Twisp of Fate

First of all, I put up a new header for the site today, in celebration of Spring.  This is looking to be a good year for the arrowleaf balsamroot, which most folks in the valley call “the sunflowers.”  We drove up the Twisp River Road yesterday to visit friends for brunch, and the hillsides were carpeted in yellow, much like the new picture in the header.  Gorgeous!

However.  They are saying it may snow tonight, and possibly even tomorrow morning.  When will this end?

For those of you, friends and family, who are familiar with our little apartment-over-the-woodshop, I thought I would show some of the improvements Rick has made to our living space the last couple of months.  We have decided to use beech for any new cabinetry, as it is a nice warm-colored hardwood that goes well with the clear fir window and door trim, and room doors (we have been slowly replacing the stark white-on-white theme, with white vinyl doors, that the place came with…)

Last January he installed a double-sided bookcase that acts as a room divider between the living room area and my loom.  This allowed us to bring a selection of our book collection out of storage for the living room side:

living room bookcase

From the loom side, I now have space for all of my knitting, spinning, dyeing and weaving books, plus some handy shelf space behind the loom.  Last month he added on the cabinet with drawers for all of my tools and cones of yarn, etc.  It’s wonderful!

loom-side bookcase and storage cabinet

He has finally convinced me that it is worthwhile to replace the kitchen cabinets.  As a professional cabinetmaker, he just can’t stand them (standard oak Pay-n-Pak style cabinets).  I have to admit it will be nice not to have to get down on my hands and knees every time I want to get something out of the back of a lower cabinet.  As a start, he replaced the cabinet to the left of the stove and put a new cookbook shelf above that.  We also replaced the cabinet over the stove, which only had a simple exhaust hood, and put in a microwave/hood, which freed up some counter space elsewhere.

Love my new spice drawer!It may be “a while” before this project moves further along, but for now I am so happy with the improvements!