Our little sweat pea, Hailey, developed a limp that wasn't going away. We took her to a different vet who gave us news we never ever ever ever ever imagined: bone cancer. Holy crap indeed, right? Within a week we went from diagnosis to drastic decision to amputate. It was pretty well our only option if we wanted her to live, and we do because she's a very spritely, happy, and strongly healthy-in-every-other-way goofball of only 11.5 years young. I don't think I've ever cried so much in my life, nor been so stressed, worried, freaked out, upset, and everything in between.
She came home from surgery last night so now we begin the road to recovery. We don't know what the future holds but we hope it is fun-filled, smiley, healthy, long lived and pain-free for her.
So, that's where I've been. I haven't gotten much work done around the house for obvious reasons. Or anything else done, for that matter.
Though I did get all the shelves up in the pantry which likely seems an odd thing to do. I moved a bunch of stuff into the dining room while I was working on it prior to horrible vet visit day so that room filled up fast with crap everywhere. When we came to our surgery decision, Mike thought we might move our bed into the dining room so Hailey wouldn't have to go upstairs for bedtime. The drive to get the shelves up and done was supremely pressing.
Here are some horrifically embarrassing photos of what the strange little room looked like. Oy goodness, I'm so embarrassed at how awful it was. It was essentially a dumping ground. Obviously. I can't believe I'm showing you these photos.
Even though this flip was a gut rehab, none of the walls nor floors are level, straight, or true. Am I shocked? No. These guys were hacks, we keep finding. Does that make it complicated to get shelves up all level and nice, placed where I laid them out in my drawings? Yep. I gained another new BFF: string. While it's maybe not the most ideal, it made the job much easier and faster. With gravity and a level, I zipped through putting them up.
I also used wall anchors like these because they were speedier than drilling and banging a bunch of the plug type into the wall. While the plastic ones would twist, mangle themselves, or the tips would break off, and I found pre-drilling a hole was still necessary, they grip in the wall really nicely, better than the little plugs. Plus if you screw up, you can get these back out way way easier.
Measuring and marking where the bottom shelf would go height-wise up from the floor in one spot, then measuring where each support bracket would go across the wall, I then hung plumb strings so all the brackets would line up vertically. Yay gravity! If I made measurement marks in several places then tried to match the marks with each other, nothing lined up correctly or was level. It was almost crazy how off things were for brand new everything. I then stretched a string horizontally, got it as close to level as I could then went in with the brackets. Yay little level tool!
So I got all the shelves up and that felt really good, even if we opted not to move the bed down. (We opted instead to disassemble the couch cushions and camp, surrounding our cutie pie.) And I just realized I don't have a photo of the finished shelves. Doh. Ok. I'll post that asap, promise.
Next solution in the hopper: pantry floor. I saw some vinyl tiles I actually liked at Lowes but eh, I feel like I could do better. The pantry is part of an extension that was put on the house at some point and I think under the floor, it's open to the ground below with several feet between and with no sort of insulating matter. I was thinking of some self-leveling concrete, make it a concrete-like floor but I need to do some research on that.
I'll likely be pretty sporadic with my posts for a bit. I hope you'll be patient with me and keep reading along. Once things return to a more normal state with our tripedal, I'll be back more often. Thanks!
(Click here to see the shelves up!)
(Click here to see the shelves up!)
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