undressing a reading room

We have been slowly redoing the Reading Room--the only thing that will remain unscathed when we expand (more on that later!). A slow process, peeling back layers of time, stripping things down to their naked canvases, to redress, make new, leave my mark on things. It is exciting, frustrating, invigorating, frustrating, did I mention frustrating?

An ENORMOUS magazine shelf (which took up an entire wall) in an unholy shade of mauve was taken down and donated to another library, replaced by magazine spinner racks.
Walls repainted.
Furniture being reupholstered. 
Ugly, unholy mauve colored drapes came down and were replaced by blinds.
In the removing of drapes we realized that a window had gotten moisture in and over time rotted out an entire sill!!
So, now we're playing the waiting game. Waiting for the window guy to make final measurements before the entire HUGE window is removed and replaced.
Waiting to choose colors and finally replace the unholy mauve and blue flecked and swirled (*shudder*) carpet to match all the other things in that room! Then waiting for that to be laid.

The final touch will be the hanging of the artwork that one of our Board members (an art prof at Sticks College) procured for us from a student. The artwork is AWESOME and literary themed. Why, oh why, can't we be there yet!?

And on top of all of this, during a huge rain and windstorm here today the front door was blown open so hard that the handicap accessible door motor was broken. Another $1,500 we weren't planning on spending this month.
Did you hear that? It was the sound of money being flushed down a toilet.

I'll just be so glad when everything is done and back in working order again!