Author: Susan

Squeaky clean

Kevin washed the kitchen windows.

I can’t tell or convey how pretty and shiny they are – you’ll just have to imagine. So bright!! I’m thrilled.

In forever “one forward, one back” mode, the window pane that we were hoping was just dirty is definitely failed (that opaque one at the far upper right). We got a quote for doing the whole huge garden window at the same time that we did the rest of them , but it was enormous ($10K++. gah.) I’m still not clear what this window’s failure means. The ones in the family room, we replaced because they were actively leaking copius amounts of water into the family room. If this one is just foggy (as opposed to actively raining ruin on our home), we might ignore it for a bit?

Crocuses!

I took a few pictures of the new crocuses in the morning before work!

Good thing, too, because by the evening they were gone, again. 🙁 Nibbled down to the quick, with only a few stubby leaves and flower debris remaining. I wonder which creature is eating them. We have a million squirrels, I’ve seen a few rabbits, and Kevin’s seen a cat. My money’s on the rabbit. I wish it would stop.

I found more buds out front, so I’ll have to be eagle-eyed, and more blooms, this time in one of my planters!

Hopefully these ones will be spared for a few days.

Finally blocking something!

Progress on the Isabella! Knitting finished, shoulder seams and picot edges sewn, and now it’s blocking!!

With everything else going on, I’ve really missed knitting – this has been a treat to work on. And I was watching Netflick documentaries on my computer while sewing the picot hem at the bottom, so I’m not sure precisely how long it took, but I’m a huge fan. So lovely.

All Busy

One coat of paint in, the room is looking awesome. We had a major paint chip powwow on Sunday, comparing a 2”x1” sample of carpet to 3”x1”paint samples and trying to extrapolate that to an entire room. Rather absurd. We managed to narrow down to three options that we liked for both the carpet and couch interactions, and then used the fireplace brick as the final color determinant. The winner was something called Sand Fossil, and the trim, chosen in the waning afternoon light, was Creamy White. After a round of edging and a round with the roller, I’m pretty impressed. Not only is it a lovely color, but we decided in under 30 min, without antagonism (it’s a very pleasant surprise to me how acrimonious all of the house decisions have been. We don’t have the same color or style taste at all, and yet we keep ending up with easy, wonderful decisions. Either we’ve landed on a perfect stylistic vibe, or Kevin has been graciously and enthusiastically giving in to all of my whims. Not sure, and I’m certainly not challenging it, but I’m enjoying the non-battles.)

This picture is more evocative of my love for Kevin than my love for painting (especially edging!!), but at least he captured the moment.

I was listening to the Oscars and he shortly after started mixing Grasshoppers, so at least the amusement factor was high.

It’s so daunting to post pictures of paint color, since it’s such a personal aesthetic. We were going for classy, and at the very least, coordinated, and I think we’re awfully close if not there, but I’m envisioning a massive blog-world shying away especially after the light and bright white nothing from the last post. I probably would have been just as happy leaving the room primer-white (I say Fresh/Clean/Bright, Kevin says Sanatorium and runs for the hills – he’s probably right, but I love those blank, empty walls), but I think this color was a great choice. It’s a little bit more mustard than I expected, but in the evening under the lights it looks green, which I love. And I just can’t wait to see it with the trim and the carpet. The two motivating factors for this room were something dark & dramatic enough to make the trim pop, and something bright enough to capture every glimmer of sunlight. And that was tempered by having something that would accentuate the couch color and wouldn’t make us cringe relative to the orangey fireplace brick. A tall order. And yet, the fireplace looks so much more lovely, I like the color on the walls, and I can’t wait for the trim.

Quilt non-progress

I have totally stalled on the daybed quilt. I cut the fabric for the edging, and then for the trim, and then I completely stopped working on it. I think that the problem is that once I sew those few more seams, I have to deal with batting, which is completely baffling. What kind? What weight? How do you actually prep it for quilting?? The blogosphere rose to my aid this week, though, with a batting guide and a tutorial of how to baste a quilt. Perfect! Expect progress sometime soon, once I’ve digested the new information.

While I was waiting for guidance/inspiration on the quilting front, I finally decided to empty out and organize my knitting basket. (It was one of the only things that survived the pre-moving purge – I just stuck the whole thing into the car and didn’t even examine the contents.) I knew there wasn’t THAT much in it, but I couldn’t remember all of the pieces and it was certainly starting to *look* full (overflowing, in fact). After I dumped it all out on the floor:

There were lots of odd balls of yarn which have been untangled and relocated to my stash, some swatches and failed felting experiments which have been relocated to the trash, and these projects (all within a few minutes to hours of being complete):

  • Conwy Socks, two inches in, that need to be ripped and restarted, since they’re too tight.

  • A present for a friend that needs to be seemed and finished.

  • Isabella. Abandoned about a year ago, due to the wedding. What’s left? 20 rows on the right shoulder, block, sew sides and picot trim, knit picot trim at arms.

  • Twist Front Top by Adrienne Vittadini. Abandoned August ’06 in favour of a baby sweater using the same lace pattern. What’s left? About 30 rows of front for R, L shoulders, blocking, seaming.

  • Entrelac hand warmers of my own design. Abandoned Fall ’06. What’s left? Seams and perhaps a bit of decorative trim.

  • Freehand hooded vest. Abandoned last Spring. What’s left? 3 rows of the back, two front panels, hood. May rip out and restart?

  • Cable Cardigan (#14 from the Fall ’05 Vogue Knitting). Abandoned Fall ’05, due to many problems: my modifications didn’t work, the yarn was knit at too tight a gauge and the fabric is stiff, the neck doesn’t work, etc. It’s great yarn, but I think it would be terribly itchy to wear. And there’s mohair in it, so it doesn’t frog gracefully. I think I may just toss it and chalk it up in the “experience” category, especially since two+ years later I still can’t think of any remedies for it.

Some thoughts on room orgainization

Kevin has a Better Homes and Gardens software suite that we’ve been using pretty continuously to map out our house. I’m such a fan. One of the best features (if not the most useable, I may still revert to graph paper) is a furniture placement option. Our family room has to be one of the most awkward spaces I’ve ever seen, but it’s big enough that it gives us some flexibility. (You can tell that the previous owners felt the same way – the room was such a hodge podge of couches, a tv, a treadmill, a child’s computer and kitchen and play room…) We have nice big furniture to fill the room, so now it’s just a question of placement. Ideally, the couch and chair face not only the tv, but don’t block the fireplace. It’s such a weird, big room — I think the only way we can really make it accessible and welcoming is by setting up zones…

But, the starting point is just where to put the couches.

Option 1:

Option 2:

Any other ideas??

The TV needs to go along the bottom wall, since that’s where the jacks are. (I laughed. Kevin’s been angling for a bigger TV for ages – long before we found this house – and I’ve been resisting, as usual. A combination of cheapness (thrift?) and general opposition to buying TVs. But the to-scale diagram of the room with the to-scale tv makes it look like a 12”. We still won’t be buying a TV tomorrow, but I was amused enough to call him in and concede the point. Our 3-ft wide TV is puny compared to the room.)

We’re thinking we’ll also do a reading corner in the upper-right corner by those windows, or perhaps a puzzle table. It looks teeny compared to the room but it’s a 5½ x 7½ foot space, so it’s not that small.

Huzzah!

I woke up early this morning (7:23) and didn’t fall back to sleep. Very unusual, but I decided to get up and just get working on the room in the morning light. Two times around all of the edges with the brush, and a second coat all around with the roller, and now the priming is done in the family room! Yay!

Even the edges are all crisp and white instead of drywall color or bleeding-though blue!

The room is 24½’x17’, with 6 windows, two sets of double doors, a bump-out, an extra-tall brick fireplace, and a cathedral ceiling, so I can’t tell you how happy it makes me to be done with ALL of that edging.

Of course, the priming isn’t entirely done. After all of the work of mounting the second layer of drywall and carefully cutting out holes for the thermostat and the ugly, ancient electrical heater, Kevin thought about it all a little bit more and proposed removing the heater entirely. Yay! I loved the idea. It’s on the same circuit as way too many other things, and the obvious amateur wiring has always made us skittish. Too bad we didn’t think of taking it out before Kevin made all the cuts, though. 🙁 So he’s patched the wall, and there are still another two coats of joint compound before it’s ready for texture and then primer. Still, that’s one little rectangle that can be taken care of in 3 seconds with a roller. We’re getting there!

The priming took all morning, and then I spent the afternoon doing errands, including trips to both Home Depot (for paint samples) and Lowes (for the carpet sample). The light was too low to make accurate color decisions by the time I got back, so that will be the first thing on the docket for tomorrow. Then back to Lowes to return the carpet sample, and back to Home Depot to actually buy the paint.

While I was gone, Kevin completed the hardware store trifecta by heading over to Ace Hardware to look for insulating foam (they didn’t have it). Our new fire door for the garage/laundry room finally came in earlier in the week. We were planning to replace it anyway, due to the ugliness of the old one, and then our timing got accelerated a bit when the ironing board accidently fell from next to the washing machine while Kevin’s family was here. The ironing board effectively jammed the door to the house closed, and so Kevin and his dad had to break in from the garage through the deadbolt, since we don’t have a key to that lock. The new door, then, is an exciting addition. Kevin broke out his favourite home improvement tools (the crowbar and the big rubber mallet) to remove the old door and frame, and was amused when he removed the trim to find this:

See the empty gaps all the way around the door? No wonder it’s been so cold in that room!! Usually you put insulation around the door, but they’d only put trim (which wasn’t even sealed or caulked). And no wonder all of the weather proofing attempts for the bottom of the door didn’t seem to have any effect! 🙂

More Spring Updates

Our primroses on the kitchen counter continue to look so cheerful. They now have company in the blue pots on either side. Amanda and Brian left three quarters of a thing of garlic on the counter a month and a half ago. It’s been sprouting, and I finally planted it last week. It’s VERY pleased to be in a pot. The shoots are all about three inches tall, and they seem to grow more every time I walk into the kitchen.

I’ve been checking on the crocuses each morning and most evenings to see if they’ve bloomed – it’s always such an all of a sudden thing with them. I can’t wait to see what color they turn out to be. That surprise seems a little bit ruined since there’s lavender, yellow, and purple crocus petal debris all around the bulbs. None of the remaining ones seem damaged, but I’ll have to be extra vigilant if I want to see them flower, I guess. I wonder which creature decided to attack?

The hydrangeas in the front yard were severely cut back during the pruning when Kevin’s family was here. I’ve been worried about them since it really does seem like a lot to recover from. I checked today, though, and it seems my fears were groundless since there are green buds everywhere. Yay!

There are two unidentified bushes in the backyard with very neat buds. Any ideas what this is?

Or this?

While we’re playing “name that plant”, the entire corner of front yard erupted in what looks like two sorts of bulb.

Here are the closeups (click on them for even bigger) – any ideas?

And finally, the holly tree is still, incongruously, covered in berries and looking very Christmassy. Right in front of it, though, is a bush positively covered in buds. I was puzzling over it when I finally found one that had actually bloomed! I know this flower!!

We have a forsythia!