House Talk
Written on 29 July 2008 | Posted in crazy little house | 14 Comments
So, the Summer of Us turned into the Summer of Our House about 10 minutes after I published that last post. It started with the long-overdue purchase & delivery of a new washer & dryer. I can’t tell you what a treat it is that a full load of laundry now dries in 42 minutes. Forty-two minutes! It’s maddening to think of the 3+ hours it used to take with our old dryer. The waste! The waiting! We should have done this years ago.
Once the excitement over 42-minutes-to-dry wore off (OK, so it hasn’t really worn off yet), I turned my attention to other house matters. What other home-related annoyances have we been putting up with? If a dryer can bring me so much joy, imagine what some new bedding can do! I started making a mental list, and before we knew it, we had new bedding (which was, indeed, overdue — my favourite whites were threadbare, literally), a couple of rugs, and a lamp. Then I decided that it was time to get rid of the rug in the living room (an OK-ish sisal with a dreary blue border — the mister picked it up for a song at a sample sale a few years ago and it did the trick well enough, but I’ve never liked it much) and move the rug from under the dining table to the living room. Then we brought home a couple of dining chairs from the mister’s parents’ basement and I covered the well-used seats with a layer of batting and a delicious print (that has a tiny hint of orange!).
Then this past weekend I got a brilliant early birthday present — a pair of Bertoia Diamond Lounge chairs (deeply discounted, from Morba, for the locals). I’ve been coveting the side chairs for the dining room for a while, but when we saw the diamond chairs (deeply! discounted!) this weekend, we knew we couldn’t pass them up. So, into the living room they went, but that meant the whole room required re-envisioning, so we moved the coffee table out and into the basement and the ottoman (which has been a cat-bed for the last 5 years) is now the coffee table. The cats are beside themselves but the humans are quite happy with it.
Whew. Are you still with me? I wasn’t kidding about The House Talk.
So, now, I’m making some new cushion covers for the couch, sewing up some chair pads for the new chairs (ours didn’t come with any, and replacement pads for $220+ a piece? I don’t think so!), and rethinking the fireplace. It’s not a functional fireplace, so we’ve had some candles in there for a while, with a tired brass grill (scored from a garage sale) in front of it. I think we’ll toss the candles and find a new-old cover for it. Or something.
Also? Last night, I caught the mister browsing Flickr for bathroom renovation ideas. Uh-oh.
wow! talk about sprucing up the place!
mister should be worried…
29 July 2008 @ 12:51
Fun! I love what you’ve done so far! This sounds like our summer in Vermont as well. New landscaping, new carpet, new window treatments, and a major reorganization of our house (which is my favorite part). I haven’t had time like this since before we moved to Vermont, so the house was always not quite what I wanted it to be and very cluttered, but I didn’t have the mental energy to figure out what I wanted to do. Honestly, it makes me never want to speak at another conference or write another article/book again… but I’m sure I’ll get over that.
29 July 2008 @ 12:56
Awesome, love all the home improvements. It is fun no doubt.
29 July 2008 @ 21:25
Blimey, you have been busy! Sounds like you’re doing a great job. We’re about to start planning the remodelling of our kitchen – can hardly bear to look at it in its present state.
30 July 2008 @ 04:10
Oh, those Bertoia chairs! I bet they look lovely in your space!
30 July 2008 @ 16:51
Love the new diamond lounge chairs!!!! Saw these on a recent design show on TV and really thought they looked great – can’t wait to see them!
1 August 2008 @ 09:00
Wow it sounds like you have been quite busy
2 August 2008 @ 15:41
Wow, I do like the chairs. I’m inspired to take a second look at our digs…hmmmm.
2 August 2008 @ 21:58
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20 December 2009 @ 07:07
I’ll gear this review to 2 types of people: current chair owners who are considering an upgrade, and people trying to decide between a chair and a recliner (There are other chairs worth considering out there, like the Scirocco, but I hope this gives you enough info to make an informed decision.
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5 January 2010 @ 05:25