Ok, so I took more than a week off. It’s full on cold and flu season here in Minnesota and I’ve been feeling a little under the weather. Plus, I finally had an appointment with an Endocrinologist right before Thanksgiving. She supported the first Doctor’s conclusion that my wacky thyroid was only a temporary/viral thing but ran some more tests (have I mentioned I HATE needles? This fall has been miserable) and found that in body’s attempt to fix the situation it had over compensated and now my thyroid levels are too low. So now I’m being medicated for that. Yeah, it’s been fun (and hopefully, still all temporary… I go back for still more blood work after Christmas and will hopefully be able to stop the drugs).
Now onto the house stuff! If you follow me on Facebook you may have seen me have a small IKEA breakdown a couple weeks ago.
Basically we’re putting the hallway work on hold for the winter. It’s too cold to work on the porch and I don’t relish the idea of stripping and staining inside with no ventilation. Instead we’re moving on to Matt’s study. It’s a bit of an anomaly in the house–I think the floor, the radiator, and the door are the only original elements remaining. The ceiling is the same gross acoustical tile that we had in the dining room, the walls were paneled (and possibly skim-coated?) at some point, and all the trim was replaced with boring, modern, builder-grade trim…. then painted matte-black. The closet door is also missing. Pretty much, I have no clue what in the hell happened here, but it’s not pretty.
This weekend we started moving all his crap into my study (we need to empty out the room in order to basically gut it). His study will be uninhabitable for quite some time so we’re trying to make my study functional for 2 people. We tried a few layouts for 2 desks, but ultimately liked the idea of shoving them together… the only problem was my existing desk was a smidge shorter than Matt’s. Yes, I was neurotic enough to care. Plus, we figured a quick trip to IKEA for a (cheap!) matching desk would solve the problem.
Unfortunately, this particular desk was discontinued. There were however 3 different models from the same line, and we assumed the one with the closed shelving would be the same size.
Wrong.
We got it home and it was six inches too short.
We brainstormed a few different options, including trying to hack the new base onto my old desk top, except the top was too deep. Finally we agreed to suck it up and go back to IKEA for a matching one since it’s a pretty cheap desk. Neurosis for the win!
Apologies in advance for the crap-tastic photos… this lack of daylight during the week is killing me.
Matt also hung artwork while I was taking a nap. To his credit he googled the correct height to hang artwork…. unfortunately google is wrong.
Or at least Google is wrong if you search “how tall to hang pictures.” How tall? I’m not a grammar nazi, but that just sounds wrong. I googled “how high to hang pictures” and got an answer of 60″ to 66″.
My go-to height for art work is 60″ on center. If you’re taller than average you may want to go a little higher, but I wouldn’t go lower unless everyone in your household is incredibly petite. Matt caught me glowering at the too-low artwork (my desk is the one facing them) and insisted that he is not adjusting them for two inches. Fine, I understand. Really. But someday when I’m bored, I’m sure I will re-do all of them.
Because I’ve already shown I have no qualms about embarrassing myself online… here’s what the other half of the room looks like.
Yup, this is my life. Just keepin’ it real, yo.