About those new house projects for this year – the main one now outstanding is the windows, and I hope to hear from the installing company sometime next week. I have already made a down payment on the windows, and the holidays are done, and all the holiday ornaments put away, so someday soon …

The thing is that the big window in the front bedroom will be knocked out entirely and replaced with a pair of French doors. Early in this new year I want to put a short run of privacy fence with a gate in it from the corner of the garage to the gatepost to my next-door neighbor’s yard – a gatepost which was built out of the same bricks as the brick trim on my house. I can only think that there must have been half a pallet of bricks left over from by house, and the original owner of my neighbors’ place had the builders use them for ornamental gateposts to their house. This would enclose a small private patio, opening from the front bedroom, which would about double the living space in the front bedroom – that is, when the weather is temperate. (Which it is, for seven or eight months in a year, Blue Northers notwithstanding.)

Because the window installers will be knocking out the wall underneath the existing window – well, what better time for us to take out the drywall all around that window and see about installing more bookshelves between the studs on either side and above the new French doors, as we did this last year in the hallway. This is a household of books – a great many books and a relatively small house, so efficient use of space is always appreciated. Although it’s an outside wall, the outside side is brick throughout – so, no biggie, insulation-wise. We’re interested to see how much is lacking as regarding studs on that wall, having tried to hang curtain rods over that window, and failed to find a stud at one corner to secure the curtain rod into. (We suspect there were corners cut in building this house. I have utterly failed to find any studs in the wall between my bedroom and the walk-in closet on the other side of that room. Yes, I did do a series of exploratory holes with a pin-hole sized drill, and never did find a stud … that wall is going to be another floor-to-ceiling bookshelf, eventually.).

You see, my daughter is going to give birth to a child in late May, or early June – a grandson, whose name will be James Alexander Page – Jamie, for short. Until my daughter has her real estate license and has done enough business to afford her own place for herself and Jamie, they will have to share that room, which is nice enough for a woman and baby – but the Daughter Unit has determined that she must have her own place by the time Jamie is kindergarten age. Until then, the front room and the little patio will be their space. Other families live quite happily in even smaller spaces, so we’re OK with this. We have a single bed and a nice crib already on the way. Since we’re committed to the French doors and patio, no better time to redo the whole room – cover the nasty popcorn ceiling texture with bead board and cornice molding, and the floor with a continuation of the vinyl flooring that we used last year in the hall. A project indeed. Maybe even repaint the whole room while we’re at it. Although since we’ll be working with Roman the Neighborhood Handy Guy, whose’ work schedule is erratic and subject to constant rescheduling, I suspect this project will take at least a couple of weeks.