This is my first post from my almost-finished home office! Yep, I'm almost finished with the addition that I started back in early July. It's been an ongoing project - and for those of you who've been reading my blog for a while, you may remember an update back in September when I ran into some problems wiring the ceiling fans. Well, the last large part of the project that I had tackled was painting. I had almost finished it in September . . . September 15 to be exact. In fact, I took a personal day on that Friday to stay home and finish the painting and paint the rest of the house. Then Ella came the next day, and since then, home improvement has been at the bottom of my to-do list.

I've taken a few small steps in the past four months (and I mean SMALL steps). I hung a door and finished painting some of the corners and cutting in around the ceiling. Then came the snow. After I complained all winter about not having any snow days (although we have had a couple of ice days), I was more than thrilled to wake up sometime early Thursday morning to see white ground . . . for the first time in a while. It wasn't a lot, but it was enough to get two days off, and I decided to use those two days to get ready for the carpet.

I now have all the doors hung and most of them painted. I put together my desk and chairs (which had been delivered on September 15, and were sitting in the middle of my office since then, collecting junk), and I even hung some pictures. Today, I built a cabinet-type thing around the electrical panel so it's still accessible but doesn't stand out like a sore thumb. Now that it's coming together, I'm getting really excited about having somewhere to work besides the couch or rocking chair.

The next step (after finishing the paint on the spare bedroom doors) is carpet, and then baseboards and window trim. Then there's a little paint touch-up left to do, and it's all finished!!! So, my summer project has turned into a seven-month ordeal, but that's ok - it's about to be finished!