Category Archives: VA

TA-DA!

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Jack created our new downstairs bedroom pretty much from scratch. This is what it looked like before he started.

IMG_3508 With two rooms downstairs, he finished the big one for me as an office and yarn storage space. (There’s a blog called “His Square, White Heart” that describes that room, back a few months ago.) But then he began casting his eye on the second space….

How it was at the beginning.

How it was at the beginning.

Well, okay, so maybe I said something like, “What will we do with that smaller room at the back?” Anyway, the point is, he decided it would make a good bedroom. And it does. You can see how smart Jack was about finding all the crevices and getting the most storage space possible. For a hanging closet, we bought an old cedar wardrobe from our friends at Vintage on Main (a secondhand store a couple blocks up). The nice lady who worked there surprised me by putting in a couple of dresses she thought I’d like as a bonus!

So… behold Jack’s handiwork! (He and Bert decided to model for us.)

We used the high shelf behind the bed for shoes and winter blanket storage.

We used the high shelf behind the bed for shoes and winter blanket storage.

In a fit of what we modestly think of as genius, I realized all my wicker baskets that had stored yarn would be useful downstairs in the various crevices. We didn't have to spend money on new ways to store things!

In a fit of what we modestly think of as genius, I realized all my wicker baskets that had stored yarn would be useful downstairs in the various crevices. We didn’t have to spend money on new ways to store things! (You can see the original brick at the back of that chest storage area.)

bedroom 4

We bought those burlap-esque white containers, but we had all the wicker laundry baskets. Those hold our clothes and the white bits serve as the “I don’t have to justify why it’s here” junk pockets. I think this set of shelves was Jack’s greatest stroke of brilliance. The basement walls sloped heavily, with a kind of cement wattle at the bottom and brick at the top. The white wall shows how far in the wattle sloped, but Jack reclaimed the space at the top by installing this shelf.

So the Bookstore goes on above us, and Jack and I have a little hideaway where we can read and relax. Jack still has his office and studio for recording his radio programs on the second floor, and I have my writing retreat downstairs. Soon the SECOND STORY CAFE will open in our former living room, and our second story storage space will turn into a proper functioning kitchen. Life is good!

The little standing lamp next to the bed is one of the finds from Vintage on Main. It really works with the limited space because it overhands my one-foot-square bedside table and leaves me room to pile on BOOKS. (And the occasional kitten)

The little standing lamp next to the bed is one of the finds from Vintage on Main. It works well with the limited space because it overhangs my one-foot-square bedside table and leaves me room to pile on BOOKS (and the occasional kitten).

Angelic Bookstore Owners

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Bookstore owners are the sweetest, smartest people in the world. Trust me on this. ;]

Jack and I had a really busy month in July, with a sick foster cat (TEAM HAZEL FOR THE WIN) and a final push on finishing our basement so we could get moved in and turn upstairs into the SECOND STORY EATERY.  Jack was just back from leading his annual Scottish tour (next year now booking) and he was the wee bit under the weather. Yuppie stress in the grand scheme of the world, but it induced an aversion to doing anything besides sitting quietly on a Friday evening, staring at the wallpaper.

But Angelic Towe, owner of MariaJoseph Books in Wallach House, downtown Eureka, Missouri, had asked us ages ago to come do a book event in her bookstore. The store she started after reading my book. (Does this make me legally culpable?)

And poor Angelic, the week before we were to sojourn at her lakeside house for the event plus an extra day of swimming and sunning, was descended upon by family members under some surprise stress. En masse. Her bedrooms filled, her fridge emptied, and her Mom heart expanded.

We said, “Let’s just reschedule.” She took it bravely, but it slipped out that she’d “done some publicity.” So we said “OK, let’s get ‘er done.”

And when we arrived last night to the hotel she’d booked for us–gorgeous and with a SWIMMING POOL–in the midst of her own stress, she’d left us a chocolate bar and a gift card to a local restaurant. When we went to the first gig she’d arranged, we saw the “publicity”: elegant postcards in lovely color tones with antique script, touting the event at Angelic’s store.

Plus, her kids helped make cookies for today.

On the way home from Angelic’s, we will make a swift detour through Granite City, IL to BSR Used Books. Owner Bruce Campbell coined the phrase TEAM HAZEL FOR THE WIN while keeping up with the saga of our elderly, sick foster cat. He’s been one of her staunchest supporters in her new life in North Carolina (complete with her own Facebook page, as befits a celebricat). We look forward to meeting him.

And we will be stopping off in Indiana as well, but that’s a surprise we’ll keep for a later blog. Suffice it to say we’re meeting some (more) very cool people for a very fun reason.

Yes, ladies and gentlemen, it behooves us all to make friends with independent bookstore owners: sweet, cool, smart people. They care about cats, and they make cookies.

In fact, I’m pretty sure it is independent bookstore owners and school teachers who form the safety net enclosing the world, keeping it from flying apart.