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This year was unlike any other, and in almost every way, I'm ready to leave it behind. We started off with a great deal of hope, and went through some pretty big changes personally that made it hard to finish on a high note. Progress seems to have slowed in more ways than one, but we'll have to find our way through. The house didn't see any huge changes, but we have had some reconfiguring, and that has changed a lot about how we lived. When we got the cat last autumn, it definitely shook things up! 
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Our basement library is filled with storage, books, and games for the entire family to use, and we always seem to be stretched right to the edge on available space. So, when I had the opportunity to build two more narrow bookcases for the HVAC door, I was excited to get that done!
While most of the bookcases in here are from Ikea, I knew I was out of luck with matching the perfect sizes for this part of the project. So, I set out to build my own, but since these also have to be doors… I knew it wouldn’t be a typical pair of bookcases. Check out the first part of this build here. 
Of all the things in our house, the mysterious bookcase door is a favorite! The ingenuity never gets lost when kids get to see a secret hide-away. In our case, the bookcase doors don’t really hide the fun stuff: I set these up to conceal the air handler for our HVAC system, the water meter, and some long-term storage. With our basement, I wanted the utilities to not take center-stage as they so easily do in an old house. Luckily for me, previous owners moved the climate-control system when it was changed from a boiler and radiators to a ducted forced-air system. We upgraded from a furnace to a gas-free heat pump, and moved the water heater. The utilities are all tucked away now, but ever-useful. Head here to see the plan for the whole library.  We did it! It's been two years since we went gas-free, a month since our meter removal, and now it's been a year since we installed and fully integrated our solar system into the network. Overall, I'm very happy with the results of these choices. The first year we went gas-free, our regional gas prices increased by 40%. Since I wasn't on gas any longer, that didn't touch us. Electricity prices increased as well, but not as dramatically. Now, we are paying the loan on our solar system, and we have eliminated much of our financial dependance on the energy we purchase by selling back most of our energy in the summer.  Well, I'm back! As I occasionally do, I disappeared a bit after finishing the last project. Really, I had done three fairly sizable projects back-to-back-to-back. So, it was time for a little break. The kids have started summer, and chaos is up at home! I really have to get cracking on the library. When I was working on the office conversion, I took out half a wall, knowing it would open the library up for some expansion. The tricky part now is doing the expansion with the items we have chaotically stored here. The library made the perfect chaos space for getting the bedrooms and laundry area done, but now something needs to change to make this a functional space again. The good news is I’ll be able to move one wall closer to the air handler, since it needs less clearance than the furnace required. It also means I’m moving the access around to make it more convenient to service the air handler when it is needed.  |
Katie SwansonI am a parent, creative spirit, and old house lover. My big passions are sustainable design and preservation. Bringing these together is key to moving existing homes into the future. * By subscribing to the monthly newsletter, you consent to receive links this month's blog posts and other relevant blog updates, a round up of things I love, and as a throwback to my DIY days, I may toss in an exclusive knit or crochet pattern of mine. Archives
July 2025
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