What is the Terminal Velocity of Dirty Socks?

We are going to have a LAUNDRY CHUTE!!   Isn't that awesome?!   Bob has reserved floor/ceiling and wall space for a chute to go from the master bath to the basement laundry room, with an opening in the first floor bathroom as well.  He spoke to our local sheet metal fabricator and ordered the actual chute itself yesterday!

{Here's a fun fact:   Bob and John SheetMetalGuy used to ride the school bus together when they were kids.  John is now in business with his father and Bob is now in business with his father.  I love small towns.}

But back to the laundry chute.  I've always wanted a laundry chute.  And a dumb-waiter.  But The Hubs says I can't have one of those.  I've also always wanted a secret passage behind a rotating bookshelf.  Hubs says I can't have that either.  Spoilsport.   But, one out of three ain't bad!  

Well, plus the whole house that he's building me.

Yeah, that.

Storage

Since there's no attic in the log house and most of the basement will be living space, we're building storage areas into the nooks and crannies. For example:

This is the extra area created behind the knee-wall in the master (upstairs) bedroom. Because we'll want to access stored stuff all along the narrow area, there will be two little doors in the side of the storage area, opening out into the bedroom, and the one door on the end, opening out onto the balcony. The Hubs also put a series of lights in so we can see everywhere without flashlights.

Now... it's up to me to pare down our schtuff so it all fits neatly in plastic tubs and won't disgrace this lovely storage area!

H'mm. I'm NOT Constructionally Useless!

What do you know?  I found a way I can contribute to the house build -- besides sweeping up the sawdust and bringing up picnic lunches...   SANDING!   Yes, that most mind-numbingly basic of tasks in the installation of drywall is within my budding construction-y skillset.  

Let's set the stage, shall we? 

The master bathroom is coming along nicely, with only one thing left to wire, and then we'll finish up the walls, do the plumbing and voy-lah:   a bathroom.  It's enough to make me squeal a little with delight!  

Here's the west end of the bathroom, where our tub will be:

And here's me, mid-sanding!

Sexeh!

And here's the photographic genius of The Girl (the artist formerly known as BabyM):

And a demonstration of my drywall sanding prowess:

Sanding GENIUS!  I know.   I may abandon librarianship in favor of my new-found talents. 


Speaking of libraries,  I was in the Paul Smiths College library yesterday, and was continually distracted from my research by the view over the lake!  How do students there get any work done?  And I went to a college on a gorgeous campus, so I know from beauteous academia.  The sun was shining (at last!), the temp was cold, keeping the snow crunchy, and some hardy souls were ice-fishing on St. Regis Lake.   Sometimes the Route 30 drive is downright hellish, but yesterday it was a positive delight to travel.   Plus, how can a trip bookended by Paul Smiths library and my mother-in-law's woodstove be bad?