We've just started the massive effort it's going to be to reorganize the den.

How can I briefly describe this room--without boring you senseless--so you might understand what we're doing? Used to be a one-car garage. Now paneled and carpeted (sadly with really cheap carpet; it's coming out in carpet strings). Double glass doors, only one which opens, replaced garage door. A small "entry" around the doors is parquet wood.

As you come in the door, directly on your left is a secretary (on the same wall as the door), then lined up on the left wall are a bookcase of reference books/computer supplies, a computer desk, printer stand, telephone stand, sofa, end table which holds unread books/some art supplies made out of half of a white plastic etagere, a rolling videotape cabinet. On the right side as you come in is another computer desk (on the same wall as the door); lined up on the right is then the door to the furnace closet, a big papasan chair, the other half of the plastic etagere holding Bandit's cage/supplies, a gap for the doorway to upstairs, the encyclopedia bookcase, an armchair, and a bookcase with cross-stitch magazines and books about the English language.

Against the back wall is a video cabinet, speaker on a stand, the entertainment center, the other speaker, another bookcase with the media books, and a tower bookcase with reference books (with some wooden TV trays stuck in the corner).

In front of the sofa is a coffee table. A recliner set facing one end of the coffee table makes L-shape seating area facing the TV; it has a rolling TV stand "end table" next to it.

You betcha it sounds crowded. It is crowded, and this is, compared to the other rooms in the house, a huge room, about 15'x25'.

One of many bad things about this arrangement is that the television faces the glass doors, and even with blinds, the light comes in during the day and washes out the screen. Considering the television is ten years old and the brightness knob is all the way up and some scenes are still dark, washing out the screen ain't doing it any good. :-) We wanted it against the right wall, where the armchair is presently, but we didn't have a co-ax cable long enough the day we moved in, and we weren't going to tell the friends who were kindly helping move us in bloody 99F degree weather to wait while we ran to Radio Shack.

So the plan is (a) to get rid of a bit of the clutter and (b) eventually move the television either against that wall or into that corner. The corner looks to be ahead in the race at the moment, since we want to get a little bigger television screen next time. We can't afford a plasma and the bigger the set, the more tube sticks out in the back. Hence the corner setup.

The armchair and the telephone stand are going to Goodwill. We have company occasionally, but not enough to justify keeping the chair. No one ever sits in it except maybe twice a year. It ends up holding the recharging cords for the PDA and the phone.

To replace the phone stand, at least at the moment, and this is the step we took today: I removed the two halves of the etagere, the bookshelf half and the bird stand half, took them completely apart to scrub them, then reincorporated them into one tall piece. With the sofa moved "up" about six inches, this will replace the phone stand and also hold the unread books, art supplies, phone books we're planning to keep (we never use the residential and we haven't gotten a new Yellow Pages since we moved into the house), and maybe, if I'm lucky, bits like the Kleenex box and the scrapbook I started and never finished. "We'll see."

Ah, but what about Bandit?

Well, I emptied the encyclopedia bookcase, cleaned it, reversed it and repositioned it to replace the part of the etagere that held his cage, and refilled it. Then James put together one of those small white MDF shoe racks to sit on top of it. Voila, Bandit is on top of the rack, with his food and the budgie books sitting under him.

It looks a little odd, as the other was open and this has a brown backing, but Bandit has to have something to sit on. He's up a bit higher than he's used to, but only about two or three inches. It hasn't seemed to faze him.

With the bookcase moved we can now get the chair the heck out of there.

One of the other things I want to ultimately do is somehow reverse the bookcase near the door so its back faces the side of the computer desk. I can then put the secretary where the bookcase was. This will make a small vestibule. On the blank wall the secretary once occupied we can either use the exisiting hooks on the wall or get new ones and use those to keep our coats on. At present the coats hang on the door to the furnace closet and are in James' way.

I also vacuumed upstairs and downstairs today and washed another load of clothes and went to Sears to pick up my new glasses with the progressive lenses that are driving me nuts right now and stopped at Michael's for a new nightlight for the kitchen. Can you say "pooped"? I can.

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. . . . . noted and logged by Linda at 11:24:00 AM

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