Stand-up Desk

As befits a guy of a certain age, my back has been bothering me.  It happens more in the winter when I spend more time sitting on me butt looking at a screen (except in the summer, when I irritate it doing manual labor). I've long been aware of the health hazards of spending too much time sitting down and had been ideating on a standing work area for digital photography.
One of my favorite internet sites is The Online Photographer edited by Mike Johnston. Mike J. is a knowledgeable and entertaining writer on photography both digital and analog. He also will write on other subjects, many of which I also am interested in. One such "off-topic" post was a very useful article on stand-up desks where he outlined the ergonomic and sizing guidelines.
The area allocated to my digital darkroom is cozy- about 7x10ft. The wall opposite the printer was the obvious location for the new desk. The standing area had to be relatively shallow, otherwise it would feel cramped and cluttered. Over the years I learned that a good way to give the feeling of more space is to have the floors free. Luckily, I still had a pair of 12X13 steel squares that I used for the library shelves installed last Summer. There was plenty of 2X12's and 2x8's to use for the top and bottom. The bottom refers to a base support for a pair of Bisley 5 drawer cabinets. I have another pair elsewhere; they are great for storing printing paper, photos, etc.
The expenditures for this project came from shelling out for a new desktop computer. I had been using a Viao laptop  for digital photography  and  to run a Squeezebox Touch. The latter is a little music server that has great audio quality both as an internet radio source (it can access internet stations not available on iTunes), uncompressed CD files and Hi-Res downloads. It can be linked to either a NAS or a computer from either WiFi or ethernet which comes in handy as it's 30 feet away from my desktop. So, a computer that can serve as both a much speedier Photoshop machine and a music source made for a reasonable purchase. My better half is also happy as she needed a more up to date Windows machine.
Here is the new standing desk.

The new arrangement allows for a 4 foot space between the printer and the opposing desk. By placing the computer at the former desk area, I was able to use the existing cables (except for one Ethernet cable for which I'll need to buy an extension).

In addition to providing a standing area to work in, the new arrangement gives a lot more desktop area than the previous location where the desktop now sits.

Hopefully, my back will improve and I'll be more productive.

Bed Alcove

      One of the many idiosyncrasies of our home is that for the past 10 years or so, we've effectively had a very large one bedroom house. One of the things we like about our house is the ability to easily accomodate overnight guests as our TV room has it's own exterior entry, bathroom and storage. But our TV room sofabed is comfortable only for a few nights which makes my mom's extended stays with us a problem. Further, mom likes to watch TV past our bedtime.
      Part of the solution was to dedicate our bedroom as her pied a terre. Having a place to keep clothing, shoes, etc simplifies travel. A place for her photos, etc helps her feel at home. We'll eventually have a sewing machine in the room.
      The upstair area was the best area for an additional sleeping place. There is an alcove area by the gallery wall area where the bed could readily fit.

Geri's work table would take the place of the daybed in her office. That daybed now serves as the platform for my mom's mattress.
Now the upstairs was used by past owners as a master suite; we wanted to think of it as a studio/crafts area. The problem was how to keep that use while adding a bed. Also was the need for privacy while avoiding window treatments. The solution came while looking for storage solutions for Geri's office (subject matter for future post). We saw some leaded/stained glass panels at Bloomsbury, a Portland architectural salvage store, that had the frames in good condition and at a very reasonable price. I bought the vertical beams from Barnwood Natural here in Salem and the rest were from my stock of materials.

      The new space feels cozy without being claustrophobic. It's a very comfortable place to read. It also provides the needed privacy. The gallery area had turned out to be the most commented on part of our Houzz tour and I was concerned that the change could adversely affect that part of the room. The partition actually improves it as it serves as a framing device.

     The room still has an open feel to it and from most locations looks like a crafts area.

 

 

December 2012

EKG Bookshelf

The big summer project was finished- sorta. We did finish painting the front and back of the house, and replaced some rotted siding that was a consequence of the suboptimal previous roof structure. Some portions of the exterior still need a new coat of paint, but after mid October it's past the time for exterior painting in Oregon. Also, it's a good excuse to do something that's- to be direct- a lot more fun.  The library still could use more bookshelves. The ledge under the transom windows was easily modified to serve as another shelf area along with serving as an anchor for another ladder rail. The ladder is sufficiently light to move to the opposite wall when necessary
I had seen a metal EKG shaped bookshelf in a book and then seen it again somewhere on-line. None available for purchase, however. So something along those lines at the top shelf for the back wall would be a nice variation from the lower bookshelves.
As I began to sketch it out, the focus drifted from a nice little shelf made of wood rather than metal to an accurately scaled representation (hard to compartmentalize OCD). What I wound up with was way too big- it's about 12 ft long- for the space originally intended. Luckily for me, 1) the dimensions were just right for the area above the clerestory window and 2) I have a wife who humors me.

I shared her concern, though, that I was risking cluttering up the room and offered to put the shelf up in my shop; she kindly declined that option. We both like the spareness of the room as shown in the previous post. At the same time, the books were all crammed together; now, there's more breathing room on the shelves (and another one is on the way). It's also good to have another area where the ladder is needed.

Pile o' Books and the Houzz Photographer

      
      The walls and trim were done and the scaffolding and floor coverings removed. The bookshelves are in place. We're ready to bring the furniture back thought my wife.  Not quite, I reminded her- we need to organize our books. Geri grumbled as I reminded her of my notion to gather all of our books in the living room and then organize them. It had been an image that had been a motivation during this project, as the haphazard organization of our books and the clutter of Geri's office and upstairs closet had been a source of irritation to both of us. Admittedly more to me than her. She did not see the need to have the cookbooks from the kitchen area and many of the books from her office in the central pile as those books were likely to stay in their present location. Fair enough, my response; but Geri's office was overstuffed, so the compromise was for her to decide what books she did not have to have in her office and to keep weaning to the new bookshelves until her office was not quite so stuffed. The same applied to her bookshelves upstairs.
       As the books started to pile up in the music/library room, it became clear that we were going to have to keep many of our books in other locations.

    
     Once we had the books we needed to organize in one place, the next step was to categorize them. The Dewey decimal system is way beyond our organizational needs, so the next step was
photo books, art books, my fiction/nonfiction and Geri's fiction/nonfiction.  The photo may not look all that different, but the shifting around took a few hours.

      As we realized this was going to take way more time than we had allotted, we decided to simplify the process by deciding what was going up on the nosebleed shelf- those books that we did not look at much but could not bring ourselves to part with- 1988 histopathology paperback anyone? Then the photo and art books would go up on the longest and most reachable shelf.  After that were our architecture/shelter/gardening books on the next highest shelf along with books Geri would need access to intermittently.  I put my fiction/nonfiction in our tv room. We designated an area in the bookcases for books we had not read yet, and for our few older/heirloom books (all from Geri's family). We used a deep bookshelf next to our dining table for oversize/overweight books. Upstairs were my medicine reference books, Photoshop manuals (one of these days I'll be able to utilize more than 10% of that program's tools) and more of Geri's books. At the risk of being a master of the obvious- Geri has a lot of books. It made me think of how much more well read I would be if I didn't watch so many basketball games.
      A couple of days later, Geri was showing a friend our progress. Said friend "innocently" asked- how are you going to reach that book?- pointing to one of the books in the nosebleed section. Which brings us to building the ladder. I had lolly-lagged on ordering the necessary hardware as I had been told by Rockler's staff that it could be picked up at the store within a few days of ordering. When I did place the order, the interval was more like 10 days. Ouch, but okay as I was under the impression that Houzz's photographer was coming on Labor day wknd.
A slight inconvenience turned into catecholamine excess when an email from the Houzz staffer confirming her arrival a Sunday before I was expecting her. No ladder, no exterior paint- not at all ready for our closeup. Luckily for us, she very graciously changed her schedule to allow us more time. I'm not the most pleasant individual under these circumstances which caused the wife to ask- why on earth did I tell Houzz about our project. Well, nothing like having a major internet shelter site come take a look at our little ranch house as motivation for competently completing a project- eh?
Back to the task at hand. Nine foot ladder hardware was backordered from Rockler. Not a show stopper as I could work around that as the hardware for an 8ft ladder was in stock; other than that the rest of the hardware was in. I happily went to the store to pick up my hardware. At the store, I find out that only a 6ft length of the rod the ladder slides on had arrived. I had ordered a 12ft length. The staffer much to her credit admitted it was her bad. Luckily, there was the display hardware I could use. They were nice enough to dismantle it and give me a good discount as a demo item. The ladder was easy to make and we were able to paint the front of the house prior to the photographer's arrival. Here is Annie supervising Geri

The change in schedule also gave us a chance to tidy up the inside and outside (including a pickup truck's worth of construction debris to the waste site) for the photographer. We enjoyed her stay with us; it was a good way to end this chapter. At this point it's fun to see the 1994 version of this room- here is the SE view

and the NE view

Here is the 2012 SE view

and the NE view

We still have a third of the house exterior left to paint. But the interior is no longer a construction zone and as long as we're inside, we are able to have a sense of 'Entering our house justified".

Addendum- Here's a link to the article and photos on Houzz.
http://www.houzz.com/ideabooks/4567630/list/My-Houzz--Old-World-European-Flair-in-Oregon

Addendum 2- here is a closer view of the ladder

Paella

        First off, the inside and just about all of the exterior work is done. Which after call weekend is why I'm doing this instead of working on the project.  Prior to the start of the project we had been visiting with Ger's family where this project and a family member's paella prowess had been among the many topics. Folks were curious about the project and I was way curious about a family member who liked to do paella. So working around summer vacations, etc we arrived at mid August as a good time. Silly us, we thought we would be done by then based on our contractor's estimate and my estimate of time needed to do our part. Of course, we were way off.  We anticipated this probability and were not concerned as the attending members are flexible- worst thing that could happen is being made fun of for being behind schedule.
       Well, the drywall was up for the most part and most of the scaffolding was no longer needed. Since the room being remodeled was empty except for scaffolding and ladders, it was easy to get our two long tables in there and the chairs from the rest of the house gathered.

As I saw Edgar preparing the paella, it was clear that he was not overstating his expertise. He had very capable assistants as well

The other guys after doing the as predicted "slacker-you're not done yet" routine, helped me put up the first bookshelf. At that point, I was getting irritated at myself for working instead of being part of the fun, so I called it Miller-time ( or the wine equivalent ).
Besides, the other bookshelves had been adapted for food prep areas and guest seating.

Great meal, great company and a needed break.

Then back to work as a scary deadline approached- a visit from a Houzz photographer.

Library/Music Room Exterior Shell

It's been more than two weeks since my last entry and much has taken place. Golden Rule has 9/10ths of their job done. Even though I've done maybe 7/10ths of what I have to do and I have 2 more days before I return to work, I'm doing this- why? . I'm tired, it's 102 degrees here which is major heat for this area and the only job that is safe for me to do at this time is scraping chickenshit off of barn siding.
The last entry ended with the living room minus roof and ceiling.  One of the carpenters noted that's when Jack (our contractor) renegotiates. (kidding-).  So far, Golden Rule has been stellar. Their framing crew in particular was amazing. It turns out that the area contractors work with each other as the current economy does not allow them to have the number of employees on salary to do large jobs in short time. Robert Gates, who's the coordinator, noted that crew had easily more than a century of experience in aggregate. Robert is also a prolific photographer and contributed the photos for the exterior portion of the job.
One unforseen detail uncovered with the removal of the ceiling and roof was the lack of a load-bearing East wall. Fortunately we were able to have the engineer specify a laminated beam on short notice. Even more fortunately, Robert was able to find said beam and have it delivered within several hours.

That is the biggest piece of wood I've ever been around.

One exterior detail I signed up for as it would be too expensive for the pro's to do is to use cedar shingle for the top triangle of the addition to match the second story gable.

The roof, which was the "need" part of the project, is almost complete as well. Some of the gutters, drainage for the new design and portions of the flat roof over the carport and shop still need to be finished.
So, this is the interior of the room handed off for us to finish.

One of the tenets of this type of endeavor is that things always take longer than envisioned. Our parents came to the rescue. My 86 year old mom who was visiting from Los Angeles helped me stain/finish the new audio cabinet and bookshelves. Geri's dad has been here for the past several days to help with the barnwood siding we're using for the ceiling. The planks were purchased in "off the barn" condition. His help with going through the material to select usable boards, loading them on his truck, final clean up with alcohol ( I couldn't bring myself to ask him or my wife to scrape off crap and grime) salvaged my schedule. Today he was in charge of cutting the boards to size which allowed me to stay on the scaffolding.

I told Geri that when her dad arrived, it felt like the cavalry had arrived. Here's the room as of 8/4.