Vóila!!!!

Renovations complete.

The Shrine is now negotiable, without tripping on floor hazards, balletic leaps over piles of junk,  or fear of getting beaned by toppling Damoclesean towers of carp.

This has taken nearly two weeks of work, including countless hours of moving Shrine items, and ultimately, six trips to the Atlanta IKEA. Neither wind nor rain nor a pair of rare Atlanta snowstorms could stop me.

Along the way, I discovered my newest dog Felix has a thing for eating IKEA packing material, including cardboard boxes. Bitesized pieces of cardboard were strewn all over the house.  Felix would happily shred cardboard, while I cursed at whatever item I happened to be putting together.

First order of the day was to install new bookcases. The shelves on the old ones were sagging dangerously.  I decided on the IKEA Bestä series of bookcases. They were deeper than the old ones, and sturdier, and had a lot of options.

Dear heaven, I love the IKEA drawers. And aren't these glass display doors to die for?

I kept a couple of the old, deep bookcases. The better to pile things in. These were recycled from a Chattahoochee Country Store closing years ago. The white one on the right is an IKEA nursery bookcase. It was the only thing I could find deep enough to hold the giant albums.

Not only am I thrilled to have actually cleared the center of the room for the first time in years, but now there's even room for a nifty IKEA coffee table ( on sale! ) with a display top for my favorites.

Yes, I have a bazillion albums of clippings, postcards, movie stills, Kinder things, ads, and all kinds of oddities.

I have an especial weakness for 3d lenticular cups. Now I'll actually able to see them!!!!

This is a wonderful pottery Galadriel mask given to me by a very kind friend. It was made by the potter who made mugs and such for The Prancing Pony and other locations. It is well up and out out of the way from my clumsy self. The 3d to the right of it is bootleg, but I still like it, and the Merry banner is a Target endcap display that I shamelessly removed, casually put in my shopping basket, and walked out of the store with. My collecting lust knows no bounds.

The odious blue paint is a leftover from when this was Em's bedroom. We swapped rooms several years ago when Doug went up to check a noise, and accidentally fell through the ceiling of one of the bedrooms. No harm done except to pride and drywall, but we had to do some room swapping. Fortunately, the royal blue paint does match the ROTK coloring moderately well, which is a good thing, because hell will freeze over before this room ever gets painted or recarpeted again. No WAY am I moving all this stuff.

I sometimes have nightmares that the room is so heavy the floor will collapse under the weight of all these action figures and assorted unnecessities of mine.

The big square thing in the background is a framed floor tile from the Minas Tirith movie set. The wire shelf is piled, literally, to the ceiling, as is everything else in this room. The painting in the hallway is by my daughter Katie,, and is of my lovebirds Brighty & Sweety, who are frequent visitors to The Shrine. They like to sit on my head, and, well, poop. But I love them anyway.

This is the first time the window has been opened in about three years. I have kept them covered with banners so none of my treasures would fade.  I took the banner down to hang a beautiful Moria window.....

.... but it didn't fit. Dammit! So I had to hang it elsewhere in the house.

This is where you will generally find me in the evenings and on most weekends. I admit, when The Shrine had reach epic dungeon proportions, I bailed. I am looking forward to getting back to work now that things are organized! 

Did I mention I can WALK in the room again!!!!!!! Woo hoo!!!!! Once more, just to admire the floorspace.......

Last project will be to install large wooden doors on the lower half of the cabinets. IKEA is out of stock for another few weeks, but those will just take an afternoon to deal with.

It really is wonderful to see some of my treasures again. I found lots of extras when I was sorting stuff out over the past four weeks, which are the piles of stuff you see on the floor in the pics.  I'll be listing them soon.

I really do feel reinvigorated. I feel very lucky to have a family that puts up with me and my obsession, and room (however limited!) to be able to indulge in it.

Next time you're in Atlanta, drop me a line, and come and have a visit!