House updates

the new kitchen floor

We've had several projects done in the house over the last few months. After 20 years here, we had built up quite a long list of home improvement projects. Unfortunately, neither of us has the skills to complete any of the projects, leaving us at the brutal vagaries of working with contractors. We have a guy we love, and he's done most of our work here over the last five years.

matching bookshelves

The quality is untouchable. Our animals love him, and our kids call him "Uncle Mark", but like many contractors, he has some issues with deadlines and showing up reliably.  He's been on a tear for the last few months, so we've finally made some headway on our projects.  He's wrapping up the little details on the current group of projects (new windows throughout the house, new bookshelves in the front entryway, refurbish first-floor bathroom, new floors in kitchen, back entryway, bathroom, and basement family room and office area), though we've been sitting at around a 95% completion for almost three weeks now. I find the whole process

photo albums and fiction

incredibly stressful--rushing home and arranging to be here anytime he's able to work on something (only to be stood up routinely), picking out materials (so many decisions and research), making mistakes because I don't really know what I'm doing, living with constant messes, equipment, unusable areas in the house, etc.  I will be SO HAPPY when things are 100% done. That said, I have a whole new round of big projects to start as soon as he wraps up the little details and can commit to giving me some time again.

The number of animals we have definitely takes a toll on the house--floors, furniture--everything has to be able to take heavy, regular cleaning and gets pretty beat up.  We have lots of little repairs and maintenance work done regularly here, but we haven't done anything big since the second-floor bathroom remodel we did a few years ago. I love when the work is done, but the chaos of the work in process leaves me pretty crabby.

Our original windows were a mess. They were quite drafty and tough to open and close. We love the ease of the new windows, and I'm looking forward to the energy savings.

We are most happy with the new family room. We did not have enough seating to accommodate

non-fiction

having friends over (ours or our childrens'), and the seating we had was not very comfortable. The floor was a mess.  After the big flood a few years ago, the flooring was damaged, but I couldn't decide what I wanted to replace it, so I duct taped (duct tape fixes everything in my world) down the damaged seams and edges and tried not to look at it. It has been hideously ugly and unsuitable for our needs for years, but all the decisions, chaos, and stress kept me from doing anything. Finally, Luce complained about having friends over with a duct-taped floor. I felt so bad for putting it off this long. It's easy for Mark and I to not really notice or care, but kids don't like their friends to see things like that.  That comment was enough to get me moving!

One office area; there is another office area/sewing desk, but it's among
 the 5% in progress and not shown here yet.

We had floor to ceiling cabinets built in the office area, so all of the computer, office, and craft supplies can be stored dust-free and without the animals getting into things.  We needed new additional seating but also guest beds for when we or the kids have company, and it had to be inexpensive, easy to maintain, and able to take regular abuse. Instead of couches, I ordered two twin beds (steel frame and memory foam mattresses), which we arranged in an L-shape. They work perfectly as comfy, room sectional-type couch with lots of room for all of the humans and animals to spread out. The mattresses are phenomenally comfortable (they've already seen lots of sleepovers, including Mark and I spending a date night on them to assess the comfort level); so much so, that we will soon replace our mattress with a king-size version of these (really affordable, light, easy to set up, absolutely perfect).  The new mattress will cost 1/5 what our current mattress cost, and it's at least as comfortable as our mattress when we bought it (it hasn't been comfortable for years), and we will be able to carry it upstairs all by ourselves.

This is the same floor as the kitchen, but this photo makes it look darker.

w i d e s p r e a d

I learned that there are not just one-hole or three-hole sinks.  There are also widespread three-hole sinks.  There are fewer faucet options for the widespread sinks, and they all cost more than the standard. I learned this after purchasing a widespread three-hole sink, and a regular faucet. I had to switch to a different model, because the one I loved and picked out didn't come in a the widespread version. It also left us without a functional bathroom for an extra five days.  I will never make that mistake again.  I'm really happy with how the bathroom turned out in the end.

Lila's favorite spot in the world