We have been working non-stop on unboxing puzzles. Or should I say I've been unboxing while George puts together shelves and breaks down boxes. We have a wonderful system going on now. When unpacking, each piece of paper has to be flattened out because there are many small bits of paper in between each of these pieces. Most of which are solutions that we don't want to lose. After this, they are folded into quarters and placed into the empty packing boxes. These are then stacked under the stairs where they await our recycling guys who must hate us by now. The last load was 39 boxes full of paper and countless others that were broken down.
As of Sunday 20 June, I had unpacked all but 22 boxes from the first batch. I've run into a problem. We need glass shelves. Our current system of buying out Ikea when they come in is no longer working. I really need a better source. This week I will tackle the dexterity puzzles while George builds another hanging wall. I'm so surprise by the amount of MIP hanging puzzles we have from this collection. The laundry room/bar walls are already filled and we haven't put up half of the puzzles that are available. I intend to have the workmen come back in and install more of the peg system in both the laundry room and on the cabana bathroom walls.
It is my intent to have all puzzles put in place, then go back through and catalogue each piece. As new puzzles come in to Puzzle Palace, I photograph them and add the information to a spread sheet which George will then import into his database that I hope he will finish by next summer. This is an immense undertaking and I now understand why James has only done around 20% of the cataloguing. This is a project that could only be done by a retired person or one whose full time job is only this. I'm not complaining nor criticizing James for not finishing cataloguing the entire collection, just expressing the vast amount of time that will be involved.
While we wait for the next load of boxes to come in, I will be working on labeling all of the existing cabinetry. While we know the items in each section, we have yet to label them geographically. With this vast number of puzzles, we realize this is a necessity here.
Which of course brings me to today's puzzles. Dexterity puzzles and sliding tiles. I'll start with the latter. We had fully intended to have everything in the HDM Puzzle Palace Museum follow the "display & play" policy we have in our own home. Unfortunately, with these puzzles this has proven impossible. There are just too many of them to be able to do this with. I have filled 2-47 inch x 36 inch drawers full of these things. The puzzles had to be stacked on their sides to be able to accommodate all of the puzzles, and even that didn't work. We have another drawer half filled with these things.
The laundry room walls are completely covered in puzzles of this sort and I have plans to have the workmen return and build more for us.
Dexterity puzzles are another batch that we have plenty of. In this case, we have the metal cabinets that James sent along with us. These measure 24"x32" and are filled with all modern dexterity puzzles. They take up 38 of the cabinet drawers.
There are 6 drawers filled with water filled puzzles and another 2 1/2 map drawers filled with antique dexterity puzzles. In the jigsaw library there are countless drawers filled with the more antique dexterity type puzzles.
My favorite so far are the mercury filled puzzles. These came in a plastic box with a note telling us of the content. I have placed them in a drawer on their own so I can easily show them to some of our 'older' guests.
Here's hoping we get another truckload of boxes this week. I'm getting anxious about this now. There is still so much left to do and I am determined to have everything up on shelves by October.
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