Our story so far: We installed the kitchen and bathroom cabinets in the old Methodist church we were turning into a residence.

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Throughout construction—especially after drywall—people asking about the window in our closet amused me.

No, we did not design a window into the closet.

But the hole at the end of the closet looked like a window for a while.

Instead, it was a slot for a bank of cabinets in the mudroom. They were designed at a height that would allow us to place a pew beneath them. Yes, a church pew! Tyler had owned this pew for decades; at one time he was responsible for shortening it and refinishing it. It sat just inside the front door of our previous home so people could sit to remove or put on their shoes. It would serve the same purpose in the new mudroom, which led from the garage.

One of our design rules was to build storage into every room, and the mudroom was no exception. A quick look at design magazines and blogs will tell you every homeowner’s headache is the “drop zone” in the entryway forever filled with clutter. A single little pew wasn’t going to cut it. But a bank of cabinets to store keys and purses, shopping lists and shopping bags, flashlights and lightbulbs might do the trick.

Tyler assembled the cabinets, and You-Can-Call-Me-Al installed them and trimmed them out. Suddenly the empty maw into the master closet smiled like an old man with new teeth. No one would be asking about the window in our closet anymore.

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Tomorrow: Counter tops, oh joy, counter tops! Chapter 37 wraps up. Read it here.