This and That Catch Up: Dogs, Garden, Stamp Room

Hi, everyone!  Some of you, my dear stamping friends, have been kindly asking about Wally and LuLu, and wondering how things have come together in my stamp room since all the home renovations, so I'm here today with a little catch up on that.

First, and most important in my heart is Wally and LuLu.  They're both as healthy and fit as you can imagine 10 and 12 year old dogs could be.  In the picture below they'd just returned from a neighborhood walk and are enjoying a little cool down on the lawn.

LuLu has had a remarkable recovery from her fibrocartilaginous embolism.  She has a slight limp and has to wear a bootie when walking on asphalt because she drags her foot a little bit when she's not thinking about it.  It takes some effort, so she tires more easily than in the past, but seems to be getting stronger every day.  On Labor Day we took the dogs for an off-leash walk on a woodland trail and they both ran like juveniles.  You'd never suspect a thing.  I could have cried with happiness.

With all the home renovations and then LuLu's embolism, the garden was neglected to a certain extent.  I watered and deadheaded, but not much else.  Our deck was torn out for the foundation work, so the flower pots were displaced and construction debris was everywhere.  It wasn't until late summer that we started working more earnestly outside.

There's my handsome Wally in the picture below.  He loves his blankie!

As for my stamp room, the only renovation in there was the flooring.  The whole house got new flooring, and what a huge deal it was to move out all the furniture!  My big desk (stamping command center) was broken in the process and there was no solution but to find a new desk.  We don't have a lot of resources in our town, so the new desk came from Wayfair.  I like it, but it's smaller with less surface area and storage than my other desk.

To make up for some of that lost space I added an additional piece on either end of it.  The white unit below is actually a kitchen cart from Wayfair.  I lost the drawer that I kept my large punches in, so I had to purge a few and hang the rest on a towel rack.  You can see "before" pictures here.  The rest of the room hasn't changed much except the floor.

I did a lot more purging and reorganizing, too much to mention.  I felt some despair at first, but it all worked out nicely.  In the end I have more room for stamps (my #1 passion), and I eliminated the overcrowding in my designer paper collection.

It would all be so much easier with built in wall to wall cabinetry and work surfaces, but this needs to stay a bedroom if we are ever to sell it as a 3 bedroom, 2 bath house.  Not planning on that, but you never know.

Back to stamping now.  I hope we can meet here again real soon!