I knew there was beauty in you... The alternate title for this post was "Master Disaster, Part XXIII" because as we all know, on Garrison Road, things always get worse before they get better. Let me just start out with this picture, because we're all (Patti!) dying for pictures: This is the soon-to-be office before: 
Actually, when you look at it in a photograph it doesn't look so bad, but you can still notice some of the stains and dark spots that appeared over the last eighty years of use... 
(I'm not sure what you call the angle of this photograph, other than drunk.) Also, let me take this moment to inform you that in order to get my upstairs looking like this... in effect moving half of my house into the other half... well... 
the living room is a little crowded, and I've spent the last two nights sleeping with the dining room table... 
it also required the creative storage of certain items, such as this box spring... 
yes, that is the stairwell. Not to mention the inconvinient placement of half of my wardrobe, here... 
Just hope it's not an emergengy! Because you've got to climb in and out of the tub in order to reach the toilet. Half of this big move occured Thursday because MysteryMan and I had plans to go out to our favorite Irish bar on friday night. Let me just say this... I don't generally go out to the bar the night before I have a big project coming up, and there is a very good reason for that. You don't want to be operating this piece of equipment with a hangover. (Trust me.) 
(I would just like to state here that Xanga for some inexplicable reason decided to upload the following picture of MysteryMan hanging up the dust shield no less than twenty-seven times. WTF?) 
This isn't necessarrily the best spot in the post for this picure, but I felt like since it was so important to the gremins running xanga, that I should at least show it to you. Got it? Good. Let's move on. Anyway, I spent most of last week debating the merits of orbital versus drum sanders and what would be best for this project. The man at the tool rental place sent me home with the less agressive orbital sander (not pictured) which, let me just say, is a piece of fucking shit. Not only did it bounce me around the room like a rag doll, it would have taken me 20 years to get the room sanded at the rate that thing was going with 20 grit sandpaper. NOT COOL. This is where our streak of bad luck started. I took the damn thing back and came away with what I should have had in the first place. A nice agressive piece of machinery. We got it home, MysteryMan lugged the thing upstairs, and then decided it would be easier to move the spare bed up instead of down, which somehow resulted in a broken attic hatch. Not only did we have to sand down the hallway, we had to contend with this: 
Then we plugged the sander in. And blew the upstairs fuse. Twice. So then it was back to the rental place again, to get a powerful enough extension cord to handle this thing, which had to be plugged into one of the larger (breakers?) whatever they're called... electricity isn't my strong suit, I'm afraid to change lightbulbs for chrissake. Just, lets all thank the fates for MysteryMan, who showed me that laundry shoots can serve more than one purpose: 
By this time it was noon, and we were 4 hours behind schedule. But the first pass over that floor with the drum sander made it all worth it. See the difference? 
So I spent at lot of my hangover day like this: 
Mmmmm, can't you just feel that dust cloging your lungs? MysteryMan, on the other hand, spent a lot of his day like this:  Technically he's supposed to be using that thing on the edges, but he was touching up a spot I missed. Or just trying to moon me because he knew I was taking a picture of him. After a pass of sanding, the soon-to-be office is looking much refreshed: 
The bedroom needed to pass the inspection of the two project superintendents, as usual, before we were ready to call it a night: 
We passed out around 9pm without repeating the mistakes of the night before, and Sunday began the best way possible... with MysteryMan cleaning up after me: 
And really ladies, is there anything that makes your heart go pitty-pat more than a man with a sweeper? (Unless it's a man with a sweeper and facial hair, at which point I melt into a big gooey puddle. Just look at him... sigh.) Okay, back to work. Which, for six hours Sunday, mostly looked like this: 
Now, it was tempting just to paint a clear coat on over that beautiful, beautiful wood. But I have always made a point to stay true to the feel of the house... with its dark trim and doors, I felt the walnut stain was the most fitting. And ohhhh boy, look at how it makes the grain of the wood pop. 
It's almost as pretty as MysteryMan. Suffice it to say, by Sunday night, we were all a little whooped. Especially the project managers... all that supervising is hard work! 
As for MysteryMan and I... we were sitting in a house with all the windows open in 50 degree weather, and thought the best way to make due was a fire... and you know what that means... 
MmmmmMmmmm. The whole of the upstairs did get stained, but even 24 hours later it is still a little tacky. I've decided to take a half-day tomorrow and get the polueurathane coat done... Boy it feels good to get my hands on some tools again! | 
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