Failure 101

Recently, I watched two separate talks by two different people on the value of failure. Back in late July, a mere three blog posts ago, I even wrote about several of my failures regarding the building of our little blue house library. I honestly thought that all was well, and that after a rousing successful soft opening of the little blue house library in our front yard, where neighbors came and borrowed books and left books for other neighbors to read, including me, I'm here to say that failures, while they might be character building, don't go hand in hand with building a teeny tiny house.

One rainy morning was all the proof needed to discredit any success of the durability of the little book house. The rain caused several areas of the roof to swell and split, which is really not good. In fact, it's quite bad. So, yesterday, after a journey to the hardware store with the intention of building a new roof, I realized that I needed MORE. More of everything and anything that would help protect the little house from rain.

Another trip to the hardware store yielded a sack full of waterproofing supplies, which, upon exiting the car, the doubled plastic sack ripped and all of the contents of the sack fell into the goopy gutter, and gentle reader, remember, it had just rained the day before.....the can of primer paint burst open, spilling 7/8ths of its contents in said gutter, and splattering everything in its vicinity....all of those new waterproofing products. But wait, there's more.....

One of the products that I got at the hardware store is this liquid plastic stuff in a spray can called flex seal. (As seen on TV, just not by me. It probably would have been wise for me to have seen that "as seen on TV" commercial, but alas, all I did was read the back of the can, which, presumably, should have been enough, but, not in this instance.) Two people had recommended the product, which is why I bought it. As per the instructions on the can, I cleaned all surfaces to be treated, and sprayed the surface that I wanted to coat from 8 to 12 inches away in a side by side motion. Jesus, Mary, and Joseph and all the saints -- this is not what I thought it was and isn't doing what I thought it would do.  Some of the product accidentally got on the window of the front door, and the plastic coating is not coming off of it....not with alcohol, not with turpentine, not with salt or baking soda, not with Windex, not with Scrub Daddy....nothing.  And there are flecks of plastic all over the surface of the little house, and the whole thing looks pitiful, is pitiful. Oy vey what have I done? Maybe, hopefully, the library is/will be protected until I can build another roof, but in the meantime, I've made a huge mistake. Like the sign above says, library temporarily closed.   :(

Tiny Blue House

Thanks to an extensive amount of help from our daughter, Anna, a couple of weeks ago, and a copious amount of work since then, our little free library is finally up and running! It hasn't be officially registered with the Little Free Library people, but it will be soon.

This is the beginning of mixing paints to get more or less the right shade of blue.

That yellow square is the future front door, made from a scrap of wood leftover from a dresser mirror.

Front door installed, which is surprisingly difficult -- this took the better part of a morning to finish.

These tiny things are going to be the shutters.

The Amazing Reese is a blur of activity. He dug a starter hole, and then pounded the four by four into the earth. Next, he screwed in the platform for the little blue house.

Installed with books! I'll admit that I got a little verklempt at this point. 

Look how cute those shutters are, with books visible through the windows.

Even though it's been less than 24 hours since it was installed, I've already had several readers stop by to get some books.

In the meantime, take a book, leave a book -- and to that end, the Little Blue House would appreciate  any book donations, especially children's books, but anything really. I'm really looking forward to sharing this with the community. Come on by!

Little Beginnings

The Little Free Library is nearing completion, and to that end, a dear, sweet, kind hearted neighbor has donated a great batch of books to the cause, one of which is a biography on e. e. cummings that I've already started reading. Look for more updates soon!