A visitor!

I’m having a visitor coming to stay for a few nights — some of my writer friends are flying in for a meeting, and one good friend is coming in a few days early to stay in my new house before moving in to the meeting hotel.

So the guest room needed. . . um . . . work. Because a few weeks ago it still looked much like this.

All those boxes contain books, and I’m getting bookshelves built in, but it’s a sixteen week wait for the guy to come and do it — which will be in early December. And once they’re up, then the dreaded book-culling will begin. 

I’m keeping a few of the stand-alone bookshelves as well, but am planning to paint them white (they’re currently a kind of soft pink, which I’m soooo bored with now.)  But I’m trying to get my book finished, so basically I wasn’t planning on doing anything — no book-culling, no bookcase painting, no guest-room organizing — until after the new shelves were built  and the book  finished, of course.

So, the prospect of a visitor coming to stay really got me moving!  I’m so excited. I can’t tell you how long it is since I’ve had anyone to stay. Covid really put the kybosh on that, and then moving house . . .

First I had to move all the boxes of books into the other spare room—it’s now jam-packed, and won’t be cleared until I get the bookshelves built—and move some furniture around as well.

Next there was the issue of a bed. Useful things, beds. Visitors seem to like them. I’d thrown out the wonky old bed base before I moved, but I’d kept the mattress, which was almost new. So I had to buy a new base, which wasn’t a problem, and then put it together, which was. I hate those “put furniture together” things with their impossible instructions, don’t you? Luckily I had a friend come around to help me. I say “help me” but really he did all the work (and the swearing) while I balanced things and handed screws out and held things together.

And then, it being a nice new bed, I had to get a new quilt cover, didn’t I?  Because the bedding for the old guest room doesn’t fit with the colors in the new house — that’s my excuse anyway.

So now it’s all ready for my visitor — except for the flowers, which I’ll pick tomorrow. The room is still rather bare-looking — no paintings or anything, and the bookshelf is still a dreary pink, which doesn’t go at all with the rest of the room. And the books aren’t organized in any way — I just threw a few into the bookcase so it didn’t look too horridly bare. And so that there are a few things for visitors to browse through if they want something to read.

I also bought a bedside table with a drawer, but it only arrived yesterday, and since it’s another item that has to be put together,  it can wait. It might be an evening’s entertainment for my visitor and me, who knows? In the meantime, the bamboo thing works fine.

But it’s no longer a cluttered box-room, (even though you can still see the imprint of some of the boxes on the carpet).  The bed is ready and it’s very comfortable. And my friend is very good at decor and stuff like that, so I foresee some good and fruitful discussions.