Chronicling the cleanup and restoration of our house and property in northern Michigan

Chronicling the cleanup and restoration of our house and property in northern Michigan
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Monday, April 18, 2011

Organization? Oh, yeah...we've got that.


Finally, another trip to Shangri La.  It seems the closer we get to the move the more impatient I become for visits.  This trip was prompted by Shelly's birthday, which prompted the need for a new drivers license for her and new plates for our cars and trailers.  This close to being up there full time, we decided to move everything over to the Michigan address.  We also decided that this would be a good trip for hauling the camper up.  There's just no time for camping right now, and we have a ton of room up north for storage.

I thought about titling this installment "Blown Away!" or "Was that a cow?!"  About half way up the wind kicked in, and didn't let up for the remainder of the drive.  Towing a rolling billboard in 30 mph winds, with gusts up to 45 mph, makes for a white knuckle ride that I'd just as soon never repeat.  There were a few times that, had I not corrected, I'm pretty sure I would have lost it.  Scary stuff!  

In addition to the stop at the Secretary of State for the plates we made two other stops.  One at a Lowes in Findlay to pick up a closet organizer, and one for dinner at the Know Good bar in Atlanta.  After a drive like the one we were negotiating, the recuperative powers of  pizza and beer cannot be minimized.  Ham, pineapple and green olive pizza...mmmmm.  I don't think the waitress's tastes ran to the exotic.  She actually looked like she threw up in her mouth a little when we ordered.  :)

We had a few things we planned to tackle this trip, with the primary project being the painting of the master bedroom closet and the installation of a closet organizer.  Shelly tackled the painting, and we ganged up on the closet organizer.

Closet with the original wood shelving

Freshly painted, and organizer installed
Close up of the organizer


The wood shelving we pulled out of the closet found a new home out on the back porch.  We will eventually be finishing the porch, but for now this will give us some of the storage and organization we so badly need.



The obligatory "before" picture of the back porch, where the shelving from the closet will be going.


The old closet shelves in place on the back porch.

Some other odds and ends we managed to get done were to re-winterize the camper; replacing the not-so-good pots, pans and cutlery with the good stuff from the camper; re-securing some loose/hanging soffit that would have been letting in bugs when the weather warms; added some screen on the camper to the exterior access doors for the water heater and fridge to keep the bees/wasps from setting up shop.  

The weather wasn't overly conducive to outdoor projects, with the wind whipping for most of the weekend the same or more than what we drove through on the way up.  At one point I got a bit stir crazy, so Shelly humored me and took me out for a walk in the rain.  







Here are a few shots of the camper in her new parking spot.  She'll sit here until after the move, until probably September when we will again have time for a bit of camping.  The first shot is from Saturday, just after re-winterizing.  The second was taken on Sunday morning and ...well, this is near immediate justification for the winterizing done on Saturday.  




Thanks for visiting.  Until next time!  :)

4 comments:

  1. I missed my stories...Thanx

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  2. You're very welcome. After July they'll be far more frequent. :D

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  3. The closet looks great! We are in dire need of doing more projects around here, that is for sure. Hope it warms up soon, though. Looking forward to being able to throw open these windows! :)

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  4. Thanks! We're happy with how it turned out. The organizer is just the basic unit with a couple of drawers added. Now that the "base" is in we'll be adding some things to customize for what we need. :)

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