We’re almost ready to start a major renovation of our master bedroom. It has been a 6 1/2 year wait to get to this point, with nearly every other room in the house taking precedence over our own. But now it’s our turn, and I decided to start slow and simply redo the walk-in closet first. It took a little while to convince the husband that the closet was the place to start, but now that it’s done I think we’re both very surprised at how well it actually turned out. I love it. The bamboo flooring was a complete nightmare to install (I’m dreading the thought of doing the entire bedroom), but I think it is actually worth the pain and agony. The glue for bamboo is so thick it’s like trying to spread silly putty with a trowel, and after just 10 square feet my hands were on fire and swelling. Not fun. I’d rather have a root canal than lay more of this flooring…but whoa, it just turned out so awesome.

After a few days of just staring at the beauty of the empty space, I did eventually put our clothes in it. Even though I was suddenly overcome by the feeling that my clothes were no longer good enough for the closet, and I ended up giving at least half of them to Goodwill. No loss.

For those interested, the closet system is an off-the-shelf set sold by Rubbermaid. $170 from Lowes, and we bought two sets (one for each side of the closet). Love, love, love the shoe racks.

The bathroom linen, with no assistance from us, spontaneously decided to take up sculpture.

Honestly, this is exactly the way it fell on the floor.

Last spring I set aside Annie and Abbie’s jacob fleeces for my own use. I had plans to spin and knit a rug, but then summer happened and the project fell to the wayside…until now. Of course, now the plans have changed. I no longer want a rug, and instead I think I’m going to knit a cover for a piano bench seat. The bench sits at the foot of our bed, and has been upholstered in a nice neutral brocade fabric for quite a few years. But now our bedroom is being renovated and redecorated in a more simple, asian inspired design so I think outfitting the bench in a rustic, jacob wool cover might look pretty cool. I don’t know yet if I’ll leave the yarn in the black,white and grey natural colors or over dye it with a tinge of brown to make it more earthy. But until then, I’m carding the black and white jacob with a mix of charcoal herdwick wool (very rough) and spinning it VERY bulky.

Two and a half weeks after the Ice Storm, our phone and internet connection has finally been restored. Things are getting back to normal, but it just won’t be the same around here without this guy.

On January 27th, he seemed to be holding up okay under the weight of the ice. But that night, with the electricity out, no heat and all of us huddled in a dark kitchen we heard the horrible sound of wood mercilessly being ripped out of the ground and murdered in cold blood. It’s not a sound I ever want to hear again.

This is what I found in the morning. It broke my heart. I loved this old tree.

There are alot more pictures of our farm during the storm on Flickr. In the photostream you can see the progression from pretty winter ice on the morning of day 1 to the complete devastation by day 2.

Two weeks. Still no internet access. Calls to the phone company have proven futile. The family has resorted to iPhone access for the most basic of Googling. Prayers to the internet gods may be required…

Just a quick update: Kentucky is a disaster. Lots of areas still without power. We’ve been lucky there, but our internet connection is down and probably won’t be back for awhile (our telephone line is currently lying in a cornfield), so no new pictures for now, but I have a lot to post though once we’re back online.