Some improvements

Today we did an overhaul of the living room. We moved all the audio equipment into the TV/video cabinet, and got rid of the ugly and mostly inaccessible corner shelf that previously held the stereo. It makes for a little more space in the room, and makes the stereo actually accessible, which is all for the good.

Also, this makes it so you can see the door, including the patch of dark red paint where we were testing a possible color for the room (the color failed). You can also see the very sorry state that the yellow chair is in; I think it's time to start shopping for a new chair or at the very least, to invest in a slipcover. You may also have noticed that mountain of Lucy toys that towers over our living room. The kid has a lot of stuff.

We also installed a new closer on the front screen door. Try dragging a stroller w/ kid, plus the dog and whatever else you need through the screen door that will not stay open, and you will realize what a HUGE improvement this little device is. When I realized that I wanted to replace our old closer, I wondered what that little thingy was called. I figured that there must be some sort of technical name for it, perhaps something involving the word "pneumatic." But to my delight, I discovered that it's simply called a "door closer" and in fact they're quite easy to find on the internet. I wanted a particular kind of closer though, one that would easily hold itself open, but also easily close after we'd entered or exited with our sundry parcels and creatures. The "Touch N Hold" door closer was exactly what we needed.



Their website claims that the touch n hold is a "revolution in door closers," and, I have to say, though I laughed at that claim initially, it is a huge help. OK, my product endorsement time is over, and I hope we get nice fat check from the touch n hold folks for that.

One other big improvement was the addition of a medicine cabinet to the downstairs bathroom. We were keeping medicines and the like in the vanity drawers by the sink, but it was ill suited to the purpose (the bottles fell over and leaked; the drawer is also too accessible to a certain soon-to-be exploring little one), so we searched for a cabinet. We actually bought a couple at Home Depot, but returned them because they were terrible looking. I found this one on Amazon -- it's made of bamboo, with recycled glass for the doors.



Hooray! I think we might have to get a second one for the upstairs bathroom, which has the same problem.