Finally a place for some of our clothes

For nearly two years we have been living out of two portable closets loaned to us by some friends. We have finally started to put together one closet so our clothes will have a permanent place to reside. Chris designed the simple but functional system with a simple rack to hang our pants on and shelves for those items that we can place on shelves. I need to finish the remaining shelves with poles for hanging shirts, dresses and other items. So here is the pant rack and current shelves:

It is amazing how much delight little accomplishments can bring, but they do!

What do you do with a hole in the middle of the room?

When we had the new heating/cooling system put in last summer Botts and Tye (the company that did the work) also cut a new cold air return in the floor. The old return was then removed leaving a 24" x 25.5" hole in the middle of the floor between the drawing room and the dinning room (I don't have any pictures of the hole). The question then was what to do with an opening into the basement. We came up with several ideas such as:
1- use it as a trap door
2- put in a dumb waiter
3- cover it with plexiglass and then claim that it was where the money in the house was hidden (which by the way there was no money hidden in the house)
4- build a large fish aquarium in the basement underneath the hole, fill the aquarium with water and fish of course, and then cover the hole with plexiglass so that we could watch the fish from upstairs. (My favorite choice)
But logic prevailed so we decided to plug the hole by replacing it with some sort of floor design. We also wanted to use the old ceiling grate somehow.
(This is a picture of the opening with a new subfloor in place.)

This is the design that Chris came up with and so now the hole is no more.

Now we need to finish the floors in the two rooms.

Progress on the bookcase

I thought that I would post a new set of pictures regarding the progress on the bookcase. We are getting there but not done yet. There is some trimwork that needs to take place, namely the crown molding and some other trimwork. I like lions so Chris made a lion's head for the center header of the bookcase. Around the Lion are olive branches. I'm glad that Chris is so talented, you can't find this stuff at Lowes or Home Depot. So for Camille and the others here are the pictures:

(PS: You need to look past the stuff piled on the floor and the computer hutch.) 

Update on the Library

Our daughter Camille called today and asked why I haven't posted any pictures lately. So I promised that I would post some pictures of the bookcase even though it isn't finished yet. So here they are:

Left                                                                                                     Right

Center of the bookcases

We have 11 foot ceilings just for perspective!

Update

It has been some time since I last posted to my blog.  We are still moving forward in the house, but with minor delays such as getting the car repaired from the accident with the deer; snow with temperatures in the subzero range followed by other inclement weather conditions; removing cast iron pipes in the upstairs bathroom due to a leak in the pipes (Tip for the day: before opening the main water supply-line valve in the house you should make sure that the disconnected supply-line shutoff valve to the upstairs toilet is closed otherwise you get to repair portions of the upstairs bathroom floor and the first floor ceiling); traveling to Georgia to rent out our house there; etc.  All of these have slowed down the restoration process but I should have pictures of our progress in a few weeks, barring any other problems.  As for today, it is snowing again.  I am sure grateful for "Global Warming", without it we would be experiencing the "Ice Age" again.