Connecting books and people
What a lovely day to assemble a shepherd’s hut! Putting it together took less than three hours; now the lovely building just needs a couple of coats of paint inside and we’ll be filling it with shelves and books !
Here is a slideshow of the work . . .
The first bookcases for the new Much Ado have been fastened in place. Maybe we’ll even experiment with putting books on them . . .
We hardly had a chance to catch our breath when our contractors descended, screwdrivers at the ready.
In short order everything was happening, just as we (more or less) planned. The chaos is slightly alarming, of course; packing all our books away feels somehow . . . wrong. But we are heartened by the steadfast optimism of Mark Martin, who has been dealing with our most challenging projects for at least eight years now. Nothings seems to phase him. Good thing, too – we’ll be testing his patience in the coming weeks . . .
Minnie Kemp has brought a touch of modern-day magic to us in the form of Computer Aided Design.
The interiors consultant and all-around-charmer used a laser device for measuring – except when she used an old-fashioned measuring tape, which she said (whisper it!) is sometimes better.
Her sister Willow made a special appearance to help hold the measuring tape; and Alex Ward (that’s the back of his head you see here) performed heroically as well.
Min pronounced herself satisfied after two hours of measuring . . . followed by another half hour the next morning. Apparently a computer is now hosting an exact lay-out of the place. What Min will do next is anybody’s guess – but we’re looking forward to it!
There has always seemed something particularly solid about a tree, even a young one. The crabapple we planted seven years ago seemed so . . . permanent, somehow . . . that sifting it seemed impossible.
But the impossible happened, thanks to John and Sam, imperturbable movers and shakers of anything (so far as we can tell!) in a garden.
Shrubs? Out. Vines? Trimmed. Crabapple? Shifted (thereby protecting our annual ritual of making crabapple gin. Hooray!). Amazing.
Next step: Bring on the shepherd’s hut!
Perversely, perhaps, we have more bits and oddments coming in just when we are beginning to pack things up to stash them away for our renovations. It just gives us more things to shift around, store, and generally worry about – but items like this globe also seem to prove that this is actually happening!
Slowly, and then quickly: Our shop changes have for so long been a figment of our imaginations that we can hardly believe the moment has arrived for action.
Sunday, Much Ado is much as it has been for seven years, housed in a street-side building on two floors. Monday, the doors will be closed and – despite planning for events which are exciting us – the era will be over.
At times the process of changing seems straight-forward. Those times are becoming rarer, replaced by mid-level panic. What now? What needs to be packed – or unpacked – or moved? Kept – or discarded – or kept to be sold later – or, something else? What happens now, and what do we have to do in order to let it happen?
Fortunately we have a level-headed contractor who knows when to step in and assert some direction. Step one: Clear space in our yard for a new shepherd’s hut, which will be fitted with bookcases and filled with books.
No: Step one is to decide what bookcases we can move from the current shop into the shepherd’s hut.
No, wait: Step one is actually to decide what books we want to keep on display, and what we want to keep, and what we want to let go.
Oh, wait – before that, what about the chickens?
Wait. Breathe. Sit a minute. We’ll get there – we really will.
