Railings & Rainbows

Last week I witnessed this beautiful double rainbow outside my house ... a complete rainbow!  I quickly grabbed my camera and took a couple of shots to stitch together ...

 

It was  a lot more vibrant in real life, but still a pretty sight (hideous hydro wires run down our street).

 

We've been so busy here in our house for the last couple of weeks, and it's all because of fish.  The fish in my son's pond to be exact.  They need to come inside for the winter, and they should have already been brought inside in September!  But it got a little complicated when a guy down the street got talking to my son in the summer about fish & ponds (they both have ponds), and this guy offered my son some of his goldfish.  My son brought home four new goldfish and added them to his two pretty shebunkins which have been with us for a few years. 

 

Now that there are six fish, we were informed at the fish store that our 20 gallon tank would not be sufficient as this many fish require more air surface to collect more oxygen in the tank.  Really?!  So a new, much larger tank was purchased.  I think I may have mentioned at some point that we live in a rather small, cramped house.  Not really a lot of wiggle room for large tanks.  So with some shuffling of furniture on my own (and can I just add here that if you ever need to move furniture on your own, a good quality skateboard comes in handy ... just prop one end of the furniture on the skateboard, and you can lift the other end and carefully ease it across the room without too much difficulty.  I had to move a full-to-bursting cedar chest, and came up with this strategic idea).  I rearranged our living room a bit and made room for the fish tank here at the top of our stairs.  There's this handy little niche that was perfect for my cedar chest, but alas, it will now be home to an enormous fish tank. 

 

 

But wait ... there's more!  I've wanted for a looooOOooooong time to paint the railings in our front entranceway.  These are oak railings and they've been looking a little outdated, worn and tired for quite a few years.  We painted our living room/hallways/front entrance this time last year, and I thought I'd get to the railings then.  But no.  Now with the fish tank being set here in front of the railings, I figured this is the last chance I'll ever have to paint the railings, because there's no way the fish tank will move once it's in place (such a pain).  So last week, I put aside all the things I really wanted to do and got to work on the railings.  I sanded them down to take off the shiny varnish.  I painted everything with primer, and now the spindles have two coats of white, and the hand rail has two coats of dark brown.  I'm such a hurry to get this done so the fish can come inside that I decided to work on only the top railings where the fish tank will go, and then I'll do the railings going down the stairs afterwards. 

 

 

But wait, there's more ... sigh.  The fish tank cannot just sit on the floor.  It needs a cabinet to sit on.  My husband enjoys woodworking, so my son pressed him into action to design and build a nice cabinet.  My husband is really, really good at woodworking, and he likes to take his time and do it up right.  He's now put together a beautiful cherry cabinet, and it will be a lovely addition at the top of the stairs (even though it's going to sit partway into the living room too ... that's the living room where the green brocade chair back can be seen).  So I'm gauging the work I have to do on the railings by the amount of time my husband needs to work on the cabinet.  I think we've got it down to tomorrow when everything will be ready. 

 

My son is getting more and more anxious that we're both taking too long, and that his fish aren't going to survive.  Two days ago I went out to feed the fish and couldn't see any of them.  It had been really cold (-7C or so) in the night, and I feared they had all died.  Thankfully, when the sun hit the pond, they all came back to life and I could see them slowly swimming around.  They are going into hibernation, however, from the cold weather, and are going down in the deep part of the pond.  So we really have to get them out this week at the latest.  At least they'll be easy to catch!

 

I'll show the entire ensemble when we get it all together.  I can't wait!  I haven't taken any photos yet of the work so far on the railings, but believe me, it's looking so good!  I also have to get the curtains back up in my daughter's room to show that.  She's back home on the weekend, so I need to get her room back in place for her before then.  Feeling just a bit under pressure here. 

 

I've also started knitting a new lace scarf which I want to share ... but have to take photos of that too.  So much to do, and so little time!  It's fun working hard at these projects and seeing good results at the end. 

 

Thanks for stopping by!

 

Wendy