NOT AWOL.

NO, I am not AWOL. We are renovating 5 rooms of our double-wide mauufactured home. I am designated decorator. I have to clean and put the rooms back together and position hardware like towel racks, paintings, photos, shelves. YUCK.

We have an excellent carpenter who needed work, and is looking for a full-time job. Hope we finish before he finds one, but if he does, as well as his wife, we are OK about it. She is my housekeeper.

Cleaning is endurable because some days I have a housekeeper to help. But have you ever put up towel bars, especially two, that have to be side by side, and have to be level across the wall of a manufactured home which has nothing level, nothing square, and nothing on the vertical ?

I finished two towel bars yesterday. By the time I finished the second one, I had said most of the "sailor cussing" I have not yet eliminated from my vocabulary. I still have two pieces in same bathroom, one of which has to be centered and leveled above the previously installed two bars. The other is a round towel circle for hand towels.

The toilet tissue holder took 3 hours. It had to also be leveled. between the bath vanity and the toilet in this very small bathroom. I was sore for 3 days from all the contortuous configurations my body was forced to be in, to install this sucker level and secure.

I have another bathroom to do. Then I like backplates on my cabinet/vanitiy/cupboards/drawers to prevent wearing finish off the units.

Well, backplates seem to be old-fashioned and not carried in the big box stores anymore, so I am having to resort to INTERNET where there is plenty in all sorts of design. So that hardware is on hold; usually adding a backplate requires a longer screw--no use putting it up twice!

We are replacing an old wallpaper remodel with beadboard in 5 areas: two bathrooms, a small hallway, the casual dining/den and washroom.

Only the washroom is nearly completion. I haven't found a satisfactory hook to hang one clothes basket. The washroom is also where we store what we recycle, the large garbage can and feed Luckie, besides the freezer, washer, and hot water heater closet. This room retained some of its color but we added some bead board. The hardware remains the same. It has been cleaned, too.

The hallway lacks 1-2 hangings -- not difficult.

The casual dining/den lacks deep cleaning and a few wall hangings. This is a big room with lots of shelving, etc.

The master bath has only just began; it requires some plumbing movement and, if possible, may be the most difficult room.

But I am reading when I have a moment or two.