On WordPress, one can see which search terms people have used to get to one’s site. Today a search term that brought someone to my site was “creepy basement” – 
“creepy basement” September 22, 2009
Hallways — carpeted August 13, 2009
This photo shows the late great Grigio the Cat (rest in peace, little grige) hanging her head in shame over the indoor-outdoor grotesquely stained carpet that covered the hallways when I first moved in, in 2002.
Gross!!! I lived with them for a few years, then with the help of friends (I have really, really good friends), pulled up the carpet and had professionals come in and sand and stain the floors.
Things found under the carpet: original linoleum (which decomposed upon being touched), keys, razor blades (?), and old newspapers from the 1930s (kept those).
Gross carpeted hallway
Bedroom carpet July 28, 2009
My parents grew up in the great depression, but I grew up in the 1970’s by way of the great depression. We had one, black and white tv. We got color tv when I turned 14 and cable television came to town. We rode the bus. When neighbors got VCRs, second cars, dishwashers, avocado green appliances, wall-to-wall shag carpeting, and participated fully in the (probably credit-card fueled) consumer expansion of the last quarter of the twentieth century, my family was driving an old Hornet, walking on asphalt tiled floors, washing dishes by hand, and taking books out of the library.
When I moved into this here house, I got the first dishwasher and garbage disposal I’ve ever had in my life. I’ve always loved old historic buildings, and have always lived in older apartments that didn’t have many mod-cons (fine with me, since I’d never had them as a kid). I love them both and they make me feel modern and sophisticated, and maybe a teensy bit privileged.
Another thing I’ve never had in my home is bedroom carpeting. I always thought of it as so bourgeois and indulgent (two states to which I aspire). I love the look of the old pine floors in my house and had most of them refinished. People often comment on how nice they look. They were never designed to be seen, though. The Victorians of this era (1872) preferred wall-to-wall carpeting as a statement of status (just like in 1972), and hence used cheap and soft yellow pine for their floors, assuming they’d never been seen.
It was the Aesthetic movement and the Hygiene movement that brought the advent of bare floors, and houses built ten or fifteen years after mine have lovely hardwood floors with marquetry, parquet, inlays, etc. Those floors were meant to be seen.
So the gods seemed to conspire for me to carpet my bedroom. My natural good taste led me first to wool carpeting. My ever so unjust financial circumstances brought me back to nylon. Wool carpet would have cost about $10,000. But it would have felt very nice underfoot. Anyway…. I shopped around, and finally went with the Home Depot. While I like to support local small business, the Home Depot was WAY less expensive, and the people I dealt with there were extremely helpful and friendly.
I carpeted my big bedroom, walk-in closet (okay, okay, it was a bedroom in a previous incarnation of the house), and small-ish linen closet in a lovely grey plush carpet with a super-thick eco pad. Three annual steam cleanings included, and a 25 year warranty. It’s darker than it looks in these photos, and is a great match for the wallpaper and drapes in my peaceful haven of a bedroom.
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- Bedroom, carpeted and newly vacuumed.
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- Bedroom floor before. Flash makes floor look better than human eye.
Guest Room. Done. April 6, 2009
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- Please note the expert wallpapering of the niche. (but ignore the bulge where it’s not glued down).
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- The green paint made the icky popcorn effect recede a bit.
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- Lovely antique twin beds. To discourage relations among guests. Puritan-style.
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- Room view. Please note autographed Douglas Fairbanks Jr. photo. Okay, he didn’t stay there, but only we know that.
I love my guest room. I am thinking about going on vacation in the guest room. I’ll sleep in one bed, the dog in the other. I have visions of her wearing some sort of frilly lace cap and nightgown with four arm holes. Kind of like the big bad wolf, only little and cute (but still with her massive jaws of death, snoring away).
Anyway, I had the ceiling repaired (finally, this year, 2009) after the 2005 roof leak. I wanted to get rid of the dreadful popcorn ceiling and got a couple of quotes — my options included a coffered effect with eco-friendly masonite ($2400) or all-over drywall ($1700). Instead, I went with the fixing the popcorn and painting it ($260 for the fix, $30 for a bucket of paint and my labor for painting it). I think that the dark, flat green paint makes it recede a bit.
The wallpaper was an e-bay find. It’s called “Roman Toile” and from some unknown manufacturer. Vinyl and prepasted (unlike most of the vintage unpasted paper I have
used in the house, it was a breeze and much less messy to install – I almost felt like I was cheating!). I got a whole case of it — 12 rolls — for $252.00 (Free shipping). I just checked ebay to put a link to this seller, but found they’re no longer on ebay. Guess I got it just in time!
The fabulous beds (and Martha Washington bedspreads) were a Craigslist find from an old house aficionado in West Hartford, CT. They are gorgeous and I think the finials fit in perfectly with my urns and birds theme.
Already had the other furniture, except for the perfect little nightstand from my friend Liz. The drapes are home-made (still need blackout liner because it is SO bright SO early in that room — it’s on the fourth floor, so nothing blocks the sun from beating down on it).
Have been reading up on what to have in a guest room, and find that fresh water, some snacks, and electricity are a must. I plan to add a radio, writing paper and stamps (maybe some Springfield postcards), and a couple of luggage stands.
I LOVE having a nice guest room, and can’t wait to be able to afford a nice guest bathroom. Looking forward to some summer guests from Servas International!
Ze Guest Room — before & during March 24, 2009
I spent my Spring Break re-doing my guest room. I just have to strip the paint off one door knob and I’ll be done (well, that and really hem the drapes). Here are some before photos — the horror of white –eek!
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- Before: How can it all be so white?
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- Before: Not just white, also in ill-repair
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- During: Ahhh, the first swipes of chartreuse ceiling paint
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- During: Skunkie (the dog) makes sure the drop cloths don’t drift away
Future bathroom (de-junkified) December 15, 2008
I have one full bathroom in my house. And a bathroom it is. No shower. When I first moved in, I thought some riches would fall from the sky and I would renovate my bathrooms and build a shower. Seven years later, I have happily discovered the luxury of a daily bath (in what has become known as the “think tank”), and no riches have yet fallen from the sky.
A room that I have always envisioned as a bathroom (up on the fourth floor in the guest suite), had managed to become filled with junk. Lots of large boxes — empty and full, and old papers, cards, student records. Junk. So this past weekend, I waded through it all and emptied the room. Got rid of tons of empty boxes and packing materials (from stuff I’d bought on ebay) through Freecycle; brought a huge box of things to Savers (where sadly much of it probably originated…); put together heaps of recylcing (they’re going to hate me, and I doubt they’ll take it all in one week); have one box of sensitive documents to be shredded; and put together some possible e-bay items to sell.
And now with the room cleared out (except for a selection of the fire extinguisher collection and a couple of storm windows), I think it frees up the psychic energy for the room to become the bathroom (with a shower) that it yearns to be.
C’mon money, fall from the sky!
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- Junk in the room and from the room in the hallway.
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- Cleaned out (save for some storms and screens and unusable ladder)
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- C’mon bathroom!
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- See, the hallway is clear, too!
