(A bit of) The Collection, currently
Been awhile since I’ve shared anything from The Collection, but now that Paintshop reconstruction is nearing its end, several pieces have found their new shelf-home. So…
Another wall of bookshelves built and brimming.
The first of 🤷 bookshelves are built and alphabetized, Abbott ➡️ McCarthy. Top two shelves were built by K’s grandfather, rest are my new additions. Slowly, slowly this project trundles on.
Saturday project
Paintshop transformation continues. Built an action figure display(!) in the space between where The Collection ends and the books begin. P.S. boards across chalk ware Supermen are placeholders to keep them from falling while I muck about with said transformation.
the paintshop, currently
Remodel / repurposing of The Paintshop into workout room (one section) and the home for The Collection (second section) and my grandfather’s pool table. More shelves need to be built and much construction and demolition in the non-Collection areas. But I needed a place to be at least somewhat realized to keep my sanity during the process.
Far more enjoyable to build my own shelves than to wage war with instructions and dowel rods and another fucking allen wrench.
lumber grind
For the past two days, an incessant bang/clang. Pretty sure it's construction on the bridge a little ways down the highway, but can't be sure.
Speaking of construction: Shortened day as I'm also neck-deep in transforming The Paintshop into the pool table room / workout room / Collection haven and have bookshelves to build. Going with two wall-mounted shelves per unit, around the top of the room. Need to save up every bit of space I can find to ensure proper cue-table distance for shooting pool. Once the shelves are up, might have a better idea of what else I need to do with the space.
As for here, I'm in the process of figuring out the best way to have this digital space represent me where I am now, creatively and authentically, without losing that something something about it that makes me want to consistently evolve it so that it remains an omnipresent part of my life.
Need to go buy lumber. And mozzarella for salad. And a new coffee grinder. Fucking burr grinder died on me at 0500 this morning.
a third place
Intrigued by Oldenburg’s concept of the "third place" and cognizant that, as I've been working from home for 95% of my "career," I don't even have a second place, except The Paintshop, nevermind alone a place possessed of the communal / conversational features of Oldenburg's characteristics. Online and virtual doesn't count (in my mind). Maybe I need to work on readjusting my mindset to The Paintshop being both the second and third places? – though given that I haven't felt at home at any place save my grandparents' house on the lake and my shoebox apartment in Boston (perhaps that’s why I loved the city so much: an abundance of potential third places?), one could argue that I barely have a first place. Note that this isn't a lament, necessarily, but perhaps a framework for making my spaces feel more like a home. Added Oldenburg's book to the Kindle, as seems to be my wont for most non-fiction works of late. Food / thought, etc etc.
While much of the afternoon was spent fighting with an impact driver, a bunch of vinyl siding j-channels, the disaster zone that is the top of my desk, and low blood sugars determined to undermine my determination, the second row of Ditko Spideys are now in their new home on the wall behind the desk. Need some clear fishing line so the top row doesn’t fall, but that’s tomorrow’s battle.