More "much ado"

Briefly, on the hair front, now there are 6 patches and a receding hairline to keep me wound up. I still have lots of hair so I don’t look like a freak, yet, but it is causing me a certain amount of grief. I keep reminding myself that we could have been vacationing in Haiti and bald patches aren’t much to get fussed over so enough of that.

a beautiful orchid to lift my spirits

It’s been a busy couple of weeks as aren’t they all. Right after New Year and the packing away of the Christmas gear it was time to deconstruct our perfectly nice TV and dining rooms. In my wisdom I had decreed that the TV room carpet had to go as it was 20 years old and had acquired a couple of burns from the fireplace. Of course we couldn’t match the wood flooring so opted to lay tile to tie the floor into the kitchen and were able to get an almost-the same-and-only-someone-picky would-notice option. It is the same tile that went into the laundry room re-do before Christmas if you are following along. It’s a personal peeve not to have some flooring coherence in a house. Does anyone but me remember the 70’s when every room in a house had a different carpet colour? Blue, red, pink, green, ghastly! And on that note, Jim decided he would rather have the same flooring in the TV and dining rooms as they are really one space so out went the hardwood that was there.

The deconstruction process

'wackers'

It took a couple of days to empty the rooms and reorganize ourselves so we would still be functional and comfortable for approximately two weeks. Then up came the old flooring and down went a 5/8” subfloor over the existing plywood. The same knight in shining armour, Gary Wilson, who rescued us on the front door, (we are a serial saga) did hard labour with Jim laying the subfloor. How level are your floors do you think? Not, I bet. This space I am talking about is 17’x28’, almost 500 sq. ft. and it was amazingly good except for one high spot where the house had settled away from a supporting wall. That little wrinkle got left to our tile people, Tenor Tile if any of you Victoria people want to know about a good tile company.

Progress!

It took three tilers two long days and they did a great job including putting spiffy 12”x24” charcoal gray tile on the fireplace surround. And then the cleanup and moving furniture ensued. Thank you again Gary. Did I mention that while the house was in a mess I decided to paint our foyer, walls and ceiling, and in the midst of scraping down the ceiling texture I “put my back out” Where does that expression come from for heaven’s sake? It’s not like putting out the trash or putting out a light… Anyway, the result of the whole event is, I think, spectacular. The rooms look way more spacious, not that they weren’t big enough already, and the colours flow really well. No, we didn’t put heat under the tile: it would have cost another $2000.00 to heat our very heavy Persian carpet – no point.

And now, because I haven’t settled the living room since Christmas and because it hasn’t been painted for about 6 years, guess what? The navy blue is becoming “Chelsea Gray”, and then we are going to quit the house work and enjoy ourselves. There’s a concept!

Winter jasmine and crocus

In case you are trying not to read it, it says 15C, in the shade.

Which brings me to the weather. It has been an amazing couple of weeks with El Niño in full swing. We’ve had some rainy days (not like the mid-Island who had floods) but it has been WARM! Saty tuned to see what happens to the Olympic Alpine events. Cypress, site of the snowboarding competition, is almost bare. We are supposed to cool down in a couple of weeks so it will probably be fine in the end but you can bet it is adding a bit of excitement to the organizers lives.

BTW, Jim scored 79 and 80 on his last two golf games!