Mostly Worth The Lack Of Sleep

You may remember that a while back I mentioned that I had ordered a new desk, one meant to eventually become my daughter's homework desk. Well, it arrived some time last week, but unfortunately the perils of shipping had caught up with me (I order so much freaking stuff online it really isn't a wonder), and when I opened up the box and started pulling out the pieces to make sure they were all there and intact, well...yeah, not so much.

Everything was there, certainly. The problem was the top of the desk, the big huge massive piece that everything else attaches to. It was cracked in multiple places, including one very large line right down the middle. Sigh. Thankfully the company that made the desk gets that damage does occur during shipping and has a really efficient (and free) parts replacement department. So I went online to tell them I needed a new top as mine arrived mangled and the next day they shipped it out. Of course, now I have a big broken plank taking up space in my garage until the start of next month, but there are worse problems, I will grant you.

The replacement piece arrived on Tuesday and I decided to put the desk together that night once my daughter had gone to bed. Normally I don't mind, and even often enjoy, when she "helps" me, but I get, um, cranky sometimes when doing things like assembling my furniture, so I figured it would be best for both of us if I did that while she wasn't around. My poor husband wasn't so fortunate. He was gracious enough to allow me to totally disrupt his evening by making him help me by holding up various pieces as I put them together (and reattaching the feet after I put them on the wrong end of the legs). Once we had the basic desk put together and upright, I let him loose and he called it a night. I stayed up for another hour and a half or so getting the various drawers and sliding bits assembled. Was up until two-thirty in the morning getting it done, but I've got to say, I am pretty happy with how it turned out.

I even managed to pick one that doesn't cover the
oversized vent on the wall, go me!

Let's see, we've got an alien from Toy Story, a Lego alien from
Toy Story, Zeke from Ctrl+Alt+Del, Lego Indiana Jones,
coloring supplies, a box of notecards...

...a Lego TIE Fighter complete with Darth Vader, R2-D2,
and my daughter's Spongebob Squarepants coloring books.

The kiddo checks out her new domain.

Now it just needs a chair. Speaking of which...

My updated to-do list for around the house is now as follows:

• Figure out how to refinish a wooden item.
• Refinish the chair that will go at this desk.
• Frame the various maps and convention art that needs to go on the walls (frames already purchased).
• Hang up said maps and art.
• Hang up the awesome Firefly, Star Trek, and Wheel of Time stuff we had professionally framed once it is ready to be picked up.
• Hang up that blasted sconce my husband randomly brought home from the office.
• Convert my daughter's crib to a toddler bed.

...and I think that's it. Refinishing the chair should be extra awesome, as I discovered when I finally got it down from the shelf in the garage where it has been living. I had forgotten that when my brother-in-law and his wife repainted some of our house's exterior while I was pregnant, I had let one of them stand on the chair, knowing I was going to be overhauling it anyway. So now there's big blotches of blue paint all over it that I get to sand off. Whee.

Oh, for those wondering, I know I mentioned that I was going to try to revamp a lamp that had belonged to my grandparents, but the lamp on the desk is not that lamp. I tried taking apart the old lamp and realized that I would need to tinker with the wiring to actually get all of the pieces separate, so I eighty-sixed that idea and just caved in and bought a new base. I will just tuck the old lamp in a corner in my closet for now until I either decide to send it to Goodwill or find a use for it elsewhere. 

I wish you all a fantabulous weekend! If you'll excuse me, I'm off to do some research on wood refinishing...