First houseguests!

I forgot to mention that I had the pleasure of hosting my first house-guests this week. (Of course they had the lesser pleasure of sleeping on camp mats on my living room floor - sorry kids.) Rasa, her husband David and their little smiley elf of a son Sky came to visit as they were in town teaching flying lessons to the brave and adrenalin-seeking.

It was fabulous to catch up with Rasa and meet her beautiful family, and also to host people who are used to camping so that my house, such as it is, is a step up and not just terrifyingly primitive.

Thanks for the visit guys and if you ever need a sitter for Sky...

Housekeeping???

Oooooooookaaaay.

Reality is starting to hit. My master bathroom (roughly the size of my old apartment) is coated in fine white powder as a result of sanding the ceiling. My guest bath has a newly-installed cement board floor, which is to be followed by slate in short order, but currently it's kind of gritty/crumbly/grainy mess. The areas that have been purged of vinyl tile (mostly essential-to-walk-on-toilet-surrounding-areas) are sticky and there are sticky footprints all over the floor close-by. The paint, which isn't supposed to be on my cement floor in the first place, chips and flakes and sticks to things. I don't have any bathrooms that have doors. Generally I can't touch any surface in my house without attracting some type of residue.

I need another toilet to smash.

The double-edged sword of home renovations seems to be that 99% of every job is preparing for the actual job to happen. It's tiring and tedious, mostly because you don't really see any finished product for ages. The great thing about it is that it forces you to finish the project because even when you're 90% done, it still looks as bad as (or worse than) it did when you started. It's that last little bit that gives you all of the rewards. A lot like giving birth really, hours and hours of backbreaking labor involving sweat, muck and general unpleasantness for that final, rewarding push. Of course, having never had kids, this is only a loose analogy. Or maybe it's more like sex for a man? All that tedious foreplay for the five second pay-off? But then, I've never been a man having sex either...

I think tomorrow I'm going to putz around and do fun things, like attaching doorknobs and trying out paint samples and maybe seeing what's in the 20-odd paint cans left in the awesome little crawl-space under the stairs. The crawl-space is currently storage, but I'm so tempted to make a little Amy-sized cushion-lined nook off of the living-room that I could curl up in to read. But who other than me wants a nook like that? For that matter, who other than me would fit in a nook like that? But the paint cans are the project closer at hand, and for whatever reason rummaging through other people's old junk is fun to me - probably why I like garage sales and flea markets and creepy old abandoned houses. The hopeless optimist in me waiting to unearth treasure (same reason I keep dating. Ha!)

One Room Done!!!!

I am feeling especially celebratory, as one room of the house is actually done. DONE!!! And it looks spectacular, if I do say so myself. The bamboo is in, the walls are painted, the ceiling is smooth as a baby's bottom. This means I have one clean, lovely room to live in while I slog about in the muck that is the rest of the house.

Actually, this whole week has been rather a success - one scary old toilet that didn't really flush has been replaced with a fancy new low-water-use version. The garbage disposal that shook the counter when it was turned on and made a noise like a Harley Davidson has been replaced with a quiet efficient disposal (and by me alone, I might add.) The bathroom has been mostly painted, now it just needs a floor... All in all I'm feeling rather smug and self-important like the Shera (SheRa? She-Ra? You know - female version of He-Man complete with bulging muscles and fake breasts) of home repair. She-repair maybe?

I also got to have the uniquely satisfying experience of smashing the old, non-flushing toilet into tiny little bits with a hammer, so as to be able to fit it in the trash bin. I would highly suggest this as an inexpensive and rather more fun alternative to therapy. Also, just in case you too have a non-flushing toilet, check your bathroom for obvious missing pieces such as, for instance, the toilet paper roll holder. There is a possibility that this missing item may indeed be lodged in the U-bend of the toilet, only to be discovered via toilet-smashing therapy. Hypothetically speaking, of course.

Frustration!!!

So I have to say that camping out in my own house is kind of an adventure - at least it's an adventure when I'm feeling well. It's a nuisance when I'm not. These last couple of days I've had either a head cold or some kind of toxic-paint-fume-induced malaise. Either way, I haven't felt like my normal spry self. Just kind of tired with a stuffy head. Not enough to do anything about, just enough to want a hot bath and chicken soup. A real bed wouldn't hurt either.

Eric came over one evening to help me sand and prime the ceilings, which was fun. Basically I was stuck three rungs up a ladder, while he stood, feet flat, and sanded the ceiling. I suppose it's easier if you're 6'4" and long-limbed. He's planted himself firmly on my list of people to call for help in high places.

Mom and Dad came in on Friday for the much-anticipated start of the bamboo flooring project. I rented a nailer that basically operates like the strong-man contest at the fair. Once you position the nailer, you whack the plunger with a rubber mallet (I kid you not) and then, like magic, your nail is secure in your board without any damage to the surface. At least that's how the tool rental guy billed it. I had hopes for one complete room of bamboo floors - those hopes were only beginning to wane when, by noon, we barely had the underlayment down. Then, when we started into the ridiculous nailing process, all hope was lost.

Basically, in the 10 or so hours my parents were here helping, we managed to secure three rows of boards. Three!! I think Aunt Lyn was right when she said she'd clear her calender in 2012 for the housewarming. The first row was naturally tedious because it's too close to the wall to use the nailer, so you have to pre-drill and nail all of the boards (naturally at awkward angles, with unnaturally thin nails). Once we got far enough away from the wall we could use the magic nailer thingy and had hopes of just speeding through the floor with ease. Ha! Not so much.

As it turns out, only a strong-man from the fair could actually use the nailer correctly - You really have to beat the hell out of the thing to get it to work, but then if you hit it too hard (not a danger for me, but my father had some trouble) then the nail mangles the board. Grrrrr. Clearly this is not the right tool for the job. I can't believe I have almost a thousand square feet to put down in bamboo... Maybe carpets aren't so bad after all.

The farting fish and barbieflesh

Among the various treasures left in the house, my favorite by far has to be the farting fish shower curtain. It's even better than the hand-glued, shell-encrusted bathroom light. Also better than the back scratcher that was (mysteriously) on the roof. The farting fish shower curtain is truly a work of art. It's designed in such a way that it could have been a terrible accident, or it could be subtle humor at it's best. I'd love to think that the last people who lived here were actually comic genius - I don't think I can keep it up for very long, but I would love to think that.

Jan and Marg, who are my favorite people on earth at the moment, came over and helped me paint on a Saturday night as if they had nothing better to do (bless their hearts!) so I actually have one room that looks almost like a real room! With the exception of the fact that it's been painted a color that has been lovingly renamed "barbie flesh." It looked very neutral on the sample, it looks pretty damn pink on the walls. Sigh. Everyone's been vastly optimistic, saying things like "furniture will really change that color - make it look less... well... more, um..." Yeah. Less like barbieflesh. I know.

Dad took me on the unfortunate floor-buying errand today as his Forrester will hold more than my Civic. It is a sad day when your near-70 year old father is trying to protect your youthful back by moving the 50lb boxes of tile himself. I will feel sooooooo guilty if he herniates anything. Of course Mom helped dig-in the 5 hydrangeas that I decided to plant along the back porch, so I'm not exactly sparing any of my loved-ones the agony of renovations. The good news is that now we have enough bamboo to do the floor in the barbieflesh room, and enough slate to do the floor in the farting fish bathroom so some time in the foreseeable future I may actually have a room to sleep in and a room to get clean in. Luxury!

As an Aside, my Aunt Lyn suggested that the house, in light of the omen, be renamed "One Flew Into the Cookoo's Nest." I'm pretty sure she's on to something...

It's REALLY Hand-Painted.

Really.

Names and Omens

I am, lets face it, a chronic namer of things. Most of the inanimate objects I surround myself with on a daily basis have names. I don't mean words that describe them to others (like "car" for example) I mean personal names. Why? I don't know. I smell everything too - lets just call these personal eccentricities.

In keeping with this trend, I feel my house needs a name and as I've spent a little time here I think I'm learning the personality of the place. It's odd - the people who lived here before me were nothing if not consistent. The entire house was completely unkempt. It's filthy, unmaintained and in most cases broken or damaged in some way. Every wall either is dirty or looks dirty because the paint is so old it's yellowed. Things are cracked, chipped and generally in disrepair. There is, of course, one highly notable exception.

The half bath downstairs is mysteriously put-together. It looks, contrary to what the rest of the house would lead you to believe, like someone cares. Not only that, it looks as though they spent time caring. In fact - they did spend a tremendous amount of time caring because they hand painted (HAND PAINTED!) a ridiculous shell/seaweed/starfish motif border waist-high around the room. It's a small room, and I'm not averse to work, but I'm pretty sure you couldn't pay me enough to hand paint that thing. Anyway, I digress. The room is decorated in every possible way with shells - they're stuck to the light fixture (don't ask), there are shell knobs on the doors, there are even little shells just kind of hanging around in there. This leads me back to the name - I'm thinking I'm calling it The Shell House. More of a title than a name really, but it suits.

There is a nice little double meaning here as well given that I do feel like I'm working with the shell of a house and making it into what I want it to be. I feel also that the house is an outer example of an inner process that I'm going through - a reflection, if you will. Also I like that it makes me think of a hermit crab or something similar that might carry it's home with it. Sigh. I love it when it all comes together like that.

On a totally different and slightly more random note, I feel I've been given some kind of sign or omen, not that I have the faintest idea what it means, but still it felt significant. I was in the garage a couple of days ago when a little pair of birds - fat birds like wrens or something similar - flew into the garage. They sat on the workbench for a minute chittering to each other and then flew into the house. They flew around downstairs, one flew through the vents to the upstairs, and they both found their way out through windows that had been left open to help with the paint fume asphyxiation factor. So - what does this mean? Is it good luck? Bad luck? Does it mean my vents now have bird poop in them? What? What?

Overload... Or, 'terminal painting.'

I think reality is starting to sink in. I've started painting, which seems like a simple enough job. Really it's at the bottom of the list of difficult things to do. Not a lot of skill, just repetitive motion and fumes. Not even as messy as the popcorn ceilings. And yet, I find myself daunted by the enormity of the paint job. Always before when I've painted it's been small rooms, single walls, minor projects. With this house I can paint all day and go to sleep with the knowledge that there is only going to be another like that coming, and others after that.

The paint is just the beginning. With everything it seems that the doing of the thing itself is simple, but preparing the house for the doing of the thing is ridiculous and complex. Putting down the floors, for example, requires tightening the sub-floors, putting new screws into the squeaky bits, filling holes, leveling (clearly the scariest bit of all), putting down underlayment and THEN you can start actually putting the bamboo. The bamboo itself is like a minor finishing step in the process. It seems everything in the house is that way.

Not only that - It's dawned on me that I'm going to be camping in my living room for a long time. Many moons. And my damn air mattress sighed it's last sigh last night and I woke this morning on concrete. Grrrr. Nothing like a good swift dose of reality to shake things up a bit.

Is this when someone is supposed to remind me that I am getting what I asked for?

In better news, my cat (Cat) found a cupboard that he has settled into in my bedroom. Historically he always claims one cupboard wherever we live, and his choice has been made. He's also found a nemesis in the fat squirrel who lives in the neighbor's tree - they've developed a morning routine of angrily chattering at eachother whilst maintaining a safe distance.