tools of the trade

Have I mentioned yet that J is an architect? An older architect he sometimes works for recently gave him this anachronism: a Leroy lettering set. Complete with templates in various heights, tracer pins, and scriber arms, this was used to print perfect block letters on architectural drawings, back in the dinosaur days before computer drafting. So technical, in its analog way. So cool.

We've been super busy here at J & A Industries. The kitchen project is moving forward (more pictures soon). Yesterday we bought 8 feet of butcher block countertop. Whoohoo!

Other rooms are in transition, too. Even as I type, J is in the basement making supports for his new desk so that he can move into his (drumroll please) own office. For the past five years we have shared an office/studio, and that was a fine, if cluttered, set-up until he started working from home. Then we started seriously bumping elbows. So we are in the midst of setting up one of the little attic bedrooms as his office, and the former shared space will be mine, all mine! Once again, my sewing machine, desk, and project table will all be in the same room. It won't be a freshly-painted room, alas, and I'll have to give it up when and if our little family expands (no, I'm not pregnant). But for a while anyway, starting soon, I will have a dingy little lovely little room of my own.

Even with my craft supplies divided between two floors, I've been working away, mostly presents that I have to keep under wraps because their recipients have been known to lurk around here. I've also been strategizing on the job front and trying to turn up the heat under a project that has been simmering on the back burner for far too long. It's a book. That's all I can tell you right now. Well, I'll tell you tiny bit more just so you don't get the idea I'm writing the Great American Novel: you'll want to get it for all the architectural and planning history geeks on your gift list next year.

Now, for a little mental fresh air, a picture of Iris and her best girl Anya running to the playground together yesterday.