More Eggs and Darts

Ahhh yes, this is my life.

I'm not even fully awake yet this morning. Steve had been so kind to bring me a cup of coffee in bed. Actually, I had only gotten about half of it down when he was being Mr. Antsy Pantsy and ready to go go go about something.

He called me into the living room because he wanted to show me something.

With a flourish, he led me, half stumbling into the living room, while I was still in my pajamas and only half awake.


His next sentence is the one that always makes me wonder what in the heck are we up to next:

"Hey, I was just thinking about something 

and looking at this..."

He said that the dining room lace curtain valance was too long. He said that he has to stoop over every time to look out the window.  The diningroom ceilings are only 8 feet tall. He's over 6 feet tall.

In contrast, he feels the living room curtain valance is too high and not as long, he said it looks "odd" to him. The livingroom ceilings are 9 feet tall so that window is much higher than the diningroom. I thought it looked just fine, and we could see the pretty leaded glass window because we put the shorter valance there.

He was leading up to something... I could tell.

He must have been pondering this for a while. He said that he wanted to switch around the curtain rods around and put the longer valance in the living room and the shorter one in the dining room.

Okayyyyyy...  he went right to it. 

So then he decided he also wanted to move the curtain rod brackets down off the section of plaster wall and move them down to be screwed onto the actual woodwork.

But but but.... Now to me that looked "odd" because all of the other windows and door frames in the house have a beautiful piece of crown molding and egg and dart trim.  I know over the doors it is referred to as a "lintel". I am not sure what it is called for trim over a window frame. But this one didn't have any.

Why the dining room window doesn't have it, I don't know? Maybe it had been damaged in some way and taken down?

The previous owners had just screwed the rod brackets up higher onto the wall... So the curtains covered the entire top of the dining room window trim. So then nobody noticed there wasn't any fancy egg and dart trim above that window?

I agreed to a swapola of the curtains.... if if if... I could in turn impose upon his woodworking skills to make me a piece of egg and dart crown molding trim to go on top of that window frame!!!

We ran some errands to Green Bay including a visit to a hospitalized family member. And will be hospitalized for a couple more weeks. Prayers are greatly appreciated.

While in Green Bay, I got Steve to swing past Menards on the way home. Voila! I found just what I was looking for. The total cost was under $10. Plus, of course, my husband's woodworking skills.

We got home and I got out the tape measure. We did a little bit of measuring and a little bit of marking. I sent him to work his magic out in the garage.

He came back in with exactly what I wanted.

I gave it a couple coats of paint. Together we mounted it into place. Then we added the egg and dart trim to the join where it met the original window frame.

He put the curtain rod brackets back on at the same height as the rods that were on the other windows.  I touched up the bits of spots where the nail heads had been countersunk and spackled over...  none of them showed after dabs of paint and I gave it another coat for good measure.  It was time for dinner so the trim could dry before hanging the valance back up.

There... the shorter valance is now in place.

Now the top trim and molding can stick up 

over the valance like the other windows.  Ahhhhhh  

And there you have it, 

---the solution to 

his need to move my valances 

plus 

---the solution to 

my need to have all of the tops of windows 

and doorways match.

I guess that makes it a win-win situation?

We sat down to a little friendly game of cribbage tonight. It was so peaceful and relaxing in the she shed. We curled up with a couple dozing sleeping dogs and played some cards and just unwound. He beat me in all three games.  One game he even got 24-count hands TWICE!

Such is my life.

And I love it.