Battle of the Attic part 3

Well it's been decided that our new home will be playing host to the family Christmas eve activities. Which I am all for and pretty psyched about. But this means that a couple of things need to be done quickly to have the house up to par. Such as clearing out the bins and boxes cluttering up the kitchen while we get hvac work done. So this could mean only one thing.....I had to go back in the attic.

So that's what I did for a good part of the afternoon and last night. Moving boxes in and out maneuvering them around to try and get the maximum amount of room. All the while avoiding beams and plywood floors that tend not to stay down. I had the little monkey holding the stairs because she wanted to help while I moved things up and down. When I would get enough up I would rearrange to conserve space. But as I did this I failed to realize something. I actually worked myself into a corner and I mean that literally. There I was in the corner of my plywood end of the attic with boxes and bins all around me and no way out. I considered my options of just living out my days here as I could not believe I had actually been this foolish. But I then decided that it would mean the attic had won our battle of wills. So I set to work getting myself out of my predicament. I did this knowing that I of course would have to be replacing all of these boxes and bins all over again this time without boxing myself in. But yet again this wood cell has found a way to confound and annoy me. Perhaps I should just seal it off and never venture here again....

Battle of the attic part 2

So yesterday between watching wall e and flipping over to the Giants game I decided to put some more stuff into the attic. I had pulled out a bunch of Christmas decorations on Saturday as I was putting the lights on the house. And I wanted to get everything away and make some room for the boxes of ornaments I will be putting up there next week after we put up the tree.

Well I pull down the stairs and get walloped by an arctic frigging wind that seemed to be waiting just for me. I mean god, I thought I might lose my eyebrows to frostbite from the cold. Pushing through the chill I made my way up and turned on the light. As I started moving stuff around I decided that the best thing to do would be to move a series of plastic bins to the other side of the attic. I get through the three bins in short order and am happy to think I'll be getting out of the freezing cold attic shortly. Well what I failed to realize was when we put the plywood in we seemed to forget to nail down the very edge I had been lifting the bins off of. So I of course caught my foot on it fell forward and whacked my head off one of the many attic beams. I yelled out an expletive that I won't be repeating and I stood rubbing my head. I heard my daughter yell up to me and say "Daddy that's not a nice word!"

I swear this attic is out to get me!

The battle of the attic

As many of you know I bought a house recently and that tale alone is a long and twisted one. But now it has a new wrinkle. When we bought the house I understood that we had a decent size attic. Which I fully intended to use as we need the storage space, me being a collector of masses of useless items. The only issue at the time was that we had just scuttle access. Which anyone with boxes full of things knows just doesn't work, go ahead try and shove a box over your head while standing on a step stool and also getting it through a tiny hole at the same time. It ain't happening. So in the process of our heat conversion I was able to get attic stairs put in, which to this day I am thrilled about. Now of course I lost some space to the new furnace but nothing that would kill me.

I have recently begun the unenviable task of moving things into the attic. And it is has turned into a full blown war of me versus this cold and dark place. First we had to put in plywood to make sure I didn't fall through into the ceilings below. Then it was removing some of the insulation as it was overloaded. And now it is trying to configure what now seems to be to the most insanely put together space in my lifetime. Beams reach from here to there threatening my skull at ever turn, as my bruised noggin can attest. Plywood creaks under the strain of newly placed boxes. While also trying to configure some method where I won't have to move everything all over again when I need it, such as holiday decorations.

Then of course there is my love affair with books. Which maybe my mistress but are a pain in the ass to store. I keep telling myself I should donate them or otherwise dispose of them. But I keep hedging on it at every turn. And of course all my reference materials need to be close enough to my new stairs so that I don't have to dig to get to them. I know, I know just use the Internet. But now and again I do need to look in an actually book to be sure I am not incorrectly stating the time lines of the Roman emperors are some other such thing.

And it seems to me that at every turn this room finds ways to vex me. Be it bumping my head or almost falling through the ceiling or finding I can't stock boxes a certain way because it makes it impossible to get to another set of boxes. I keep fighting the battle but am now under the impression the battle will never cease. And in the end the damn attic will probably win.