A home....

I've been trying to write no matter what, but I was so tired from both the work and the giddiness of the success of adding feet to my antique trunk in the living room that I just ... laid down on the couch all evening long.

This was another of Mother's ideas for the living room.  At first, she offered to have a metal frame with legs built if I found a welder here in Fort Wayne.  That search was not quite so successful.  So, I got the idea of making a wooden platform with legs, trimming out the sides, and she liked that.  Then, after much more thought, I wondered if I could find the perfect kind of feet to just add directly to the bottom of the trunk.

I did!

I was waiting on Firewood Man to come help me because, measuring on the top, I thought I would need to drill through the brass end cap.  Since he's working seven days a week right now, I was not sure when he could come by with his hammer drill.  Only, yesterday, when I finally turned the trunk over to look at it, I discovered that the bottom of the brass end caps was smaller.  The bracket fit just off the end of the cap.

I still had to drill through the trunk because the bolt in the leg was higher than the ones you find in Waddle furniture feet and legs.  And I was using the Waddle brackets because they worked so well on the table I created for the back porch.  But, with Mother's help, I chose these bun feet because 1) they were perfect and 2) they were already stained!

Because the bracket was resting on the brass cap on one side and the bottom of the trunk on the other side, I had to work out how many washers I needed on the front two screws to built up the bracket so as to level the feet.  It was a LOT of screwing and un-screwing as I did that.  I think I might have installed the first bracket at least a dozen times and screwed on the leg at least eight times.  I am very, very, very thankful for my beloved six-inch level.  With the help of that great tool, I figured out how to build up all four brackets to level.

Mother's idea, modified by me, makes the antique trunk now look like a piece of furniture!  I just LOVE how it turned out!  I've had the trunk for nearly 30 years and it's never looked so good!!

I admit that I was shocked at the height at first.  I had to adjust to it and wondering if I had made a mistake.  But Mother's Interior Design ideas are spot on and after adjusting to the change, I realized just how much I LOVE having the trunk off the rug and how much easier it is to use the trunk as a coffee table.  I mean, gee, it is crazy easy to fetch a remote from the antique butter box now!  And setting a drink on top.  Less of a bend for me.  Less dizziness.

Amos is not quite sure what to think and has been either circling the trunk or squatting in front of it and just staring.  Poor puppy dog.  Such change he's had to absorb in the living room!

i'm still extra exhausted.  Maybe it is because of a particularly difficult spate of writhing in abdominal pain and violent waves of nausea this early morning.  Or maybe it is because of that hour's worth of installation work.  Whatever the case, I am struggling to do much more than sit (I'm trying to remain upright) and ... just ... exist.

Even when I am feeling miserable, though, I remain in awe of the blessing of the beautiful, beautiful old house were the family antiques I've been hauling around my entire adult life have finally found a place where they belong.  Their owner, too, if one can be said to belong to a house.  A home.  My home.

[Should I mention that Mother wants me to move the painting over?  Instead of being centered on that wall, she wants it centered between the window and the front edge of the book case.  Maybe some day.  Possibly.]