Some unexpected gifts…

After I got home last night, I had a plan. I wanted to go to Menards, get some shelving units and some fresh locks for my house, and then head to Karate.

The first part of the plan went relatively well. I called my folks to tell them that I might need help getting these shelves up, and my Mom said that they’d be over after a bit because they had to go run an errand first.

They show up somewhat later (after we had started changing the locks, which was a headache) with a truckload of furniture. It appears that my aunt found a dress shop that was closing and elected to pick us up some extra furniture since we needed it.

The furniture itself looked bad at first glance, but after we got it into the house we realized that it really wasn’t that bad. There was a sideboard that had quite a good amount of room in it, as well as a three drawer chest with a matching desk. The only visible problem with these pieces were that their top was starting to bubble a little, but everything else about them was in really good shape. They even matched the wood pretty well in the kitchen.

Then there was the loveseat. This thing looked brand new, but the upholstery on it was just about as old fashioned as you can get. I was really considering just having them take it with them (they offered to take anything we didn’t want) but after we got it into the house we realized that it was a Rowe loveseat, which is Tasha’s preferred brand of furniture. On top of that, it seemed brand new and was very comfortable. We’re going to attempt to find a slip cover that will conceal the ugliness.

Changing the locks at this place has been a real treat. We got the deadbolt on without too much trouble, however we did accidentally strip a screw that should’ve gone into the deadbolt. We elected to use it for the back door, we’re going to doctor it into functionality tonight after I get off of work. We ended up leaving the knob on the front door as it is, because the edging of the door is metal and we had no way to cut the door down to fit the plate where the knob actually does its closing. We had to leave the deadbolt part off of the back door because of the stripped screw, but we changed the knob back there.

For those of you keeping track, the front door has a new deadbolt and old knob, the back door has a new knob and old deadbolt. Quite funny, really. Well, it *was* quite funny until I started getting advice from my Dad on how to stay organized. Much of the time it is hard for him to give advice without insulting you repeatedly.

After the locks got changed, Dad wanted to see the shelving units I bought at Menards. These things were steel and particle board and they went together relatively well. After some wrestling around and at least one “tear it down and start over” moment we got both of them constructed and in a good spot in the garage.

While we were doing that, my mom and Tasha started ripping up the contact paper in the cabinets and getting them cleaned. This was step one of unpacking the kitchen, something I was really happy to get done. I think they left things off with only one or two shelves left, hopefully we will be able to start unpacking the kitchen stuff over the weekend.

I think we’re going to go in search of a sofa this weekend, now that we’re in the prime Labor Day Sale Range. American has a Rowe sofa that we really liked, I think we’re probably going to go back after that one providing they still have a good deal going.

Potential other weekend endeavors: Mapleton Karate, cleaning gutters, starting to paint.