The Office Remodel

An old house like ours is like the Ship of Theseus. If you replace all the pieces of it, little by little, is it still the same house?

This is from Wikipedia: 

It is supposed that the famous ship sailed by the hero Theseus in a great battle was kept in a harbor as a museum piece, and as the years went by some of the wooden parts began to rot and were replaced by new ones; then, after a century or so, every part had been replaced. The question then is whether the "restored" ship is still the same object as the original.

The most recent parts of this ship to be changed were the downstairs bathroom and office. The bathroom was the more extensive remodel, but that update will come later. Most of the work was finished weeks ago, but an entirely different company was doing the counter and sinks, and we had to wait an extra two weeks on them.

Then the carpenter crew came back to put in the last bits of wainscoting, only to find that those pieces had accidentally been thrown away when they did the final cleanup. So now we keep waiting. Is it a new bathroom if 97% of it is new, but two 6-inch sections of bare wall still have carpenter-pencil scribbling and sploshes of paint?

This house is laid out like a 4-square game. The northeast square is off the living room and served as the master bedroom back when Vernon and Elsie Knox lived here, and what is now our bedroom was the nursery for each new little Knox Brother. We use the northeast room as our office. Over the last 20 years it has served as a slow, giant vacuum cleaner for papers, books, office supplies, and random cords that we will need a week later if we ever throw them out.

I don't have "before" pictures of the office, because it wasn't a room I was proud of.

Emptying out this accumulation was a huge but necessary job, and it rendered the living room unusable for a few weeks.

This is getting ahead of the story, but in the process of moving back in, we got rid of boxes full of books and hundreds of old files and accumulated papers. We found missions committee notes from years ago, zillions of warehouse papers, and even Paul's research paper from high school.

I had plenty of papers of my own filed away. Honestly, why did I keep some of this stuff? Did I really think I would use this craft idea I tore out of a magazine? Appliqued bunnies! And that child's expression--Jenny said that's how she feels when I make her pose with things I make.

But we didn't toss many cords, unfortunately. I didn't have the nerve.

It really is refreshing to get rid of accumulated papers.

I had torn up the carpet last year, exposing the old wood floor, but we couldn’t complete the job until the built-in bookshelves were out. 

If you knew how big these projects would turn out to be, you’d never start.

We wanted to make the floor look like the bedroom floor that Paul refinished about four years ago. Our builder guy, Kevin Baker, sanded it for us, a task that Paul would have done in his healthier days. But then Paul was able to stain and varnish the floor. If you have the skills in your head, it’s amazing how you can find ways to get them done with one arm.

In case you're interested, he used Dura Seal quick coat 2 hour penetrating finish for wood floors 110 Neutral stain and DuraSeal polyurethane for wood floors.

Meanwhile, Paul did warehouse paperwork on the little
table where my grandpa did his farm paperwork
a hundred years ago.

 When he was finished with the first coat of polyurethane, a section by the door looked flat and dull, while the rest of the room looked shiny. 

Paul redid it, with the same result. He couldn’t figure out what he was doing wrong. Did he get a bit of water mixed in from a washed-out brush? Did he fail to stir enough? We still don’t know.

Finally, he bought a new can of varnish and a new brush, and this time it worked.

We painted like crazy.

That basket contains the internet router and stuff, which had to remain usable while the remodel happened.

Yes, I let Paul get back on a ladder.

The carpenters put up wainscoting on the walls, restoring it to our best guess of what it looked like long ago.

The bookcases got wrestled back into place.

We were deliberate and intentional about what went back in.

I set up my new computer that Paul got me for Christmas.
My family has figured out this is the best way to drag me
into the 21st century. My old desktop was 11 years old.

We love how it looks. Sometimes you just have to plunge in so you’re forced to finish the task.