Well past the point of no return: Arrival

A while back, I wrote about being at the point of no return with a project at the cottage. This weekend we got to where we were going with that work and, let me tell you, arriving at the planned destination is pretty sweet. 

We arrived there after a lot of sweat and toil (mostly very enjoyable), at least one detour (what a waste of time) and not a few swear words (par for the course), but we arrived. 

The painting went smoothly -- one coat of primer, two of the pretty pale green Val had chosen. In fact, it was such a simple job that I ended up doing the final coat. That is unheard of in our partnership, as I am not the perfect painter that Val is and I don't really enjoy the work. But, last weekend, time was moving along and the grass needed cutting, too, and so we divided and conquered. The lesson? Suck it up and just do it. Listen to the radio while rolling on the paint, and it might even be pleasant. 

Next up was the installation of the carpet. It had been suggested that carpet tiles would be an easy way to go, instead of fighting with a large unwieldy roll. Several trips back and forth to the carpet store later, that turned out to be not true in our situation: Not only was the plywood floor base not in great shape, the walls of the room are not entirely square, so laying down the tiles would have been challenging. The saleswoman had been breezy about installation, but our guy at the cottage said unequivocally, "Take 'em back. They're too thin, too hard to lay down. Get a remnant instead." Which we ended up doing, finding the near-perfect piece in almost exactly the right size (off by one inch along one side, which would be covered by the trim our guy, Frank, would put in: Yay!) It's commercial grade, in grey, exactly what we had envisioned. The lesson? Easy isn't always so, and luck plays a big role in a many a project. 

Carpet down, the room suddenly looked like somewhere a person might actually want to spend the night. 

Picture A

Next up: assembling the bed. You're likely familiar with putting together IKEA furniture, so I'll spare you the details (and swear words). Suffice to say that I followed the picture instructions exactly and needed rescuing by Val only once, at the end, when I could not figure out the penultimate step which required the two crucial parts to be joined. She suggested standing the one piece on its end and inserting the other with the aid of gravity. "But the instructions don't say to do that!", I wailed. She shrugged. We did it her way. And it worked. The bed went from picture A to picture B. The lesson? Step outside the (flat-pack) box (instructions) sometimes, because your partner is sometimes (ok, quite often, actually) right. 

Picture B

It all came together smoothly thereafter. Frank brought over the pine "armoire" he had built to replace the open (always dusty) shelving unit at the foot of the bed. Mitch, the arborist, arrived in the nick of time to help unload it and carry it in. There's that luck at play again: What took the two guys mere minutes to bring from the truck into the bedroom would have taken several times longer if I had had to be one of the sherpas! Val then varathaned it, we moved in the old chest of drawers and -- voila, a room fit for a guest. 

We spent the rest of Sunday admiring our work, testing the bed for strength and security, and feeling smugly satisfied with our efforts. The lesson? Sometimes, the destination is, actually, the point.  

Clifftop Cottage guest room