Wednesday, August 15, 2012

back to work

Week 30. With the Seattle trip behind us, it was time to make more progress on the nursery: clearing it out and fixing it up. We went through the last of the office stuff that Sunday and determined how many more plastic boxes from The Container Store—and which sizes—we would be needing. By this point, it was mostly office supplies and other things that had once been in Steve's desk. His task for the days before I got home from Seattle was to sort through it all and make piles. Of course, I didn't think that would make a particularly exciting picture for the day, so I ended up doing a reshoot of the previous Friday's contingency picture: a thank-you note for Chrissy, with the swaddling blanket and lamb pacifier/holder that she gave us. I hadn't needed to use the one I took on Friday, since I had shots of Elsa that I liked instead. But it was Sunday that I actually wrote in the card and got it ready to send, so the picture probably worked better for that day anyway.

204/366 thank-you note


Steve did our Container Store run after work on Monday, bringing home a large bundle of boxes and prompting me to suggest dinner out so he wouldn't have to worry about buying ingredients for dinner too. Sushi sounded good to me, so we walked to Hamano in Noe Valley. It's a little odd to be eating sushi while noticeably pregnant, but I am allowed to eat it as long as it's from a trusted source. (And as long as I'm avoiding those high mercury fish.) I took a few pictures of our dinner, but I thought the shot that I took of the toy store window on the walk back was more interesting.

205/366 dragon device


With boxes on hand again, I went to work filling them up and putting them in their assigned closets on Tuesday. While I was at it, I put a pile of waiting boxes in the nursery closet—things that would belong there eventually. I knew that we'd need to clear out the closet again when the shelving hardware came, but it was nice to get everything out of the way. By the end of the afternoon, the only things left in the nursery itself were the corner bookshelf, Steve's old desk, and the last pile of stuff to go to the Salvation Army. We managed to get rid of the furniture the next weekend, I moved the Salvation Army stuff to the dining room temporarily, and then Steve did the final Salvation Army run the following weekend. No more stuff in the nursery!

206/366 scenes from a future nursery


On Wednesday night, we had tickets to see Les Miserables at the Orpheum, and we decided to eat at Zero Zero again before the show. We got some gazpacho, the arancini that we've had on several occasions, the stonefruit salad below, and a pizza with cherry tomatoes. No room for dessert this time, but I was fine with that.

The show itself ended up being rather long. (I had forgotten just how long that musical is.) The production was pretty cool, with some interesting projections, but I did miss the iconic turntable.

207/366 stonefruit salad


It was dentist time again on Thursday, so I went downtown again. After my cleaning, I stopped for a quick picture of another painted heart at Union Square—this one featuring the Bay Bridge. I had passed it and taken note on my way to the dentist building, since I didn't have other ideas for the day's shot.

208/366 baby bridge heart


Friday's picture was inspired by this image, which I saw on Flickr that morning. I liked the idea of a rainbow of heirloom tomatoes in a row, so I tried to make my own version with the heirloom cherry tomatoes that Steve had brought home the day before. Not having as full a spectrum—no real green ones—I had to improvise with the colors and sizes to make a row that was aesthetically pleasing. For a background, I used my favorite neutral setup on the dining room table, by the window. It might look familiar from pictures of the owl ornament, macarons, eggs, and even the Devil Inside from the Craftsman and Wolves trunk show. The nice thing about having our closets organized is that now all the components for this setup are in the closet next to the dining room table. No more trips to and from the office for linens and poster board.

209/366 heirlooms


Speaking of closets, our elfa closet hardware from The Container Store arrived on Saturday while we were eating our lunch. I had been following the FedEx tracking info, but I had expected it to come later in the day. Since it came so early, we were able to get it all installed that day, rather than waiting until Sunday. But first we made a trip to Lowe's to get some anchor screws, a drill bit that could cut through the steel top bar, and some joint compound and spackling paste. Once we got back home, Steve was able to drill extra holes in the top support bar for the shelving so that he could screw them into the studs, rather than just the plaster. A few spots were still a little dicey with the plaster, but Steve gets a gold star for making it work. In the end, the nursery closet got a couple deep shelves all the way across to fill in the space, and the living room closet got a more elaborate setup, as you can see below.

210/366 in the closet


And the joint compound and spackling paste we bought? Those would get used the next week.

1 comment:

  1. Sounds like it was a very productive week. BSD

    ReplyDelete