A Few Drawings

From yesterday's BAMG marathon:

Getting Rid of Jack and Jill

Now that I know I have to remove an animal encampment under the bathtub, I'm planning to remodel the bathroom. My fond desire is to get rid of the Jack-and-Jill layout. There is nothing as confusing (and embarassing) to one's guests as the protocol of a two-door bathroom.

In the current floorplan, each bedroom has its own door into the shared bathroom. The bathroom has a pretty awkward L-shaped layout. And there is a closet in one bedroom that is so deep that you can't get to anything in the back of it without crawling under hanging clothes. In the other bedroom, there is a linen closet, requiring a guest needing a clean towel to go into the host's bedroom:

My idea is to remove the linen closet, shrink the bedroom closet to normal depth (which will involve relocating the attic hatch, but so be it), and add a hallway between the two bedrooms. A single pocket door will connect the hallway to the bathroom, and there will be a linen cabinet over the toilet in the bathroom. The pocket door will have translucent glass panes, letting in the light from the existing formerly-bathroom-now-hallway window:

I drew these plans with SketchUp, by the way, and I think I'm falling in love. SketchUp is amazing! I'm dumbing it down considerably for 2D graphics; it's really designed for 3D. Here, for example, is the new bathroom in 3D:

You can model almost anything in SketchUp -- houses, furniture, coffee cups... There are plug-ins for 3D printing, even. And I just discovered a couple of plug-ins (Unfold and Phlatten) that look like they can be used to create 2D patterns from 3D surfaces. Does this mean SketchUp can produce paper patterns for art and sewing projects? I'm on it!

On Being Abandoned by Our Government

Ever since Ronald Reagan was president, Americans have been coddling a belief that our government is too big.

Thirty years later, our states and municipalities are walking the walk of smaller government by shrinking and cutting public services.

And now there are people arguing that we need guns because "our government has abandoned us"! This I learned in Jon Stewart's analysis of the paradox:




Does no one remember a time when we Americans valued our government services? Took them for granted, even?

I wish Americans would review Alfred Hitchcock's Shadow of A Doubt, paying particular attention to the scene where a teenage girl dashes out of the house to make it to the library before it closes at nine o'clock at night! And runs through a busy crosswalk where a policeman is directing non-emergency traffic! 



I wonder if Americans will ever admit to themselves that it's not our government that has abandoned us, but we who have abandoned our government.