Accomplishment Accomplished: Dining Room & Drafting Table

Yesterday morning I worked on the dining/work room some more. It isn't done, but it is to a reasonable hiatus point.

Last year, late summer/fall we had a feeder mouse escape from the doom of the hungry snake, and a couple weeks ago I saw it again, headed toward that room (how do I know it was the same mouse? The local field mice aren't black or that big). Little jerk has apparently been spending a lot of time in the dining room. It doesn't smell mousy, but there were . . . bits of evidence. Thus the drive to make sure I got the shop-vac out before the drafting table came in.

Yesterday morning I got the Gamma Seal bin of breakfast oats (which the mouse had *not* gotten into, but still needs to be evaluated for staleness) moved to a spot closer to the kitchen (intent was to get it into the pantry, but Robin, Organizer of the Pantry, says that will be a significant job), and the case of self-centering punches and the pouch molds put on the shelf where the oats were. Also condensed the leather stash, and in the process of doing those things found more hardware. Sob. I got that packed up and moved to the other side of the room with the rest of the hardware.

Went through glassware and kept a few things (for potion bottles) got rid of some, and have a few to go to a new home. Other things were put in the cleared space on the shelves above the sewing machine. My push yesterday was to get as much as possible up off the floor, to make room for the drafting table.

Ron exercised his Tetris skills and got all the manga and coloring books (which have been scanned in for electronic coloring) into one box. Got rid of other cardboard boxes, in favor of plastic bins, and now I even have more empty bins than when I started the cleanup.

Late morning we went to fetch home the drafting table, with a stop at the storage locker to drop off various odds and ends and pick up the Christmas tree and accessories. Disassembly of the table wasn't too difficult, as we brought plenty of tools, plus zippy bags and sharpies. I also added a good compass/divider, a nice stack of vellum paper, and a set of technical pens for Robin, to our purchase list.

Got home, invoked Jimmy John's while Robin brought table pieces in, and after lunch assembly began. Ron was able to put the table back together with less assistance than it came apart. It's a very nice steel-framed table, with a sturdy tilting top, and two drawers - one deeper with a tray one for pencils, etc., and a wide shallow one for paper.

It was a good thing I cleared as much space as possible - the table is big - the top is about 5' wide, and over 3' deep, and overhangs the back edge of the frame when down flat, with a rail for a drawing arm that is then clamped to the back edge. I was hoping to tuck the drafting table in next to the window, but it has to be out in the room about a foot for the top to clear a bookshelf when down. Even the green vinyl surface of the table (which I knew was replaceable) is in good shape.

I didn't see a stool near the table when we picked it up, and our friend didn't mention one. The two desk-type chairs in the dining room are too low. Way too low for me, mostly too low for Ron or Robin. The big steel-framed bar stool Robin so kindly lugged up from the basement is too high (So now I know I need something taller than 22" and shorter than 30" seat height, which most drafting stools fall into, based in my on-line shopping yesterday.) In the interim, I've asked Robin to look for a wooden stool that he's pretty sure that's in the basement, which may also be too tall, but if that's the case at least it isn't as awkward to schlep to find out as the bar stool.

The cleaning fairies come tomorrow morning, so there was a definite urge to deal with the disaster that is the rest of the first floor of the house - much of it as a result of working on the dining room. However, Robin's spent all day helping our friend clearing out the house the drafting table came from, so Ron and I got dinner at Culver's, and the cleaners will have to clean around all the clutter.

Back in the dining room, I still need to go through the big set of Metro-clone shelving, I suspect there's more things I can get rid of (like an extraneous clock radio and an adding machine), and/or space to be freed up. Also need to see what I can do with the shelves holding rolled leather, and half of the shelves above the sewing machine. Neither of those are likely to yield lots more space, but they're good candidates for incremental improvement.

I've had a couple ideas for the space between the drafting table and the window, for holding things one might want handy, especially if/when the top is at an angle. First step is to break out the tape measure. And we pointed out to Robin that the table is big enough to run several of his miniatures skirmish games on (they use 3' x 3' space).  And when I got home this evening there was a star field gaming mat sitting on the table (have to see if it will fit in the big drawer, which will keep it nice and flat). Note to self, put a "do not lean" label on the rail for the arm.

I give up, see G+ for the pictures I took yesterday, hopefully I can post before this app crashes again...