The Great Build at the Maison Des Girrafes is descending asymptotically to a close. Today I cleaned out the final remains of the old kitchen,
using the most amazing industrial steam cleaning device given to me by the Croxfather. This machine stripped the grease from the floor and walls in no time. After much agonizing I decided not to decorate the orifice immediately, as (a) I’m really, really desperate to get back into my own workspace again, and (b) as most of the walls will be covered in bookshelves anyway, there didn’t seem to be much paint point. Here is the orifice at close of play today.
Some shelves – recycled from another room – are up, and I have gathered together any and all pieces of wood I own that might be made simply into more shelves. The desk (right) is made from part of a wardrobe, and there’s plenty more of that left to be recycled. The plan is to fit out the orifice with only minimal purchase of new timber.
As you can see I have some way to go… The pile of tools on my workbench (left) will in time be replaced by my piano (a Yamaha Clavinova), which is a fabulous instrument but whose modernist looks don’t fit with the rustic decor of the drawing room (so sez Mrs Crox, and who am I to argue?) The embrasure (oooh, ain’ee posh? -Ed) in the left foreground – dominated by my coat – will have more shelves, and so on and so forth on the back wall, around the window, but not in My Lady’s Chamber.
Having a workspace is, for me, psychological as much as physical. I like to have a single place for all my stuff, a Den, a Dojo, whatever, in which I can get my thoughts in order. Not having had a proper office for some weeks now has meant that my things have been dispersed around the house, and with them, my thoughts. So I haven’t been able to sit down and catch up with myriad tasks of home admin – I have, literally, not been in the right place. This psychological aspect has meant that I have been able to work quite contentedly for four and a half years in the WearableOffice(TM) – a cupboard under the stairs – which although rather cramped, was ideal for shutting myself away and getting Into The Zone.
Eventually, though, the WearableOffice(TM) became too cramped even for me. It got to such a pass that if I wanted to print anything, I had to drag the printer out from under the computer desk and rest it in my lap. No longer!
(All I need now is a decent printer. The one before last, by Dell, was dreadful, and my most recent printer – an Epson Stylus – was so bad that I threw it on the skip in disgust).
I can see myself getting quite cozy in my new space. Compared with the last one it seems as spacious as the Serengeti, but I’m sure I can fill it with clutter to my heart’s content.
Like the Serengeti metaphor, Henry – but what animal does that make you? The battle-scarred bull elephant? The rhinoceros?
On a practical note, the steam cleaner sounds a rather useful piece of kit. How different are they from the steam strippers you can hire to de-wallpaper?
I’m a gnu. How do you do? I’m the gnicest work of gnature in the zoo.
In practical terms the steam cleaner is like one of those dewallpapring engines you mention. It’s basically an enormous kettle that produces a lot of steam. It has a variety of attachments (rather like a vacuum cleaner) allowing one to (for example) steam large areas of floor – or squirt a concentrated jet at a particular place. And, yes, it strips wallpaper.
This looks nice, so far my only home office is a partition on my laptop hard drive! Re. printers, I’ve had an HP all in one for years and it works really well, although I have to say I do not print that much. Ink is a bit pricey too. I’ve heard good things about Kodaks but I don’t know how well they play with Macs.
I am veering to an HP Photosmart of some sort. News has reached ms oreilles that you can use them to print directly from one’s iDevices over the aether.
I’ve now ordered an HP Photosmart Premium C310a. The capacity to print direct from one’s iPad appeals, especially to Mrs Crox.
What kind of intestine is in the first photo?
I was wondering the same thing! Thought perhaps the Croxii were planning to make sausages this weekend.
Also … *cough*man cave*coughcough*
Sorry, rather dusty here.
I was wondering if anyone would pick up on that. The pink stuff is blobs of expanded foam left over from the filling of holes, crevices and other miscellaneous lacunae, by our plasterer Mr S. B. of Norfolk. As for the ‘man cave’ – guilty as charged. I’ve asked Mrs Crox repeatedly whether she’d like a desk in the new office, but she says she’s happy working at the kitchen table.
Mancave is only on step down from Batcave, so still awesome.
Ah – the dreaded expanding foam…
..builders love the stuff for filling all kinds of gaps , for obvious reasons, but it is always reassuring when they don’t use too much of it…!
Remember my architect brother telling me that, when he was overseeing a big commercial build, you could tell how meticulous the builders were by how many empty jumbo applicator tubes of expanding foam they left in the skip as they approached the end of the job. If it was only a couple, that was a good sign. If it was two dozen, not so much…
There’s a boxful of spent cartridges in the Jardin des Girrafes. Make of that what you will.
I have a colleague who’s a tough, no-nonsense ER physician, and when her grown son came back home to live with her after college, she designated a “man cave” for him in her house. And then she promptly retreated to what she admitted was her “woman cave.” I like to think that my guest bedroom is also a studio, but it’s actually just a woman cave with a largish stash of hand-dyed yarn under the bed, and an old dresser full of art supplies.
My mother’s woman cave sounds just like yours. It’s a bedroom – but with a sewing machine and a lot of quilting-related accoutrements.
PS I dream of a proper ‘man cave’, though the one I imagine has wood panelling, a large flat screen TV, and a whisky decanter.
At the moment I have to make do with a desk and filing cabinet at one end of the bedroom. Though of course I do have an office to myself at work – none of that open-plan rubbish.
I’m figuring I will HAVE to have a proper cave (sound-proofed) in the house before the daughter reaches her teenage years. Continued sanity (or at least an appearance thereof) will demand it.
One of the reasons we’ve done The Build is so that we can (a) isolate the sitting room from the general traffic of the house and (b) have a large comfy kitchen diner. This means that Crox Minima can watch endless re-runs of Glee without us grown-ups having to either endure it or go outside.
Is a bit strait your study, you will fall books on the head with a slight quake?
You have to put a fishing net over his head.
Ah, Alejandro – earthquakes are common in Chile, as you know from your own experience – but rare in Cromer. We had one a few years back sufficiently strong that it woke up my neighbour, Mr C. D. of Cromer, though of course I slept through the whole thing.
You miss one of those green-shaded glass “golden” footed lamps for it to be a proper man cave, in my opinion. I googled it to see if they have a proper English name, other than male cave study lamp or something, and I found this: http://www.designinteriorideas.com/lamp-shades-for-home-decor.htm It matches well with all the books
Perhaps you can put is on your Apple’s desktop as that saves space for more man cave accessories, like that stapler and those pencils
I have a HP printer, and it is the best I ever had. I had to drown the Dell to get us out of our misery, and threw out an Epson before I got the Dell, thinking the Dell to be an upgrade….. I also have a Canon photo printer, which is also nice, but the printing quality is less than professional, but it came awfully cheap, so that was to be expected…
Lin, that suggestion for a lamp is just lovely. I can haz Lava Lamp, too.
Update: the Man Cave is now shelved out and carpeted. We also have an HP Photosmart printer which works (when I found that it really didn’t like paper that was anything less than brand new). The piece de resistance will be … another snake.
Serpens croxorum, a corn snake who lives in a tank in the salon, is now so big (last time I measured an intact shed skin it was 4’8″) that her accommodation will soon be upgraded from a 3′ vivarium to a 4′ model. The 3′ viv will go into the Man Cave where it’ll be stuck to the wall with microwave oven mountings, and used to house a male royal python called Yentl, which I’ll get from Angel Aquatics in North Walsham. Royal pythons are rather petite, as pythons go, and males are more petite than the females, so a 3′ viv will do nicely. I can’t remember why it’ll be called Yentl, though.
Perhaps by the mythical band http://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gentle_Giant
Because they used to think he was a she? Or because he’s given to cross-dressing?
Honestly, I really have no idea. The name just came up, and it immediately seemed suitable. But then again, we have an axolotl called Squirty Benson Wilberforce III.