
We only had one oops. And I'm not sure I can explain it. Bottom line is we (that is I) took off too much drywall on the side where we wanted to keep it. It happened when I tried to cut the lath with a reciprocating saw. It vibrated against the boards and they popped the wall off. So I may have to replace the whole thing with dry wall. And it may even be a blessing in disguise because I may have to put a beam in the wall - not sure yet.
Well, now what? I decided to keep the top three feet of the wall to put book shelves on. This is a wise choice for me, since I currently have about 75 boxes (not exaggerating) of books in storage that have to go somewhere. However, - oh, just by the way, for those of you wondering - I know that this wall can be knocked down. Way back in July when I moved in a structural engineer came out and told me which walls can be knocked down and which ones can't. This one can. So all of you who've been panicking that I could have killed myself, or knocked my house down - it's all good. I also made sure there were no wires in the wall etc. Back to "However", now, I plan to anchor the book shelves to the studs. But the studs are just attached to the ceiling joists so they need some support if I'm going to put some weight on them. SO - we cleaned a bit - I put some makeup on and off we went to Home Depot to see what we could see.
Home Depot was empty - because the Eagles were playing the Giants (apparently the Eagles won?). And we started worrying that all of the guys who would know how to help me were at home watching the game. But we were in luck. After standing around and thinking for a good 10 minutes Al showed up. I know what I'm doing now! :) I'm going to take two 2x8s and use that as the support bean (turning them sideways so that the 8in side is vertical. They can be set into joist brackets. These are some heavy duty brackets that would just hold the beam. I'm so glad I asked. Meanwhile Leah got on her phone and talked with her dad who suggested asking what Jeff would charge just to put up the beam since we had done all the demolition. This, I think, is an excellent idea. I know what his first question is going to be though, why weren't you out getting tile??? Well I tried yesterday - I'm talking to that lady again on Tuesday and Uncle Ralph hasn't called me back yet. When I called this afternoon he didn't answer. Probably watching football. So we'll see.
Now - why am I pulling this wall down now, when I'm in the middle of six other projects? Because I've been paying for a storage space for a year and a half, and I'm done with that. But before I can move that stuff in here, the floors in the living room and kitchen need to be sanded. And since I've been kicked out of my bedroom anyway - I figure, why not just be ready for Henry Sanding Floor the minute Jeff & C0 are finished, so that I can move back into a practically brand new second floor? Makes sense in my head.

Sweater Finished!

There it is! My sweater is finished. And boy did I just barely squeeze it out of all that yarn I brought back from Germany. I didn't even have enough for the last seam. I had to use a different yarn, but it's mostly invisible.
I just have to block it again and then I think its ready for wearin'.