We've been working on the dining room, painting and laying hardwood floors. It's just about done - and with only one injury. I cut my toe after years of making fun of people for fussing at me about working barefoot. I learned that I really enjoy laying floors and that sometimes (very rarely) shoes are good.

Now we need a dining room table. We really want this one but I'm not sure we can make it happen. We went to an architectural salvage store yesterday, and then to an antique store that specializes in making reproduction farm tables. They had some very pretty ones, but not as thick as we'd like and very expensive. So the hunt continues.

The salvage store was a blast. The kids used to love running around there when they were 7 and 3ish but they barely remembered it. So we all went - me, Jon, Dagny, Rowan, and Andrew - and my sister met us there. Rowan loved all the old tea services. Dagny and Andrew fell in love with a street light, a console record player, a juke box, sewing machines, an old buggy - all sorts of stuff. There was an amazing robotic person and printer's drawers with the old letters still inside. We learned later (from my mom) that the reason we say 'uppercase' and 'lowercase' is that the big letters were kept in the upper drawers and the small in the lower.

The next room on our work list is what we originally called The Gunroom, since that's where the house's previous owners kept their guns. It morphed into The Office at some point. I'm not sure what it'll be called when we're done, but we're planning sort of a craft room/sewing room/office. I've had my eyes out for some interesting craft storage pieces, and yesterday found this at the antique store.

It was one of those see-it-from-across-the-room-must-have-it things. Getting closer to it only made me want it more. It's made of old sewing machine drawers. Some of them are carved on the sides.

I was glad everyone was there to give me opinions and decide if the cost was ok. I wasn't feeling all that rational, myself. In the end I think they took pity on me, and home it came. Now that it's here we all can't seem to stop touching it. There's something addictive about opening and closing all those drawers. Or maybe we're just a very weird family.